All-cash deals for NYC homes reached a record high in 2025

Cash is king when it comes to buying a home in notoriously pricey — and competitive — New York City.

An unprecedented 64% of Manhattan’s condos and co-ops sold in 2025 went to all-cash buyers, according to a new report released by Douglas Elliman, leaving buyers dependent on mortgages out in the cold.

The jaw-dropping figure was first reported by the New York Times.

The cash trend upped the ante from 61% of deals in 2024, and last year’s sum is higher than any other year in the books of appraiser Jonathan Miller, who authored the report.

The trend was especially pronounced in the city’s luxury market. Cash deals made up almost 90% of sales over $3 million in 2025, according to the report.

Cash payments historically account for roughly half of all the city’s sales, Miller told the Times.

More than three years of elevated borrowing costs and lucrative Wall Street bonuses pushed even more well-to-do buyers to purchase their homes outright.

The city’s luxury market has transformed into an animal all its own.

Miller wrote in his Housing Notes newsletter that luxury prices “have structurally detached from the broader market over the past two decades,” although luxury rentals have not.

High-end deals seemed the carry the rest of the Manhattan market on its shoulders in 2025. The final quarter of 2025 saw co-op and condo sales above $4 million increase by 11.2% year-over-year — more than twice the rate of all other properties, the Times reported.

Prices climbed ever-higher in the meantime. Manhattan’s declining inventory of co-ops and condos fetched a median price of $1.1 million in the fourth quarter, according to Miller’s report.

Even the language around these high-end deals has been upgraded, commanding loftier market designations like super- or ultra-luxury.

Median prices for co-ops remain half that of a condo — $825,000 versus $1.66 million — making them a more feasible target for mortgage-backed buyers. Co-op sales last quarter seem to reflect the friendlier market, documenting a year-over-year increase in sales more than double that of condos.