Which homeowners pay the most in NYC property taxes?

5 April 2025

Billionaire Ken Griffin is on the hook for enough annual property taxes on his 220 Central Park South penthouse to buy a home on the Lower East Side.

The hedge funder owed more than $860,000 for the year starting July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, according to a report by Property Shark tracking the most expensive property tax bills in New York City. Griffin’s is second only to the former Emir of Qatar, who owes $984,000 connected to a compound on East 72nd Street.

Griffin and the former monarch’s bills add to the $37 billion the city gleaned in taxes last year — the highest total on record, according to a report from the Real Estate Board of New York. That total is about half of all local taxes collected in the city and roughly a third of the city budget.

Despite the eye-popping totals, homeowners pay the least amount of property taxes, compared to multifamily buildings, according to a study by the Community Service Society and the Progress and Poverty Institute reported by the City earlier this week.

Residential properties with three units or fewer are charged less than 1 percent of their value in taxes, while apartment buildings with more than 10 units paid roughly 4 percent. The report also found that property tax rates in neighborhoods with predominantly Black homeowners were double of those in areas where the majority of homeowners are white.

A lawsuit pushing back on the city’s 50-year-old system was revived by the Court of Appeals earlier this year. The case, initially filed in 2017, claims the system unfairly impacted racial minorities.

Not so fast…

It was a busy week for deals Billionaires’ Row.

At 111 West 57th Street, a buyer signed a contract for a four-bedroom $56 million penthouse at the building, developed by JDS Development, Property Markets Group and Apollo. The pending deal topped Olshan’s weekly signed contracts report, though its last ask was about $10 million below the price listed in the building’s offering plan.

Days later, the supertall’s pinnacle penthouse hit the market for $110 million, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The quadplex, spread across the 80th to 83rd floors, spans 11,500 square feet and has five bedrooms, six bathrooms and multiple terraces.

A few blocks away, disgraced top broker Tal Alexander officially left his apartment at Harry Macklowe and CIM Group’s 432 Park Avenue, ending his nearly five-year stint as a resident at the building. While Tal is at a federal detention center in Brooklyn awaiting his trial on sex trafficking charges, his estranged wife and child vacated the apartment after receiving a nonpayment notice.

Alexander touted his residence at the supertall as proof that his lifestyle as a top broker mirrored that of his clients. The unit is now on the market for $55,000 a month.

The activity on 57th Street followed a boom in Manhattan’s high-end market last quarter, with the borough logging a new price peak and a significant uptick in deals, according to Miller Samuel’s report for Douglas Elliman.

Sales of co-ops and condos in the luxury sector, defined as the top 10 percent, rose 30 percent year-over-year, while the average sale price of a home in the segment hit $10.3 million — the highest on record for the borough.

NYC Deal of the Week

Unit 8901 at Related’s 35 Hudson Yards was the most expensive deal to land in city records this week when it closed for just under $14 million. Private equity and investment services executive Kerry Propper signed a contract for the five-bedroom condo, last asking $15 million, in January.