Will There Be A “Mamdani Discount”?

15 November 2025

New York City’s luxury market has been on a hot streak — but only time will tell whether that tear will survive Zohran Mamdani moving into Gracie Mansion.

Even as political spin swirled over what the 34-year-old Assembly member’s successful campaign would bring, much of which came from the industry itself, buyers with deep pockets kept snapping up some of the city’s priciest properties.

“There is absolutely no sign of a reckoning or discount or fear in the market,” said Leslie Garfield’s Matthew Lesser. “The reality is that we’re seeing a lot of activity here.”

In the two weeks leading up to the election, nearly 70 homes in Manhattan asking $4 million or more landed signed contracts, per Olshan Realty’s weekly reports. In Brooklyn, a home in Gravesend owned by the Gindi real estate family set a new record in the borough when it sold for $32 million in late October.

Even once the results were announced, the luxury market showed few signs of slowing down. Olshan reported another banner week for deals in Manhattan, with more than 40 inked deals for luxury properties — 24 of which were signed after the results were announced on Nov. 4.

Lesser, who specializes in selling townhouses, said that most of the predictions about the incoming mayor — including theories about a so-called Mamdani discount — are all hype.

“No one knows what’s going to happen,” Lesser said. “Things will slow down inevitably because of the holidays, but then you’ll see reports saying, ‘Oh wow, contracts are down. It’s the Mamdani effect.”

Douglas Elliman’s Michelle Griffith echoed a similar refrain about the speculation, though she wasn’t quick to dismiss the possibility of a “Mamdani discount.”

She said it was likely too soon to tell whether fears over the mayor-elect had an impact on those sales, considering most of the reported activity has so far been about contracts signed, not done deals. She added that some of her seller clients, skittish over the results, are starting to accept offers they would have said no to just a few months ago.

“Yes, there’s movement,” Griffith said. “Once those [deals] close, we might see that sellers had to be significantly more flexible and come off those asking prices.”

Griffith said that because Mamdani has focused much of his campaign on tenants’ rights, some sellers who would have previously considered backing down from offers and renting their homes may opt to sell for a lower price instead.

“If sellers don’t get the right price, they may say, ‘Maybe I’ll rent this for a year or two and ride out the market,’” she said. “That conversation is more complicated now.”

Not so fast…

Gary Barnett is trying to offload one of the priciest units at Central Park Tower — again.

The developer this week re-listed a duplex at the Billionaires’ Row tower, asking $128 million, after pulling it from the market in March, according to StreetEasy. The price tag is significantly less than the $150 million the Extell Development CEO had been seeking for it since he first put it on the market in 2021.

The condo, which spans the 127th and 128th floors, is the priciest home on the market in New York City, followed by a quadplex at 111 West 57th Street that’s been asking $110 million since it was listed in April.

Compass’ Carl Gambino has the listing for the 11,500-square-foot apartment, which was previously represented by Shlomi Reuveni of Reuveni Development Market.

Now that the duplex is back on the market, some may be wondering about the fate of the supertall’s crown jewel penthouse — a sprawling 17,500-square-foot triplex that was one of the main backdrops of Ryan Serhant’s Netflix series, “Owning Manhattan.”

The pinnacle penthouse at 217 West 57th Street hit the market in 2022 asking a whopping $250 million, which would have broken the record for the priciest deal in the U.S. if it had sold for that price.

However, a year later, Barnett slashed the price on the penthouse to $195 million and chalked the move up to an effort to “get serious about selling.”

By the following summer, shortly after Serhant’s show premiered on the streaming service, the developer pulled the penthouse off the market.

It has yet to resurface.

NYC Deal of the Week

The priciest sale to land in the city register this week was a condo at Extell Development’s Central Park Tower, which traded in an all-cash deal for $47.5 million, or $7,100 per square foot. The full-floor unit sold to an unknown buyer for significantly less than its last asking price of just under $55 million.

Unit 121 spans 7,000 square feet and has five bedrooms and five bathrooms. It also features 11-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling windows, private foyer and an eat-in kitchen.

Sales at 217 West 57th Street are headed by an in-house team at Extell and another with Corcoran Sunshine, including Kane Manera, Janet Wang, Tim Rizzo and Gabriele Tonini.