How Many Real Estate Markets Are There?

The Weekly Recap

Good morning and happy Friday the 13th! Feels like summer as NYC is finally past the deep freeze, Wall Street bonuses are helping shrink the budget deficit in the city, SALT deductions from Trumps Tax cuts are disproportionately helping residents in states that voted against him, Hamptons home prices are soaring ahead of summer, unemployment is down, mortgage rates hit a three-year low, the Dow hit 50,000 at the beginning of the week, the IPO market is set to crush records in 2026, inflation cooled in January and the only thing more expensive than your college tuition will be your kids high school tuition in NYC.

If you missed last weeks newsletter on How Is the NYC Real Estate Market? you can read that through the link.

How Many Real Estate Markets Are There?

One of the most important principles for both homeowners and buyers to remember is that real estate is profoundly hyper-local. As headlines circulate claiming that home sales “tumbled 8% in January” and some go so far as to label the slowdown “a new kind of housing recession,” the narrative can quickly become exaggerated and at times, misleading. The best way to stay grounded is to recognize that there are four distinct real estate markets operating at the same time: national, local, neighborhood, and building-specific markets. Understanding which one you’re actually participating in is what protects you from reacting to noise instead of making decisions based on the reality around you.

National Markets: this refers to aggregated housing statistics that show how the U.S. housing market is performing as a whole rather than within a specific city, region, neighborhood, or building. These national indicators are widely reported and often used by economists, policymakers, lenders, and analysts to assess broad trends in housing activity, prices, inventory, and affordability. What is going on in the Sun Belt or in the Northwest of the US does not directly impact what is happening in markets like NYC.

Local Markets: there are times where the local NYC market is far outperforming the national average (like today) and there are times when the aggregated national market is outperforming NYC (like March 2020). Understanding that NYC has a unique value proposition centered around an unparalleled track record of appreciation, being a flight to quality for international investors and a safe haven of capital for international buyers, more often than not insulates this local market from exigent national data influences.

Neighborhood Markets: within the local market are neighborhoods and for those of you that have been in NYC a long time know that no two neighborhoods are created equally. The entire island of Manhattan can be on fire and people will always want to live in the West Village and SoHo where some other areas like FiDi are historically much slower to have the market absorb listings. Some neighborhoods can outperform the overall local market while others underperform. Where you are transacting matters and determines what leverage you have.

Building Markets: to get even more granular, the market that matters the most is what is happening directly in the building you are looking to transact. While FiDi is slower to move homes a building such as 130 William in FiDi was one of the fastest selling New Development projects in the city. So the building (130 William) was outperforming the neighborhood (FiDi), the neighborhood was underperforming compared to the local market (NYC) and the local market was underperforming compared to the national market. With how well 130 William was performing, while other developers and re-sales may have had to cut prices and offer concessions, the people selling 130 William were able to raise prices as supply came off the market and withhold concessions as incentives to buyers because the demand was there.

In real estate, the headline tells you what’s happening somewhere, but understanding the market tells you what’s happening where it actually matters to you.

Market Performance

Here are how some other indexes and asset classes have performed as of this morning’s opening bell.

NYC Market Update

Here is a view of NYC market activity over the past week.

Mortgage Rate Update

Bolstered by strong economic growth, a solid labor market and mortgage rates at three-year lows, housing affordability continues to measurably improve. These factors have caught the attention of many prospective homebuyers, driving purchase application activity higher than a year ago.

News You Can Use

• Manhattan’s Luxury Market is Roaring Back to 2016 Levels NY Post

• SALT Cap Boost in Trump Tax Bill Supersizes New Yorkers’ Refunds Bloomberg

• Wall Street Bonuses Helps Shrink NYC Budget Gap by $5 Billion Bloomberg

• Hampton Home Prices Soar Ahead of Lavish Summer Season NY Post

• US IPO Proceeds to Quadruple Record $160 Billion in 2026 as Deal Making Rebounds Reuters

• Inflation Cooled in January NBC News

• US Payrolls Rose by 130,000 in January, More than Expected; Unemployment Down to 4.3% CNBC

• US Consumer Inflation, Labor Expectations Improve in Fed Survey Bloomberg

• Tariff Revenue Soars More than 300% as US Awaits Supreme Court Decision CNBC

• Office Stocks Tumble As AI Fear Influences Market CNBC

• Fed’s Miran Says Data Suggests Americans Aren’t Shouldering Tariff Hit Reuters

• Dow Closes Above 50,000 For the First Time Ever ABC News

• NYC Private School Tuition Breaks $70,000 Milestone for Fall Bloomberg

The Deep Insight

Contact Me

Feel free to reach out to discuss more in-depth about your real estate goals, share your thoughts about my newsletter, or to share what you're experiencing in this market. Looking forward to hearing from you!