NYC Real Estate Mixed as Big Deals Land, Sales Dip 27%

It was a week of mixed signals for New York City real estate, according to a weekly roundup from Commercial Observer: two multibillion-dollar deals on one side, a sharp quarterly drop in Manhattan investment sales on the other.

The headline win belonged to billionaire money manager Ken Griffin, who is developing 350 Park Avenue alongside Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin. The project, a planned 66-story tower, secured $3.3 billion in construction financing. Separately, multifamily REIT UDR announced a $2 billion joint venture with Apollo Global Management covering 19 multifamily communities and 7,059 units. UDR will manage the portfolio, and Apollo is putting in roughly $1.34 billion in equity.

Still, the market showed signs of cooling after a stretch of record-setting months. Manhattan investment sales fell 27 percent last quarter, Commercial Observer reported. Brandon Polakoff of Avison Young told the outlet that Manhattan remains on pace for a record year, surpassing 2025. While the borough logged fewer sales than the prior quarter, which had 87, dollar volume ran 4 percent higher than the same period a year ago.

The office market continues to draw capital. Commercial Observer reported that some landlords are holding empty floors to assemble large blocks of space for well-capitalized tenants in a tight market, and that lease concessions, though they have swung up and down since COVID, are well below their 2024 peak. Tishman Speyer and Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors formed a joint fund to buy top-tier offices nationwide, starting with the Chrysler Building.

Third-quarter earnings, now beginning to arrive, reflected the same push and pull. Blackstone reported profits down slightly more than 9 percent, and its $1.3 billion CMBS loan on multifamily properties in the Sun Belt and Seattle region moved into special servicing. Stephen Schwarzman said on the earnings call that the quarter was “characterized by a historic increase in bond yields globally, including U.S. Treasury yields hitting the highest level in decades.” He added that a higher cost of capital hurt transaction activity and added volatility.

CBRE fared better. Net income rose 22 percent to $443 million, up from $363 million in the third quarter of 2025, and revenue climbed 13 percent year over year, even though the stock slipped after the call. The firm also bought London-based data center equipment company Onnec Group for $610 million. Leasing dipped slightly at CBRE and at SL Green Realty. SL Green offset that with two sales: 10 East 53rd Street to Jeffrey Kaplan’s Meadow Partners for $312.2 million, and 110 Greene Street to Natora Group for $226 million.

SL Green CEO Marc Holliday said interest rates swung about 150 basis points over the year, off levels that were already elevated, costing the company 25 cents in the back half. “We can and have aggressively and smartly hedged parts of our liabilities to lock in lower interest rates, so the impact has not been nearly as great as it could have been,” he said.

South Florida, by contrast, sounded unshaken at a Commercial Observer forum held Oct. 15 at the Bath Club in Miami Beach. Developers there described strong demand for luxury condos, and deals kept coming: Related Ross paid $64 million for the North 40 office complex in Boca Raton, and Grover Corlew paid $69.7 million for 200 East Broward in Fort Lauderdale.

The takeaway for New York is a market that has come back toward earth from record highs without losing its footing. Big capital is still moving, even as higher borrowing costs weigh on volume.