Buying in New York City: the full guide

What homes cost

City sales records for 2025 show a median one-family house price of $950,000 in Brooklyn, $830,000 in Queens, $710,000 on Staten Island and $660,000 in the Bronx. Manhattan's few one-family houses had a median of $7.4 million. Those figures exclude apartments, which make up most of the Manhattan market and for which we have not found a current official median.

In the suburbs, New York State's figures for 2025 put the median residential sale price at $925,000 in Westchester County, $840,000 in Nassau and $695,000 in Suffolk. The conforming loan limit for 2026 is $1,209,750 in Manhattan and Brooklyn, so loans up to that size can be standard loans. Above it you need a jumbo.

How the purchase runs

New York does things its own way. According to the State Bar Association, after an offer is accepted the seller's attorney drafts the contract of sale, your down payment is paid to the seller's attorney to hold in escrow, and the sale is typically made conditional on your obtaining a mortgage. Both sides have attorneys as a matter of course, and title insurance is bought at the buyer's cost. Until the contract is signed, nothing is binding on either side.

New apartments are sold under an offering plan filed with the Attorney General. Read it, or have your attorney do so. It is the nearest thing to a prospectus for the building.

Taxes at closing

For a European buyer paying a large part in cash, the mortgage recording tax is a reason to think about how much to borrow. For any buyer near $1 million, $2 million or $3 million, the stepped taxes mean a small difference in price can change the bill by thousands.

Owning as a non-resident: three costs residents do not have

No abatement. The city gives co-op and condo owners a property tax abatement of 17.5% to 28.1%, but only where the unit is the owner's primary residence, and not where it is owned through a company such as an LLC.

The surcharge. The Non-Primary Residence Surcharge, billed from January 2027, adds a yearly charge on high-value homes that are no one's primary residence. The city values co-ops and condos as if they were rental buildings, so its valuation is not the price you paid. An apartment let to a tenant who lives there as a primary residence is exempt.

No short lets. You cannot offset costs with holiday rentals. Whole-apartment stays under 30 days are not permitted.

Put together, a pied-a-terre in New York costs noticeably more to hold than the same apartment costs a resident. Run those numbers before you fall for the view.

Estate tax and flood

New York has its own estate tax, with an exclusion of $7,350,000 for 2026 and a cliff: once an estate exceeds 105% of the exclusion, the whole estate is taxed, not only the excess. A non-resident's estate that includes New York real property can be within its scope. The federal rules for non-residents, with their $60,000 filing threshold, apply as well.

Flood risk is real in waterfront districts. A federally backed mortgage on a building in a high-risk zone on FEMA's maps requires flood insurance, which standard policies do not include, and the city's flood maps are in the middle of a long revision.

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