New York City Based Investors Drive The US Investment Sales Market

There has been a lot of speculation about flight capital from New York City after the mayoral election. Although residential brokers in Greenwich and Miami are eager to share this narrative, New York City investors have yet to increase their acquisitions out of state. In most cases, these out-of-state acquisitions are still well below levels for the previous eight years. 

New York City is no doubt a great exporter of capital. This year, in 10 out of the top 12 sales markets, New York City based investors are the top out-of-state buyers. Further in Charlotte, New York City investors have even bought more commercial real estate than Charlotte based companies. Lastly, and most impressively, New York City based investors have bought more real estate in 10 US markets than ALL foreign investment combined.

Year to date, Los Angeles has been the biggest beneficiary with over $2.66 billion of investment, followed closely by Miami with $2.64 billion, then Dallas with $2.38 billion, DC/Northern VA with $2.28 billion, and San Francisco rounding out the top five with $1.82 billion of investment.  

That said, New York City’s investment in the top 12 markets has not surpassed any records from the past eight years both by dollar volume and the percentage of total investment. (The eight-year timeframe is used because the changes to rent regulation in 2019 did encourage many to diversify outside New York City, so comparing to 2018 is helpful).  

Most notably is the drop-off in Miami (yes drop-off, not increase) compared to past peak years. In 2021, New York City based investors bought $9.59 billion there, which equated to 29.4%  of all purchases. This year will likely end at less than a third of 2021 levels or “only” 15.3% of the dollar volume, roughly half of 2021’s percentage. Thus, it remains to be seen if New York City based investors will surpass their peak investments in Miami and other top markets in the future. 

In all, New York City investment in the top 12 markets has totaled $17.6 billion YTD which should end up in line with last year’s $18.5 billion. The percentage of total investment dropped from 11.3% to 10.4%, which is a far cry from 2019’s $50.0 billion which accounted for 18.8% of the total dollar volume purchased. This shows us there is not a mass exodus of capital. 

Lastly, in addition to New York City exporting capital, it also imports capital.  However, these percentages are declining. Comparing 2018 to 2025 YTD, foreign investment dropped from 18.9% to 10.1%, while out-of-state investment dropped from 29.1% to 21.5% in the same period. Regardless, they still combined for $9.3 billion of investment in New York City YTD. 

One final note to consider: this analysis was prepared using RCA data which tags the buyers’ origin as to where their headquarters is based. Thus, Blackstone is a New York City buyer, while Brookfield is Canadian. Further, the credit is given to the buyer of record where the equity and debt can vary well be out-of-state or foreign. Regardless, this should give some good context of capital flows in and out of New York City. It will be very interesting to see if 2026 will experience a major shift.