Escape from New York isn’t just the title of a 1981 pulp classic starring Kurt Russell. It’s what Westchester County and Florida realtors told the world (including Fortune) about what would happen if Gotham elected a socialist mayor. But it’s time for a sequel with a different title.
In the aftermath of much well-heeled panic about a potential mass exodus of New York millionaires and billionaires following the election of mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, the contrary is already happening, and Manhattan luxury apartment buyers are voting with their wallets.
Signed contracts for Manhattan homes costing $4 million or more rose to 176 in November, a 25% increase from October’s 141 deals, according to fresh data from brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. New signed contracts more than $4 million increased more than twice the rate of the overall market, the report noted.
Olshan Realty similarly noted an uptick in Manhattan luxury buyers. In its most recent market report, the firm said the 17 contracts signed in the last week of November for Manhattan homes over $4 million bested its 10-year Thanksgiving week average. Compared to October’s luxury sales totalling 115, November’s sales increased more than 31% to 151 properties, according to the firm.
The Big Apple’s real estate boom bucks the narrative from just a few months ago, when some of New York’s elite were preparing to pack their bags should democratic socialist Mamdani become the next mayor. Mamdani has advocated for increased eviction protections and rent freezes, as well as for a 2% income tax surcharge for those in the city earning more than $1 million per year.
Mamdani’s shock primary win in June coincided with some real estate agents in Westchester, the suburb just north of the city, reporting an influx of interest in the area, with Zach and Heather Harrison of the Harrison Team at Compass, telling Realtor.com they saw “a spike in Manhattan residents reaching out about suburban properties.”
Other real-estate leaders, however, argued that the data says differently.
“There is no Mamdani effect,” Donna Olshan, president and founder of Olshan Realty, told Bloomberg. “The idea that people would flee New York was overblown. The numbers just aren’t bearing that out.”
Why New York is still booming
Jonathan Miller, President and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc., told Fortune the trend of wealthy buyers scooping up luxury New York real estate has been on display all year, contrary to the only recent narrative of elites fleeing the city.
“Throughout 2025 on a year-over-year basis, overall sales have risen, prices have risen, sales have risen faster than inventory, rents have risen, rental activity has risen, and especially in October and November,” Miller said. “I’m looking at this anecdotal argument, and the plural of anecdotal is not data.”
High earners have plenty of reasons to come to or stay in New York, according to Miller. Wall Street saw is largest bonuses since 1987 in 2024, following a strong market, a trend that is expected to continue this year, as another banner year for Wall Street is expected to raise the payouts for investment bankers, traders, and wealth-management professionals by up to 25%, according to a November report from compensation consultancy Johnson Associates Inc.
This isn’t the first time panicked premonitions of a dispersal of New York residents to the suburbs. In the early days of the pandemic, many feared New York would become vacant as the wealthy fled to suburban vacation homes. While many wealthy New Yorkers indeed left the city, the five boroughs nonetheless gained about 10,000 millionaires between 2020 and 2021, according to state data. Manhattan even gained 17,500 residents in 2022, mostly migrants from other boroughs.
New York City’s population was gradually growing for decades up to the pandemic, as the census shows a recent peak of 8.8 million in 2020, with more recent data showing the city’s population at 8.5 million. The city had lost nearly a million people between 1970 and 1980, after which it grew consistently before the Covid shock.
The city hit a recent trough of 8.36 million in 2022, but recorded two consecutive years of relatively sluggish growth since then. The NYC Department of City Planning argued in May 2025 that the last two years of growth suggest losses during the pandemic “were a short-lived shock.”
While Miller said he doesn’t know how Mamdani’s future policies will impact the city, he said there’s no evidence to suggest a mass millionaire migration. “This whole thing is a classic misinformation scenario, where no one’s looking at actual data,” he said.
