By Mark Pruner
The October 2025 Greenwich Real Estate Market is Strange
In 2024, we had a slight recovery in inventory in the second half of the year; that’s not what happened in 2025. This year we had 68 new single family home listings come on the market in October. This compares to the 2024 fall market, when we had only 49 new listings. This 39% increase in houses to sell should have resulted in a very nice rise in inventory, but it didn’t.
Instead, we got a tiny, brief bump up in inventory from 117 listings to 120 listings. Right after that, our inventory dropped back to 116 and continues to fall in the first week of November to our present 109 listings. This compares to 603 listings in 2019; i.e., we are down 82% from our pre-Covid inventory. So, how did we get more listings this year, but inventory is still lower. The answer is a hot market getting hotter with listings going quicker to contract. In October 2024, we had 57 new contracts while this October we had 67 contracts and lower days on market. This rapid rise in contracts in October 2025 compared to flat contract numbers in October 2023 and 2024, may be a sign of the Mamdani effect; more people and more motivated people moving out of New York City concerned about the accurately predicted election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor.
The other place we saw the Mamdani effect was in the number of contracts over $5 million. The wealthy are the more concerned about Mayor Mamdani and his calls to raise high NYC taxes even higher. At the present time, we have 42 sales and contracts over $10 million, compared to only 17 sales and contract in all of 2024. Over $5 million, we have had a slightly less dramatic jump in sales and contracts. In 2024, we had 97 sales and contracts over $5 million through October. This year, transactions are up 43% to 139 sales and contracts.
A major question is what happens post-Mamdani’s election. Our only good comparison is in 2013, when Mayor de Blasio was elected. That year, we had only 11 sales over $10 million, but 8 of those sales went to contract, between de Blasio nomination and the election. Interestingly, no $10M+ contracts signed after his election. People who hadn’t bought decided to see what would happen and gave Mayor de Blasio a honeymoon period.
The question is: Is that likely to happen this year. We have two countervailing factors. In November 2013, the Dow Jones Industrial was at 15,639, today it is at 47,207 or an increase of over 300%. A lot of people in the NY Metro area have a lot of stock wealth, they didn’t have before. We also have significant concern that the economy is weakening. Now, might be a good time to move some money into Greenwich real estate as 52 buyers have decided, well at least a good portion of those buyers over $10 million.
In the first half of the year, we actually had 17 contracts sold for over $10 million, which would have matched all the sales we had last year. People were spending money before most New Yorkers had ever heard of Zohran Mamdani. The odds are that they will probably continue to do so. I’ll be very surprised if we don’t see more contracts for sales over $5 million and over $10 million, between now and year-end.
As to the countervailing factor, I’m actually can’t believe I’m about to write this next sentence. What may limit high-end sales going forward, is lack of inventory over $10 million. Right now, we only have 21 listings over $10 million. Of those 21 listings, only 7 have been on the market for less than 60 days. Some of these high-end listings have been on for a very long time. Three of them have been on for more than 500 days continuously. Others have been on the market for more than that, but the days on market was interrupted by more than 90 days off the market, usually in the winter months, which are coming up.
As of the end of October, we only had 6 months of supply over $10 million, when you include the contracts. Only 12 months ago, we had 20 months of supply. Highend buyers are pickier about what they want. High-end houses have an even greater diversity of styles, neighborhoods and ages of these houses. If you want a beautiful house on Long Island Sound and money is no object you have a choice of only 5 houses.
But enough about the high-end, how is the rest of the market doing? It’s tight, very tight. We only have 6 listings under $1 million. Five of those six listings have been on for less than 15 days. From $600K to 800K, we have 2 listings, which with only 3 sales so far this year gives us an anomalous 6.7 months of supply. This is up 5 months of supply from last year, but 2 listings is 2 listings. (To show how strange this market is we have the same months of supply from $600K to 800K as we have from $6.5 – 10 million.)
Our October sales also rebounded nicely from what was a horrible September. We sold 36 houses in October, up 2 sales from October 2024’s 34 sales. When you include the contract surge that we had in October, our months of supply is in the super-seller’s range all the way from $800,000 up to $6.5 million. All of which have less than 3 months of supply. From $1 million to $3 million we have less than 2 months of supply. For the whole market we have very small 2.7 months of supply down almost a whole month from this time last year.
Only over $10 million do we have more than 20 listings in any price category and that is only 21 listings. Starting with the lower price ranges, it’s not until you get to $2 – 3 million that we have more than 10 listings. NB: Our condo listings are actually up a little, so if a condo might work for you expanding your options might get you a new home, just with less backyard. Our team is adding to inventory this week and putting on a new listing at 11 Shorelands Place in Old Greenwich for $2.75 million.
If the rest of 2025 is a normal year, new inventory will drop off as we get into the second half of November. As to sales, November, after February, is our lowest month for sales. Sales rebound in December as people want to close before year-end. This however may not be the case this year.
We have 69 pending contracts that can close in November and only 15 contingent contracts. Contracts with mortgage contingencies are getting rarer. Many years ago, 2/3rds of our contracts had a mortgage contingency. Of the 15 contracts with contingencies, 11 of them are under $3 million and probably have real mortgage contingencies.
Over $3 million, the 3 contracts with contingencies are more likely to be other contingencies such P&Z approval or they may have an inspection contingency. Inspections are generally done before contract signing in Greenwich, but buyers may pay more if they can tie up the house immediately with a one-week inspection contingency.
We could also see sellers do something unusual these next two months and see more new listings. The buyers are there, but then again, who wants to show a house on Thanksgiving weekend, unless you are in Vermont and your Realtor isn’t.
Mark Pruner, Russ Pruner and Dena Zarra are the founders of the Greenwich Streets Team at Compass. Mark can be reached at 203-8172871 or mark.pruner@compass.com
