All-Cash Home Sales Surpass 60 Percent in Queens and Bronx, Sidelining Mortgaged Buyers Again

The stunning ascendancy of all-cash buyers in New York City’s real estate market is warping both opportunity and stability—for locals and the urban economy alike.

In a city where real estate envy is a common affliction, new figures reveal an even harsher divide: over 60% of homes in New York City sold to all-cash buyers in the opening half of 2025. That is not a typo, nor a mere uptick. According to fresh analysis by the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, more than 10,700 of 17,924 residential sales citywide were completed by buyers able to wire vast sums without a mortgage. In District 13, a slice of the East Bronx, only five of 325 homebuyers sought a loan at all.

At first glance, this flood of liquid capital may seem merely a reflection of New York’s enduring allure to the well-heeled. Yet, the data mark a dramatic reversal of the “mortgage-as-standard” norm prevailing nationally: just one quarter of U.S. home purchases are typically made with cash. In New York, the proportion is almost inverted, with cash now the default in vast swathes of eastern Queens, the Bronx and, for multi-million dollar pads in Manhattan, nearly universal.

Homeowners keen to sell find such certainty hard to resist. With no risk of mortgage denials or delays, all-cash deals turn the frustratingly drawn-out dance of closing into a brisk affair—and sellers, understandably, show preference. As Mike Davis, a broker in Manhattan and Brooklyn, puts it: “Cash is king because there are no strings attached.” In a jittery year for the U.S. economy, that predictability commands a steep premium.

Yet the ascendancy of the cash buyer comes with consequences, many of them regressive. The vast majority of New Yorkers—salary earners saving for years, first-time buyers scraping together down payments—simply cannot compete with offers unencumbered by lenders’ queries or rigid timelines. The tilt has given outsized custom to the wealthy, institutional investors, and those with family fortunes, while regular buyers face fresh obstacles to the dream of local homeownership.

For the city, the implications are not merely sentimental. A home is the largest asset most Americans will ever own; in New York, it is also frequently the vehicle for intergenerational advancement and the anchor of stable, invested communities. When cash transactions dominate, the local ranks of property owners shrink to a narrow, privileged sliver. At the extreme: nine out of ten Manhattan sales exceeding $3 million were done in cash, a ratio that portends the further bifurcation of city neighborhoods between the staggeringly rich and everyone else.

Property speculation by both global and domestic investors is not new. But when entire quarters—Throgs Neck, Pelham Bay, swathes of Queens—are effectively off-limits to mortgage-backed buyers, the hazard is profound. City officials and housing advocates fret that absentee landlords and faceless LLCs may become the norm, eroding the social capital that has long made New York’s dense patchwork of communities tenable.

This structural shift warps the already puny supply of affordable housing. Aspiring homeowners find themselves consigned to a game of musical chairs against asset managers and trust-fund recipients. For neighbourhoods, the worry is not just price inflation. There is evidence from past cycles (and recent experience in Canadian and Australian cities) that heavy levels of absentee ownership can chill local retail, reduce school enrollments, and, in downturns, portend higher vacancy rates.

Nationally, the scale of New York’s transformation is striking. Even as mortgage rates hover at stubbornly high levels (the 30-year fixed stubbornly above 6.5%), most American homebuyers are loath to pay up front, preferring to stretch purchases out over decades. The city’s lopsided cash figures easily outstrip other pricey metropolises: in Miami, all-cash deals comprise about 43% of sales; in San Francisco, the rate is considerably lower.

Policy responses remain tepid, though the trend is hardly invisible. Calls to discourage institutional hoarding—through taxes on large portfolios, curbs on foreign owners, or deed transparency requirements—have thus far generated more heat than light. Some cities, from Vancouver to Berlin, have experimented with measures to restrict cash-driven speculation, with decidedly mixed results. In New York, the most likely immediate outcome is further consolidation of owner-occupied homes among small, cash-rich groups.

A city skewed, a future uncertain

What lies ahead for a city increasingly split between owners and aspirants? If cash continues to rule, the stability New Yorkers prize may prove illusory—buoyed less by civic engagement than by the whims of remote property holders. With more than $30 billion in New York residential property traded annually, the stakes are non-trivial even for modest improvements to homeowner access.

In the near term, policymakers face unenviable tradeoffs. Curtailing cash-friendly sales may slow supply and dampen prices, but risks further throttling the market. Conversely, doing nothing ensures an ever-broader chasm between those who buy—and stay—in New York, and those permanently shut out. The city’s vaunted diversity requires action—but the path is murky.

For the moment, buyers reliant on traditional financing can only watch, excluded from whole sections of the market. Sellers may enjoy brisker deals and plumper margins, yet risk hollowing out the very neighborhoods that imbue their assets with value. New York, always a magnet for investment, looks uncomfortably like a marketplace for capital rather than a city of communities.

Chance and cycles may yet bring some equilibrium—should mortgage rates fall or city taxes nudge the calculus. For now, however, we reckon the era of New York as an all-cash bazaar is only getting underway. Efforts to broaden ownership are necessary, but will require sterner political wills and nimbler interventions than city and state officials have yet displayed. For ordinary New Yorkers, the prospect of owning a piece of the city increasingly calls not just for aspiration, but for unimaginable liquidity. ■