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Who Has Sold the Most Homes in New York, New York This Year
By elan benjamin urisoff
September 26, 2026 · 11 min read
If you have been asking who has sold the most homes in New York, New York this year, you are asking exactly the right question before choosing an agent. Volume data tells part of the story, but knowing how to interpret it is what separates a smart hire from a costly mistake. This article breaks down how agent production is measured in the New York City market, where to find verified rankings, and what the numbers actually mean for your transaction.

1. How Agent Sales Volume Is Measured in New York City
Agent production in New York City is tracked in two distinct ways: transaction count and dollar volume. Transaction count measures the raw number of deals closed, while dollar volume measures the total value of those deals. A single agent who closes five penthouses in Tribeca at $10 million each will show higher dollar volume than an agent who closes forty co-ops on the Upper East Side at $900,000 each, even though the second agent touched far more transactions.
Neither metric is automatically superior. Which one matters more depends entirely on what you are buying or selling. If you are listing a two-bedroom co-op in Yorkville priced around $1.1 million, an agent with deep transaction volume in mid-market Manhattan properties is more relevant to your situation than one whose volume is driven by a handful of ultra-luxury closings.
Transaction Count vs. Dollar Volume
Transaction count is the more democratic figure. It tells you how many times an agent has navigated the full cycle of a New York City deal: the board package for a co-op, the sponsor unit disclosure for a new development condo, the attorney review period, and the closing table. Each of those steps has its own friction points, and an agent with fifty or sixty closings in a calendar year has seen most of them.
Dollar volume, on the other hand, reflects the price tier an agent operates in. In a market where the median Manhattan condo sale price sits above $1.4 million as of September 2026, even a modest volume of closings can translate to impressive dollar figures. Buyers and sellers in the $5 million and above range often weight dollar volume more heavily because it suggests the agent is comfortable negotiating at that level.
Why New York's Co-op and Condo Mix Complicates the Numbers
New York City's housing stock is unlike any other market in the country. Roughly 75 percent of the residential units available for purchase in Manhattan are co-ops, which are shares in a corporation rather than deeded real estate. Co-op sales do not always appear in public deed records the way condo and townhouse sales do, which means some data aggregators undercount co-op transactions. An agent who works heavily in co-ops may appear to have lower volume in certain databases even when their actual production is substantial.
Condos, new developments, and townhouses are recorded differently, and each borough tracks closings through its own systems. If you are relocating from outside the city and trying to compare agent production, it helps to understand that a New York City volume ranking is not directly comparable to a volume ranking in Chicago or Los Angeles. The transaction complexity here is higher, and the data is more fragmented. For a deeper look at how the overall Manhattan market is performing right now, the Manhattan real estate market guide on this site covers current pricing and conditions in detail.
2. Where to Find Verified Agent Rankings for New York, NY in 2026
Several credible sources publish agent production rankings for New York City each year. The most widely referenced are RealTrends Verified, which audits agent-submitted transaction data, and industry publications like Variety's Real Estate Elite list, which spotlights agents across major markets including New York. These rankings are not perfect, but they are among the most systematically verified figures available to consumers.
Industry Ranking Sources Worth Checking
RealTrends Verified requires agents to submit documentation for every transaction counted in their rankings. You can browse the 2026 RealTrends Verified rankings for New York agents sorted by both dollar volume and transaction sides. The list separates individual agents from teams, which matters because a team's combined volume is often much higher than any one agent's personal production.
Variety's Real Estate Elite 2026 list takes a different approach, focusing on high-profile transactions and agents who have been involved in notable deals across the country, including New York City. You can review the Real Estate Elite 2026 rankings to see which New York agents are appearing at the top of deal-size rankings this year. These lists tend to skew toward luxury, so they are most useful if your transaction is in the upper price tiers.
What Those Lists Do and Do Not Tell You
Volume rankings confirm that an agent is active and closing deals at scale. They do not tell you how that agent communicates with clients, how they handle a deal that goes sideways during board review, or whether they have specific experience with the type of property you are buying. A ranking is a starting point for your research, not a hiring decision on its own.
The rankings also do not capture buyer representation separately from seller representation. An agent who is primarily a listing agent will have a different skill set than one who primarily represents buyers navigating competitive bidding situations on West Village townhouses or new development condos in Hudson Yards. Knowing which side of the table an agent typically works on is as important as knowing their total volume.
3. What High Sales Volume Actually Signals About an Agent
A high transaction count in New York City is a meaningful credential because the deals here are genuinely difficult to close. Co-op board packages can run 50 to 100 pages. Board interviews can be rejected without explanation. Condo closings require coordination between attorneys, managing agents, lenders, and title companies across a timeline that typically runs 60 to 90 days from contract to close. Agents who consistently close at volume have learned to manage all of that without losing deals.
Market Knowledge Across Multiple Property Types
Agents with broad transaction volume tend to have working knowledge across multiple property types and price points. They know that a prewar co-op on Park Avenue in the 70s will have different board requirements than a postwar co-op in Murray Hill. They know that a new development condo in Hudson Yards will have a different closing cost structure than a resale condo in SoHo, including sponsor-paid transfer taxes and offering plan nuances that catch unprepared buyers off guard.
If you are buying a new development unit, the timeline from contract to closing is worth understanding in detail. The article on what new residential developments have opened or are under construction in Hudson Yards this year covers the current pipeline on the West Side, which is one of the most active new development corridors in the city right now.
Negotiation Track Record in a Competitive Market
Volume also implies a negotiation track record. In a market where well-priced listings in neighborhoods like the West Village, Nolita, or the Upper West Side routinely attract multiple offers within days of going live, the agent's ability to position a buyer's offer or set a seller's price correctly from day one has a direct impact on the outcome. An agent closing 40 or 50 transactions a year in New York City has been in dozens of competitive offer situations and has developed a read on where the market is clearing.
For sellers specifically, pricing strategy is where experience shows most clearly. An agent who has sold homes in Tribeca across multiple market cycles understands how to read absorption rates, how to time a listing around seasonal demand, and how to handle price adjustments without signaling weakness to buyers. The article on selling a home in Tribeca walks through what that process looks like in practice.
4. Why Volume Is Only One Piece of the Picture
Knowing who has sold the most homes in New York, New York this year is useful context, but it should not be your only filter. Two other metrics tell you more about the quality of an agent's production: sell-through rate and days on market. These figures reveal whether an agent's listings are priced correctly and whether they are attracting buyers efficiently, not just whether they are busy.
Sell-Through Rate and Days on Market
Sell-through rate measures what percentage of an agent's listings actually close versus expire or are withdrawn. In a market like Manhattan, where inventory levels have remained relatively tight through most of 2026, a high sell-through rate suggests the agent is pricing listings in line with where buyers are actually transacting. A listing that sits for 120 days and then expires without selling costs the seller time, carrying costs, and often a lower eventual sale price.
Days on market is the companion metric. The citywide median days on market for Manhattan condos and co-ops has hovered between 65 and 90 days through most of 2026, depending on price tier and neighborhood. An agent whose listings consistently close in fewer days than the market median is either pricing aggressively, marketing effectively, or both. Ask any agent you are interviewing for their average days on market over the past 12 months and compare it to the borough or neighborhood average.
Neighborhood Depth vs. Citywide Breadth
Some of the most effective agents in New York City are not the ones with the highest citywide volume. They are the ones with deep, concentrated experience in a specific area. An agent who has closed 30 transactions in a single year on the Upper East Side between 72nd and 86th Streets knows the co-op boards on those blocks, the maintenance fee structures, the buildings that allow pied-a-terre purchases and the ones that do not, and the price per square foot nuances between prewar and postwar stock. That granular knowledge is often worth more than broad citywide volume.
The Upper East Side market is a good example of where neighborhood-specific knowledge pays off. If you want to understand how that market has been moving recently, the article on whether the Upper East Side market is moving faster or slower compared to earlier in 2025 provides a detailed look at pace and pricing trends.
5. How to Use This Information to Choose the Right Agent for Your Deal
Once you have reviewed volume rankings and understand what they measure, the next step is translating that research into a practical hiring decision. The goal is not to find the agent with the single highest number next to their name. It is to find the agent whose production is concentrated in the type of transaction you are doing, in the price range you are working in, and in the area of the city that matters to you.
Questions to Ask Any High-Volume Agent
When you sit down with an agent, ask them to walk you through their last ten closings. What type of properties were they? What neighborhoods? Were they representing buyers or sellers? What was the average price point? How long did each deal take from accepted offer to closing? Those ten deals will tell you more about whether the agent is right for your specific situation than any ranking list will.
Also ask whether the agent handles their transactions personally or delegates to a team. Some high-volume agents in New York City operate large teams where junior agents or transaction coordinators handle most of the day-to-day communication. That is not inherently a problem, but you should know upfront who will actually be picking up the phone when your co-op board interview is scheduled or when a financing contingency deadline is approaching.
Matching Agent Strengths to Your Specific Transaction
A seller listing a three-bedroom co-op on Riverside Drive needs different expertise than a buyer purchasing a new development condo in Long Island City. The Riverside Drive seller needs an agent who knows the specific co-op board's requirements, who has relationships with buyers' agents working in that price range, and who can price the unit accurately against recent comparable sales in the building and the surrounding blocks. The Long Island City buyer needs an agent who understands offering plans, sponsor negotiations, and the closing cost differences between a new development purchase and a resale.
Elan Benjamin Urisoff works across the New York City market with buyers and sellers navigating exactly these kinds of decisions. Whether you are trying to interpret agent production data, understand what the current market means for your timeline, or figure out which questions to ask before signing a listing agreement, having a knowledgeable local agent in your corner from the start makes the process considerably more efficient. If you are a first-time buyer trying to make sense of all of this, the first-time home buyer guide for New York, New York is a practical place to start.
The question of who has sold the most homes in New York, New York this year is worth researching, but the answer you are really looking for is: which agent has the right kind of experience for my deal. Volume is the starting filter, not the finish line.
FAQ
Where can I find a verified list of top-selling agents in New York City for 2026?
The most reliable starting point is RealTrends Verified, which publishes annual rankings of individual agents and teams sorted by both transaction count and dollar volume. Agents on that list have submitted documentation for each transaction, so the figures are audited rather than self-reported. Variety's Real Estate Elite 2026 list is another useful resource, particularly for identifying agents active in the luxury segment. Both lists are publicly accessible and updated annually, making them a reasonable baseline for your research before you start interviewing agents directly.
Does the agent with the highest sales volume always make the best choice for my transaction?
Not necessarily. The highest-volume agent in New York City may be running a large team, operating primarily in a price tier different from yours, or concentrated in a borough or neighborhood that is not where you are buying or selling. Volume confirms that an agent is active and experienced, but it does not confirm that their experience aligns with your specific deal. A better approach is to filter first by property type, price range, and neighborhood, then look at volume within that narrower group. Asking for their last ten closings in detail will tell you more than any ranking number.
How long does a typical real estate transaction take to close in New York City compared to other markets?
New York City closings take longer than most other U.S. markets. A standard condo or co-op transaction runs 60 to 90 days from accepted offer to closing, and some co-op deals extend beyond that if the board review process is delayed. New development condos can take longer still if the building is not yet at the point of closing when you go into contract. The extended timeline is driven by the attorney review process, co-op board package preparation and review, lender requirements, and the coordination between multiple parties that every New York City deal requires. The article on the typical buyer timeline from offer accepted to move-in day covers this in detail.
