Is It Worth Buying a Co-Op Apartment in New York City?

Co-ops offer New York house hunters one of the rarest commodities in the city that never sleeps: a discount.

Across all five boroughs, co-ops were the least expensive property type in 2025, according to a Realtor.com® analysis of listing data dating back to 2019. In Manhattan, the markdown crossed the $1 million threshold, with a median-priced co-op selling for $895,000 versus $2.025 million for a condominium.

The gap persists even at the top of the market. In June, luxury co-ops carried a median asking price of $2,060 per square foot, compared with $2,660 for luxury resale condos and $2,979 for luxury sponsor condos, according to StreetEasy data.

But the discount isn't free. Median co-op listing prices have shown weaker growth than other property types over the past five years, while owners can face rising maintenance costs and, in some buildings, the added risk of a ground lease.

Even so, in a city of renters, the real calculation may be between a co-op and continuing to rent.

“In a city where both the rental market and the for-sale market can be brutally competitive, buying a co-op can be a real way to step into homeownership, and the stability that comes with it,” says Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com®. “Condos and townhomes tend to appreciate faster, but they also carry higher price tags, putting them out of reach for many buyers.”

How much cheaper is a co-op?

Depending on where you buy, the cost differential between co-ops and condos can be enormous.

In 2025, the median co-op listing price was about 62% below the median condo price in Brooklyn and 56% lower in Manhattan, according to data from Realtor.com. Co-ops were also roughly 55% cheaper in Queens, 49% cheaper on Staten Island, and 31% cheaper in the Bronx.

But that affordability is a double-edged sword, according to Jones, because those lower entry points are the result of slower appreciation.

“Across all five boroughs, price growth for co-ops has lagged other property types over the last five years,” says Jones. “At the same time, co-ops remain by far the most affordable property type for homebuyers in the five boroughs.”

The difference comes down to how ownership is structured, says Sorangel Fersobe, a New York City-based broker with Brown Harris Stevens.

“In a co-op, you’re purchasing shares of a corporation, not actual real estate,” she explains. “You’re not merely buying an apartment; you’re investing in a building, a financial structure, and a set of rules."

With a condo, by contrast, a buyer takes ownership of the individual unit along with an interest in the building's common elements.

And if that sounds abstract, it helps to compare the documents buyers actually receive.

Condo owners get a deed—the legal document establishing ownership of the unit. Co-op buyers don't. Instead, they receive a stock certificate showing their ownership shares in the cooperative corporation, along with a proprietary lease giving them the legal right to occupy a specific apartment.

Is owning a co-op cheaper, too?

In the second quarter of 2026, average maintenance on Manhattan co-ops that sold was $3,077 a month, or $2.83 per square foot, according to Miller Samuel's quarterly Manhattan market analysis. Condo common charges plus property taxes averaged $4,466, or $3.37 per square foot. 

But those savings may not be guaranteed for the duration of stay, as a high-profile Manhattan ground lease renegotiation shows. 

Carnegie House, a 324-unit co-op in Midtown, had been nicknamed “Thousandaires’ Row” for its comparative affordability to nearby luxury skyscrapers on Billionaires’ Row. But after an arbitration reset its annual ground rent from about $4.36 million to roughly $24 million—a roughly 450% increase—shareholders faced the prospect of dramatically higher maintenance costs.

That now leaves owners with few options—many can’t afford to stay, but it’s unlikely they can afford to leave either, because banks are reluctant to approve new mortgages in a building with such steep maintenance fees.

That’s why Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, a New York City appraisal and consulting firm, is skeptical of the savings co-ops offer buyers.

“There's almost no equity or wealth-building upside compared to owning a normal home,” he told Realtor.com in April. “When homeowners sell at a capital gain, it's because the land underneath the home has appreciated more in value than their structure has depreciated.”

What happens after you buy?

Millers’ warning bears out in the Jones’ analysis of listing data, too.

Between 2020 and 2025, median co-op listing prices declined in four of the five boroughs: about 9% in Manhattan, 8% in Brooklyn and Staten Island, and 6% in the Bronx. Queens was the exception, with co-op prices rising about 1%.

Condos generally followed a stronger trajectory. Median condo listing prices increased in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island over the same period, while declining by about 2% in Manhattan.

Of course, those trends aren't reflective of the equity earned by individual homeowners, but they do show that the co-op market hasn't benefited from the same price growth as competing property types in most of the city.

“If it's pure appreciation, condos and townhomes have the edge,” Jones says.

Even so, co-ops offer an edge in sales.

In 2025, Manhattan co-ops and condos both spent a median 118 days on the market in the Realtor.com data. In Queens, co-ops actually moved faster—76 days compared with 109 for condos. Brooklyn's gap was small, at 116 versus 111 days. Co-ops took substantially longer only in the Bronx and Staten Island.

Closed-sale data points in the same direction. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Manhattan co-ops that sold had spent a median 72 days on the market, compared with 78 days for condos, according to Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman's Manhattan sales report. Co-op sales also increased 7% from a year earlier, compared with 3.4% for condos.

It's an important signal for potential buyers. The fact that the days on market is roughly on par between the two suggests that demand remains strong, even if co-ops appreciate at a slower rate than condos. So if and when co-op owners go to sell, they can count on a healthy pool of potential buyers.

So, is buying a co-op worth it?

The answer ultimately depends on what the buyer expects the home to accomplish—and who you ask.

“Whether a co-op is ‘worth it’ ultimately comes down to what you're buying for,” Jones says. “If it's pure appreciation, condos and townhomes have the edge. But if the drivers are stability, a predictable monthly payment, and a foothold in a market that otherwise locks a lot of people out—a co-op can absolutely be worth it, even if its price growth doesn't match the rest of the market.”

It's an especially pertinent point in New York City, where rents have continued rising even as the national rental market cools. While national rents declined 1.5% from a year earlier, New York rents rose nearly 5%.

A buyer with an $895,000 budget isn't realistically choosing between an $895,000 co-op and the $2.025 million median Manhattan condo. The more relevant choice is between buying the co-op and or not buying at all—and that's when the co-op discount may matter most.

That's part of the reason Fersobe recommends them.

“If you have a long-term plan to reside in the building for more than five years, I highly recommend considering a co-op,” she says. “Some of the city’s most prestigious and architecturally significant buildings are co-ops.”

She points to the Upper East Side, Sutton, Carnegie Hill, Central Park West, Fifth Avenue, and parts of Midtown as examples of such neighborhoods.

But Miller remains skeptical.

“I’m not against buying any ground lease. You just have to be informed about what the risks are,” he says, pointing to the possibility of a ground lease renegotiation making the co-op unaffordable and difficult to sell.”