To better understand what awaits in 2020, we explored some of the biggest changes of the last decade in the sales, rental and new development markets. Which neighborhoods received the most new development, experienced the highest rent increases, the highest sales price increases?

The building boom made Brooklyn ascendant, with Queens not far behind, and some major residential mixed-use projects are now also underway in the South Bronx. There are already signs of the market and neighborhoods pushing back against the glut of new development and subsequent gentrification. In Manhattan, where the surplus of new luxury condos could take more than six years to sell, there is already a shift toward smaller, relatively less expensive units. Sweeping rent reforms in 2019 could also shape what gets built, and for whom, in the years to come.

The Rise and Fall of Ultra Luxury

Nearly half of new condo units in Manhattan that came to market after 2015, or 3,695 of 7,727 apartments, remain unsold, according to a December analysis of both closed sales and contracts by Nancy Packes Data Services, a real estate consultancy and database provider. The report looked at buildings with about 30 or more units.

That is a staggering estimate and a humbling reversal from the start of the decade.

Investors, many of them from overseas, in search of higher returns after the 2008 recession looked to hard assets like real estate, and bet big on residential projects. Because credit remained tight for most New Yorkers, the most lucrative demographic was the affluent all-cash buyer, and thousands of new units — larger apartments, with better finishes and more amenities — were built to suit the demand.