Manhattan’s average price per square foot surpasses that of other major U.S. cities

New York City and San Francisco are constantly in competition for the title of most expensive city to live in in the United States, and San Francisco certainly tends to top NYC in certain markets, like median rent, for example. But what if we take most of NYC out of the equation, and just include Manhattan? How does Manhattan stack up not just with San Francisco but other major American cities?

The subject of NeighborhoodX’s latest analysis is average price per square foot in Manhattan compared to that in other major cities across the United States. The findings will perhaps be not so startling to most: Manhattan far outpaced other major cities when it came to average price per square foot.

“There’s a temptation when one analyzes a city to stop the analysis at the city limits,” Constantine Valhouli, the Director of Research for NeighborhoodX, said in a statement. “But it’s worth comparing cities, to see what insights are revealed when the data are side by side.”

For instance, the average price per square foot in Manhattan currently sits at $1,773, according to NeighborhoodX’s analysis. In comparison, San Francisco is a distant second with $1,185/square foot, followed by Boston at $751/square foot, and Los Angeles at $451/square foot.

In their analysis, NeighborhoodX also looked at the lowest to highest price per square foot, and there too Manhattan proved to be way more expensive than other cities. For instance, the current highest price per square foot is Sting’s 15 Central Park West apartment; the 5,417 square foot apartment is currently on the market for $56 million, or a price per square foot of $10,337.

Even on the lower end Manhattan is super pricey: The lowest price per square foot in Manhattan came out to $437. In comparison, San Francisco comes in at $359/square foot, followed by Boston at $143/square foot.

For their analysis, NeighborhoodX looked at market-rate properties but “excluded foreclosures and short sales; properties positioned as development sites or with additional lots of land; properties conveyed with rent-controlled tenants in place; pocket listings; and certain listings with incomplete or contradictory data.”