NYC CRE Market Trends by Neighborhood: Tight, Open and Good Value

NYC CRE is short for New York City commercial real estate; for a company looking for an office it means the Manhattan office leasing market. Read by neighborhood, our Q2 2026 report shows three conditions. SoHo is tight, at 13.5% availability. Midtown South and Hudson Square are more open, near 17%, and hold the large blocks. Downtown is the value case: the report argues that Class A space there costs less all-in than comparable space in Midtown or Midtown South. A tenant who widens a search across two of these gains choices and leverage at once.

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Updated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group

What CRE means, and the part of it read here

CRE stands for commercial real estate: property used for business, which takes in offices, retail, industrial buildings and more. Each of those is a market of its own, with its own prices. This page reads one of them, Manhattan office leasing, from the side of a company that needs space.

Tight and open: SoHo against Midtown South and Hudson Square

The figures are from the Manhattan Office Report, Q2 2026 edition, with data through June 30, 2026.

Manhattan overall: 14.5% availability.
SoHo: 13.5%, the tightest submarket in the report, with little direct space.
Midtown South: 17.1%.
Hudson Square: 17.8%, a first-quarter 2026 reading.

The report is plain that these readings come from different research desks and do not line up perfectly. The pattern is still useful. A submarket near 17% gives a tenant more floors and more room to negotiate than one near 13%, and it is where a company that needs a large contiguous block will find one.

Good value: the report's case for Downtown

The report's opinion piece argues that Downtown is where the value is: Class A buildings, large floors and real concession packages at a lower total cost than comparable space in Midtown or Midtown South. It also puts the premium for Class A over Class B Downtown at 25.5% in the first quarter of 2026. That is an argument, signed by its author, not a forecast. The way to test it is to price a Downtown floor against a Midtown South one on a single basis.

The floors below are in FiDi, so the comparison can start from real asking rents. Submarket comparisons puts neighborhoods side by side.

Hybrid work: the market's demand and one tenant's footprint

Across the market, the quarter shows companies committing to offices: 10.8 million square feet leased in Q2 2026. For one company the effect of hybrid work is smaller than the headlines suggest. Shared desks reduce the number of seats, but rooms for meetings and group work take some of that area back. Most hybrid teams end up 10 to 20 percent below the footprint of a full-time office, and the calculator can size both.

A traditional lease or a flex lease, in any of these submarkets

A traditional lease is a private floor for a term of years, most often with a buildout, and it earns the concessions. A flex arrangement is a furnished private floor on a shorter term: a higher rent per square foot in exchange for speed and an earlier exit. The neighborhood does not settle the choice; your headcount forecast does. How to choose a neighborhood covers the other half of the decision.

FiDi office space available now

Live from our listings · cheapest first

4 offices are available in FiDi right now, from 2,624 to 6,997 square feet, asking $60 to $115 per square foot per year. The FiDi median is $71.50.

Floors: 4
Sizes: 2,624-6,997 sq ft
Asking rent: $60-$115 / sq ft
Median: $71.50 / sq ft

Everything available in FiDi, with photos and rents →

The full guide

This page is the short answer. The long one, with the numbers worked through, is here:

Is NYC CRE the same as the Manhattan office market?

No. CRE covers every kind of commercial property. The office market is one part of it, and the only part this page and our report measure. Retail and industrial space move on different numbers.

Which Manhattan submarket has the most office space available?

Of the submarkets our Q2 2026 report measures, Hudson Square carried the highest availability, 17.8% in the first quarter of 2026, followed by Midtown South at 17.1%. The report notes that Hudson Square's supply is built and held for larger tenants by design.

Is FiDi really cheaper than Midtown South?

The report argues that Class A space Downtown costs less all-in than comparable space in Midtown South. Check it against floors, not averages: NoMad vs FiDi compares the two with current figures, and the block here shows what FiDi asks now.

Does looking in a second neighborhood weaken our negotiating position?

It strengthens it. A landlord tends to concede more to a tenant who has a real floor to walk to, and a second submarket is a simple way to have one. It costs an extra afternoon of tours.

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