One of Fan Pier’s condominium towers in winter 2022. Around 2,500 luxury condos were built in Boston between 2019 and 2025, leaving the high end of the market saturated. iStock photo
Hot it is not. In fact, stone cold might be a more apt descriptor of downtown Boston’s once sizzling multimillion-dollar luxury condominium scene.
Penthouses and other units in the shiny new towers that have taken over Boston’s skyline over the past decade or two are languishing unsold, in some case for years.
I first started reporting signs of trouble in the luxury condo market in Boston more than two years ago, in this space and in Contrarian Boston, my independent Substack online newsletter.
Back in June 2023, I reported that dozens of high-priced condos at the One Dalton tower were either still unsold four years after the Back Bay skyrise opened, or had been put onto the market by their owners.
Now things appear to have gone from bad to worse, with The Wall Street Journal weighing in on New Year’s Eve with a big story of its own.
The takeaway from the piece? That Boston developers attempted to “emulate the pricey high-rises of New York and Miami,” only to see their multibillion-dollar bet backfire.
2.5k Condos Flooded Market
Developers rolled out 2,500 luxury condos across Boston from 2019 to 2025, misjudging the level of demand and size of the top tier of the market, the WSJ’s E.B. Solomont reported.
Downtown Boston condo sales worth $3 million and up plunged in the second quarter of last year, down more than a third from 2024, the Journal notes, citing figures from prominent Boston luxury real estate broker The Collaborative Cos.
That’s triple the sales decline in the condo market as a whole in Boston.
The lead example given is the St. Regis Residences, which has faced mounting financial pressure amid sluggish sales.
Somewhat under half the condos in the Seaport District tower – 47 out of 114 – remain unsold six years after the building opened.
The developer, Jon Cronin, has put his own, grand penthouse up for sale. Apparently, he’s being forced to do by the court amid a contested divorce from his wife, according to the WSJ.
He’s now seeking more than $49 million, or more than double what he bought it for, as Banker & Tradesman reported in June of last year.
Price Cuts and an Unsold Unit
Also cited? One Dalton, which benefited from an initial surge of excitement in the late 2010s about Boston’s then-boom luxury condo tower market.
Tech mogul Michael Dell snapped up a penthouse at the tower for $34 million in 2017.
Last August, he sold it for “an undisclosed” amount, having slashed the price on the unidentified unit to $29 million, according to the WSJ.
Meanwhile, venture capitalist Bennett Yee and philanthropist Florence Rosse are struggling to sell their own supersized penthouse at the tower, property records and public real estate listings show.
The couple bought two penthouses, units 5801 and 5802, for a total of $31 million in 2020, combined them, and then hired the Lagasse Group to do “an exquisite full renovation,” according to the listing, held by Michael Harper of brokerage Coldwell Banker.
In October 2022, the couple put their 7,800-square-foot-plus, five-bedroom, six-bath penthouse on the tower’s 58th floor on the market with an asking price of $38 million.
More than three years later, the penthouse remains unsold, with the price knocked down to $33 million.
Luxe Demand Still There
While condo sales at the top of the market have slowed, units are still being absorbed, said David Crowley, a strategic real estate advisor with One Boston/Donnelly + Co.
Scott Van Voorhis
Still, the luxury condo building boom is definitely over, at least for now, and new towers have stopped coming on the market.
Crowley also sees the problems at the St. Regis as a one-off, exacerbated by a “perfect storm” of negative factors.
He’s seen a drop-off in international buyers – which is not so surprising for obvious reasons – as well as “incidental” buyers as well.
All that said, demand for these units remains.
“The numbers don’t lie and they present a fairly steady and consistent market for Boston luxury full-service properties despite some of the political and financial headwinds we’re encountering,” Crowley told me.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
