Methodology: what each number counts

Five figures circulate for this program. All five are published, all five are correct about what they measure, and none of them measures what the other four do.

The five figures

City Hall: about $500 million a year

Announced April 15, 2026 with the proposal. It is a revenue projection for a proposal, not a count of properties, and it predates both the rules and the roll.

The Comptroller: $340 million to $381 million

Published April 30, 2026. Also a revenue figure, and a range rather than a point. Two property counts sit inside that report: 19,107 properties analyzed, and 11,226 after a market-value adjustment. Analyzed is the universe the report started from. Adjusted is what remained after the report's own market-value adjustment. The gap between them is 7,881 properties, so quoting one as though it were the other misstates the reach by that much.

Press analysis of the published roll: roughly 24,300

Reported in late July 2026 from the supplemental market value roll the Department of Finance published on July 24: roughly 24,300 properties above the threshold, about 17,500 of them condominium or cooperative units. This count is drawn from a document the city actually published, rather than estimated before the roll existed.

The Department of Finance: roughly 17,000 letters

Stated on the Department of Finance's own program page, read August 2, 2026: only the roughly 17,000 property owners to whom DOF sent a letter are potentially subject to the surcharge, and the vast majority of properties and units on the supplemental roll will NOT be subject. It is the only figure of the five published by the agency running the program, and it is smaller than the press count because crossing the value threshold does not itself produce a letter: letters went where DOF's records show no qualifying primary resident.

MGNY analysis of FY2027 assessment rolls: 8,900+ condominium units

8,900+ New York City condominium units meet the value threshold, and more than half are owned through LLCs, trusts, and other entities. This is the narrowest denominator of the three counts: condominium units only, so no cooperative units and no one- to three-family homes. It answers an ownership-structure question, which is why it is smaller than a count of everything on the roll.

Why do they not reconcile?

• Two are revenue estimates and three are counts. A dollar figure and a property figure never reconcile directly.
• The estimates predate the supplemental roll. The press count is taken from the roll, and DOF's letters figure is the city's own statement of how many owners it actually mailed.
• The denominators differ: properties above the threshold in one, owners mailed a letter in another, condominium units only in a third.
• Market-value adjustments move the count inside a single report, which is what the Comptroller's 19,107 and 11,226 are.

A $1 million threshold is not a $1 million apartment

The $1 million line is a Department of Finance market value, not a sale price, and for condominiums and cooperatives the two sit far apart. The Department of Finance values Class 2 property by an income method that runs well below open-market prices. The reported rule of thumb is that a $1 million Department of Finance market value corresponds to roughly a $5 million apartment.

Anyone reading these counts as counts of $1 million apartments is reading them wrongly by roughly a factor of five. How is the valuation itself built? That is set out in the valuation notes.