Brooklyn 2025: $6.6 Billion in Trades and a Development-Site Surge That Signals the 2026 Shape

Brooklyn's 2025 commercial real estate market was, depending on where you sat at the table, either a softening or a quiet repositioning. TerraCRG's 2025 Brooklyn Market Report — the borough's most comprehensive annual review — recorded $6.6 billion in trades across 1,191 transactions. Dollar volume was down 16% year-over-year, but transaction count was essentially flat against the prior year and sits within 10% of the 10-year average.

The softening was concentrated at the top. 2024 produced two outlier trades — Camber Property Group's $845 million Linden Plaza purchase and Silverstein Properties' roughly $672 million acquisition of Brooklyn Tower — that together dwarfed anything 2025 produced. TerraCRG CEO Dan Marks noted that the missing blockbuster trades account for essentially the entire year-over-year dollar-volume gap.

Inside the data, two asset classes moved the opposite direction from the headline. Development sites — historically the most cycle-sensitive Brooklyn category — rose 24% year-over-year to approximately $1.1 billion, with a trio of marquee trades over $100 million in Gowanus, Greenpoint, and Downtown Brooklyn leading the volume. The largest individual multifamily trade of the year was the 463-unit 240 Willoughby Street in Fort Greene, sold by Rabsky Group to a Fetner/MCB/Farallon partnership for $210.5 million. Charney Cos. and Tavros acquired the 175 Third Street development site in Gowanus from RFR for $164 million.

Industrial declined 67% by dollar volume on lack of available inventory rather than weak demand. Retail declined 20%, though Williamsburg trophy assets continued trading at institutional pricing. Q4 2025 alone closed nearly $1.8 billion across 277 transactions, with three trades above $100 million — a clear signal that buyers were deploying meaningfully into year-end as policy clarity improved.

The Q1 2026 data continues that trajectory. The borough has now recorded more than 300 transactions for four consecutive quarters — the kind of sustained deal tempo that typically precedes a dollar-volume rebound in the following cycle.