The housing market may still be somewhat sluggish throughout the country but the luxury market continues to grow in NYC:

New York City developers will spend 60 percent more on new homes this year, while adding only 22 percent more units, a sign of the market’s tilt toward luxury condominiums, the New York Building Congress said.

Spending on new housing will reach $10.9 billion, the most in records dating to 1995 and $4.1 billion more than last year’s total, the trade group said in a report released today. The number of homes that money will build is 22,500, up from 18,400 in 2013.

A record wave of ultra-luxury condo projects planned or under construction in Manhattan accounts for the “wide disparity” between costs and unit production, said Frank Sciame, chairman of the New York Building Foundation, the trade group’s philanthropic arm…

Even as construction spending increases, the number of homes produced still falls far short of the 30,000-plus built annually from 2005 to 2008, the building congress said. In 2008, the city gained 33,200 units at a cost of $5.9 billion.

This echoes the larger housing market in the United States: while the market for cheaper or more affordable homes is slow, the luxury market still has plenty of builders and buyers. And we are talking about New York City, one of the places to be for the wealthy and influential.

The article also hints that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio promised lots of affordable housing in the next ten years. Having more luxury condos doesn’t necessarily preclude also building cheaper units but the statistics above suggest overall building is down. What big-city mayor could truly turn down or fight luxury projects? Cities desperately need such money even as they need to find ways to help promote housing for more average residents.