The New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs meet this week in the NBA Championship Finals. While they share winning seasons in common, off the court the home cities of these storied professional basketball teams are two very different real estate markets.
As the first game in the series on Wednesday night approaches, CoStar breaks down how New York and San Antonio stack up on the basis of office, retail, industrial and apartment property.
Office: Vacancy
San Antonio has been one of the country's best-performing office markets over the past half-decade. While major markets like New York lost many workers in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic — and subsequently saw a “return to office” bounce-back over the past couple of years — San Antonio never saw those massive losses in occupancy. This is due in part to San Antonio’s population growth, which brings tailwinds for office job growth, and a lack of significant development to add supply-side pressures in this market.
New York has posted some of the country's strongest occupancy gains over the past two years, driven by leasing related to financial services and to support the growth of artificial intelligence. Rents have surpassed $300 per square foot in some cases, and trophy space availability in certain neighborhoods has fallen to the low single digits.
Winner: San Antonio. While New York's headline wins are noteworthy, vacancy levels are still highly elevated compared to their pre-pandemic average.
Retail: Rent growth
Retail real estate has been one of the most resilient property types in San Antonio during the disruption in commercial markets that has taken place since 2020. Yet, after outperforming the national benchmark for several quarters, San Antonio’s retail market is now seeing fairly flat rent growth. After pushing the ceiling for rental rates higher, market participants are now reporting more substantial pushback from tenants in 2026.
Retail rent growth in New York has been steadier than in San Antonio, avoiding the same degree of deceleration. Luxury brands have purchased sites on high-street corridors for hundreds of millions of dollars, and select storefronts command rents above $1,000 per square foot — but those are outliers, not the baseline.
Winner: San Antonio. Though rents are moderating in San Antonio, retail property owners are still achieving higher rent gains than those in New York.
Industrial: Availability
Increased availability in San Antonio’s industrial market is a direct reflection of the building boom for this property type that took place in South Central Texas between 2022 and 2025. That boom led to a supply overhang, especially for large warehouses on the northeast side, the center of the industrial market.
A similar story is unfolding in New York. A surplus of newer big-box logistics has driven availability upward over the past three years. This has led to increased time on market for spaces and more negotiable rents.
Winner: New York. Both markets are experiencing the same dilemma, with New York witnessing lower occupancy losses.
Capital markets: Sales
Capital markets for San Antonio commercial real estate witnessed an increase in transaction activity 18 months ago, as the prospect of a rate-cutting cycle appeared salient at the time. As 2026 now moves into summer, however, the likelihood of further rate cuts this year appears to be slim, discouraging transactions in San Antonio. Low or negative rent growth across many commercial property types in San Antonio has only further discouraged investment at this time.
New York's capital markets momentum over the past 18 months has been powered by the luxury end of the market. Trophy office properties trading to foreign buyers and luxury brands competing for scarce high-street retail have produced blockbuster trades that have pushed investment volume sharply higher.
Winner: New York. The recent divergence in investment volume between the two cities tells the whole story.
Apartments: Supply
Multifamily developers have been chasing population growth in San Antonio in recent years. San Antonio features some of the highest levels of population growth seen in any of the nation’s major metropolitan areas, and this has been the case for several decades now. Lenders were eager to provide developers with the capital necessary to finance these multifamily projects in the immediate post-pandemic years.
Despite a reputation for a lack of building, New York has quietly added its largest inventory addition in recent memory. With that said, it's still extremely time-consuming and expensive to build in a pro-union town that's mired in bureaucratic red tape, so the supply additions pale in comparison to what other major cities have done.
Winner: San Antonio. While both cities added more housing in recent years, it's clearly far more feasible to build housing in San Antonio.
Apartments: Vacancy
Elevated vacancies in San Antonio are directly related to the influx of apartment supply that arrived on the market over the past five years. Demand has been positive, but the additions to supply have been far more positive. Lease-up timelines have been extended far beyond their initial estimates as new apartment complexes find themselves in fierce competition with one another for renters.
Quite the opposite is true in New York: The city is not building fast enough to meet the robust demand, with less than three units vacant out of every 100.
Winner: New York. Owners of multifamily properties in New York are in an environment where renters are competing against one another to secure whatever housing is left.
Apartments: Rent growth
San Antonio is clearly a tenant’s market right now. Negative rent growth in the San Antonio multifamily market is the direct result of high levels of competition among the many apartment complexes that arrived to market over the past five years. It doesn't help that San Antonio's housing market has just experienced one of its largest price drops in recent memory, creating even more competition.
That level of competition is not evident in New York's housing market or its rental market. When fewer than three rentals are vacant out of every 100, rent prices will continue to rise, regardless of whether you are already the most expensive market in the nation, and that's the case with New York.
Winner: New York. Owners of multifamily properties in New York rarely have to offer concessions and can fill units relatively quickly despite raising rents.
Verdict: New York wins
In a last-minute push, New York edges out San Antonio. It remains to be seen whether the Knicks can do the same against the Spurs.