Wall Street Bonus Bonanza Flows Into US Real Estate Markets 

For most of the world, Christmas ends in the dead of winter. On Wall Street, it stretches into the spring, thanks to tens of billions of dollars in annual bonuses typically paid between January and April. 

This year, despite continuing turmoil in the private credit market, the payouts have been even more generous than usual, jumping 9% to a record $49.2 billion, according to an estimate from New ‌York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli published in late March. The average bonus climbed 6% to $246,900 as volatility triggered by tariff shocks translated into rising markets, creating ideal trading conditions for trading desks, dealmakers and wealth managers.

“It was probably the best year since the financial crisis,” Alan Johnson, founder of Johnson Associates, told The Daily Upside. “Pay was up a fair bit for almost everybody.”

While Wall Street’s total bonus pool hit was an all-time high in nominal terms, 2006 still reigns as the industry’s best year after inflation adjustments, according to The Wall Street Journal.  

Overall, strong performance across investment banking, trading, hedge funds and private equity created a near-universal win last year, an unusual degree of uniformity in a world where compensation typically varies wildly by division.

The New York City securities industry’s profits surged more ​than 30% to $65.1 billion, according to the state’s estimate.

“An ideal year for Wall Street is when markets go up, but with volatility,” Johnson explained. “If it just goes up in a straight line, there’s less opportunity to trade.”

The combination of healthy market swings and strong upward trends enabled trading, advisory and investment banking teams to hit performance targets across the board in 2025.  

‘Rolexes to Real Estate’

Gone are the days when most Wall Street bonuses went toward luxury cars, expensive dinners, or, yes, watches. According to Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert, there’s a distinct shift underway: “Wall Street has gone from Rolexes to real estate,” Malek said. “For a long, long time, Rolexes were actually a good investment … But if you look at the trajectory of their growth, it can’t top real estate. Real estate, there’s still a lot of cheap real estate opportunities out there.”

Malek described a range of investors benefiting from these payouts. Younger bankers who haven’t yet joined the “Hampton investment class” are increasingly targeting workforce housing and high-upside markets across the country, Malek told The Daily Upside.

“They’re looking all over the country … at what I would refer to as workforce housing … For a lot less, and they’re investing in a lot of them together … They’ll buy a house somewhere in Tennessee, in a great opportunity that they think there’s upside.”

Even beyond practical investing, Malek emphasized that these young professionals bring a Wall Street-level rigor to…