Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost bought $27.5m-listed NYC penthouse for $13m

Every New Yorker you meet will tell you how much they dream of owning a home in the city. Ask a real estate agent, though, and they’ll tell you that some Manhattan properties sit on the market for months, even years, before finding a buyer. This Upper East Side co-op took nearly seven years, and a series of price cuts, before Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost finally snapped it up.First listed for $27.5 millionPic credit: Quartz.This Manhattan penthouse was first listed in 2018. The asking price was $27.5 million, according to Architectural Digest. Craig and Deborah Cogut were the sellers, The Real Deal reported. They bought the apartment for $13 million in 2006. With no luck finding buyers, the asking price was lowered over the years. By the end of 2024, the price had fallen to less than half the original figure. In fact, the sale price matched exactly what the couple had paid almost two decades earlier. Whatever profit they had hoped for never materialised.Pic credit: Quartz.Actor Scarlett Johansson and comedian Colin Jost, who married in 2020, were looking for a place in the city when they came across this listing. By early 2025, the celebrity couple had purchased the penthouse for $13 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.Pic credit: Quartz.Inside the penthousePic credit: Quartz.Spanning 6,000 square feet across three floors, the Upper East Side co-op features six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and sweeping views of Central Park. The penthouse is in a pre-war building designed by architect Rosario Candela in the 1930s. It has five terraces, eight balconies and six wood-burning fireplaces. The unit occupies the building’s upper floors.Pic credit: Quartz.Pic credit: Quartz.A private lift opens into a central gallery, where floor-to-ceiling French doors let sunlight pour in. Beyond it is the living room, with Parquet de Versailles floors, Venetian-plastered walls and a white marble fireplace. Six more Juliet balconies line the room, so the space feels open even on a quiet day. The formal dining room is another highlight. Its herringbone floors and goatskin-panelled walls give it a warm, almost old-world feel, according to the listing.Pic credit: Quartz.Across the gallery sits an oak-panelled library. It has a bookshelf-lined alcove, access to a terrace and breathtaking views of the park. The lowest floor has a powder room and a galley kitchen that seems to run on for a long way. It ends in a breakfast room that opens through bronze and glass pocket doors. The top two levels contain the bedrooms and bathrooms. The primary suite takes up the entire top floor and opens onto its own large terrace.Pic credit: Quartz.Before selling the apartment, the former owners spent two years renovating it, upgrading the finishes and mechanical systems. Buyers often look for updated wiring and plumbing in a building this old, so that work likely made the place easier to sell, even at a lower price.Pic credit: Quartz.Pic credit: Quartz.Johansson and Jost’s purchase was part of a broader trend of high-end Manhattan co-ops selling below their asking prices and sometimes their previous sale prices. For instance, a unit at 4 East 66th Street sold for $37 million after being listed for $55 million in 2022. Julia Koch sold her 18-room co-op at 740 Park Avenue for $45 million, about 25 per cent less than she had sought in 2022. Still, the drop is significant. The penthouse sold for less than half its original asking price of $27.5 million. Other sellers have taken losses, too. Grace Hightower, the former wife of Robert De Niro, also sold a co-op on Central Park West. She sold it for $18 million, below the $20.9 million she and De Niro had paid in 2006.