'Is Santa going to decorate it for me?' Christmas tree prices rise again - and  now cost a staggering $400 in New York for a standard 7-footer as street vendors cash in

The $400 Christmas tree is now a grim reality in parts of New York thanks to opportunistic street vendors and inflation hitting firs.

The price will shock those outside the city. In most states, it would be around $100 for a similar 7-footer - even with prices having typically risen ten percent after a similar rise last year.

DailyMail.com investigated tree prices at stalls across the city.  Almost all didn’t display the price, so we asked sellers what they would charge for a 7-foot Fraser Fir, the most typical size and type. Most were well above $200. 

SoHo and Tribeca were the priciest areas. It was common for trees to be $350. The border of the two areas also home to the winner of the dubious prize of the most expensive - where a SoHo Trees stand told our reporter it would cost $400. 

'Those are crazy high prices,' said Mac Harman, founder of Balsam Hill, a retailer of Christmas decorations and artificial trees. 

Those shopping at big box stores and home improvement centers will be getting cheaper prices, but they too are paying more than last year.

Prices typically are up around ten percent, according to the American Christmas Tree Association. It means a similar 7-foot Fraser Fir is $75 to $125 on average. 

The best prices are are big box stores. At Home Depot a 7 to 8-foot Fraser Fir can be bought for $75. At Home Depot something similar is being sold for $80.

But for many New Yorkers, it's simply not worth the hassle.

'If someone lives in Manhattan and they don't want to rent a car, then they're going to be paying market price,' said Harman. 'What you're going to find is that the pricing is completely dependent on what they think they can charge.'

Sadly, across the city, anything under $200 for a real tree is considered a bargain as car-less New Yorkers are forced to pay over the odds to buy something close to their home.

'I can’t really shop around and go to Home Depot. Can you imagine trying to persuade a taxi driver to squeeze a tree in the back seat?,’ said one resident.

But our investigation made it clear that some sellers would push up prices is customers were willing to pay.  

One vendor we spoke to - working at a stand by a busy Midtown crossroads - pointed to a wrapped-up 7-foot tree he revealed he had just sold for $350.

'If it was me, I wouldn't buy that tree for $300 and something,' he said looking at his own tree. 'We do some Robin Hood-style selling - we make money on some people and then lose on others.'

This year marks the fifth year the vendor, from Quebec, Canada - who asked not be named -  had spent selling trees to wealthy and Christmas-crazed New Yorkers. He and a partner arrived on November 20 to build the timber tree stands and a cabin from which their 24/7 operation is run.

Often - while one of the two sleeps in a van parked on the street - the other mans the stand, making sales, keeping the inventory safe and shifting it from trucks when they arrive in the middle of the night.

A similar ethos was observed at SoHo Trees, which attempted to sell us the most expensive sub-8-foot tree we found. This winter it is operating at four stands around Manhattan.

Taped to the side of a shack by one of those stands was a photo of Scott Lechner, aka 'Willie the Hat', who co-founded the business in 1982 and nurtured it into one of the biggest Christmas tree sellers in the city.

'That's the first man who ever got $100 for a Christmas tree,' said one proud employee, pointing at the portrait. 'He was a fruit and veggie vendor, got into trees, and created an empire.'

At around that moment, a middle-aged woman rode by on a Citi Bike, placed a small 2 or 3-foot tree into her bicycle's basket and pulled out her wallet to pay. But after being quoted $69, she paused to re-evaluate.

'Sorry guys, that's the top of a tree,' she said as she placed it back down on the ground.

'We're a small family farm, we don't compete with big box stores,' the vendor told her as she rode off without the tree. It's not clear which farm he was referring to as almost all street vendors in New York buy trees from farmers and do not grow them independently.

Although Lechner died of cancer in 2020, his legacy appears to live on among those running the SoHo Trees stands today, one of which referred to him adoringly as a 'legend'.

In December 2019. just prior to his death, Lechner made talked of his own Robin Hood-style sales approach during an interview with Inside Edition.

'We carry with us this tradition of the old-fashioned marketplace where you would bargain,' he said.

'If someone came in and said, "Look, I only got 45 bucks and I need a tree, I got kids at home," we'll find something for them and it won't be a $45 tree, it will probably be a tree that costs me 60,' he said.

After the DailyMail.com was quoted $400 at SoHo Trees, we explained to them we were investigation prices across the city. A man saying he was the manager declined to comment and said: 'Don't talk to any of my guys.'

A passer-by joked: 'For that much, I would expect Santa Claus himself to deliver it. And then decorate it too.'

When we returned to the same SoHo Trees location the next day, we were quoted just under $300 for the same sized tree.

Meanwhile, one of the best prices came from All Christmas All Brooklyn, an 'independent co-op' that splits its profits evenly between workers, the manager of the stand Elijah Lepinto said.

He offered - from the offset - to sell a 6 to 7-foot Fraser fir for $125 and 7 to 8-foot one for $160. 

'Whole Foods is the only place I know that’s cheaper than me,' said LePinto.

He pointed us to Greg's Trees down the road, where 'they sell for $175 what I sell for $100'.

Greg Walsh is another major player in the New York Christmas tree scene and a former business partner of Lechner. Greg now operates across Brooklyn in a similar fashion to SoHo Trees in Manhattan.

At his stand by McCarren Park, on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, we were offered a 7-foot Fraser for $225 and an 8-foot Fraser for $275. It is expensive, but significantly less than SoHo Trees prices in downtown Manhattan.

An employee of Greg's last year quoted him describing Lechner's sales tactics as 'disgusting to witness' in a first-person piece for New York Magazine.

'His secret was he just lied to them,' Greg was quoted as saying of Lechner. 'He made things up. He said he grew the trees himself on a mountaintop, chopped them down with a hatchet, and carried them home on a mule.'

According to Harman, places like Sam's Club, Walmart, Costco, Lowe's and Home Depot are the place to go for those on a budget.

'They can swing by a big box store like Home Depot or Lowe's and they are going to pay a lot less for a tree - and the irony is it might even be fresher.'

On Lexington Avenue and 96th Street in the Upper East Side are two rival stands, one of which is operated by NYC Tree Lady. Her real name is Heather Neville and she is another of the New York City tree tycoons.

The $175 her vendor asked for a 7-foot tree at that location was among the more reasonable prices we were quoted. But at another of her stands in the West Village, we witnessed a couple pay $220 for a considerably smaller tree.

When it comes to Christmas trees, New York City operates like the Wild West. Buying one from a street vendor might be more exhilarating than going to a big box store, but if you go down that route be sure you're prepared to drive a bargain.