CO-OP/CONDO BUYERS

First it was a skating rink. Then it was a music venue. Now it's a pile of rubble. The Roseland Ballroom, which moved a block over to its still convenient location at 239 West 52nd Street in 1956, closed its doors for good a year and a day ago today. Its demolition, now in its eighth month, has been as slow as its history has been rich. But like so much of old New York, it has to make way for the new and shiny. Given the prime Midtown location, you won't be surprised that the Roseland, where many got to see their favorite bands play, is dying a slow death to make way for new luxury condos. Thanks a lot, one percent. Gothamist invites us to step inside to see what's left of a building that had stood on the spot since 1922. Among the gutted remains are wallpaper, mirror tiles and old tips jars. But hey. Who needs to catch The Cult again at a historic venue when the mega rich can have yet another place to live?

The Roseland Ballroom in 2005. Photo by Kate Leonova for Property Shark.

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I am a board member of a co-op in the city of New York that contains multiple blocks and lots. We just submitted our first energy audit under Local Law 87 and the professional fees have become extremely expensive, since the city's Department of Buildings (DOB) keeps sending us more and more objections. If we have to go through this for numerous years we will be spending tens of thousands of dollars. Is there anything that can be done?

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Rents in New York City continue their upward trend. That's why, if you've got the money and the credit, you should consider investing in either a co-op or condo. It's a huge commitment, sure, and that's why you need to be sharp or get savvy when it comes to scrutinizing not just the apartments you're considering, but also the neighborhoods they are in. Unless you're checking out a place on the top floor, try to get an appointment to view it between 6 and 7 P.M. People will be home by then so you'll get a better sense of whether the people upstairs stomp up and down the place like a bunch of clomping horses. Run the taps on the sinks and bathtub. Make sure the water pressure is what you're used to and not a sad trickle that is barely going to rinse off soap — and take note of how long you have to wait before the hot water is actually hot. While you're at it, give the toilet a flush. What's the laundry situation? Is it a walkup? If so, how far do you have to go back and forth with heavy bags of laundry? Where's the best deli? The closest supermarket? Is there a bug problem? Yes, including bedbugs. What about rodents? And, perhaps one of the most important things (besides laundry): where is the nearest subway? Because if you find a place with which you fall in love at first sight, the honeymoon will be over sooner than expected if you find yourself enduring a soul-sucking commute. Yes, we're talking about quality of life, and Brickunderground has got you covered with 10 factors to check out before you sign on the dotted line.

Photo credit: littleny / Shutterstock.com

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A READER ASKS: I recently moved into a midsize co-op in Brooklyn. I've noticed that one of my neighbors keeps leaving her baby carriage and shopping cart in the basement. I had to leave my bike in the basement for a few hours on a Saturday, in the same spot where she typically leaves her things. I figured it would be okay, since I don't make it a habit. But I got an e-mail from the board letting me know that I was not to use common areas in the building, basement included, as storage space. I know it seems petty of me to point out that the only reason I thought it would be okay to leave my bike there is because my neighbor constantly uses it for her things, but I'm very annoyed. It's a fairly big basement and it's kind of astounding that we don't have storage space as it is. Should I say something? Should I complain about my neighbor? Or should I keep it more positive and request they create official storage space? 

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The owner of a sponsor unit in a non-eviction co-op in The Bronx wants to move in now that the original tenant, who was protected under rent-stabilization laws, has died. But there's a complication. The original tenant's son moved into the apartment about 18 months before she died, and has now claimed succession rights. Can the sponsor unit owner evict him under the owner occupancy law? That's one of the questions Ronda Kaysen fields in this week's "Ask Real Estate" column in The New York Times. "Noneviction co-ops were designed to protect rental tenants from eviction if they did not buy their apartments when the building converted to a co-op. If the son successfully claimed succession rights, he is entitled to all the rights the lease provides — including the right to not be evicted, even if the owner wants to occupy the unit," explains Kaysen. That means the original tenant's son can stay, as long as he follows the terms of the lease and rent stabilization law. But it also may come down to timing. To claim legitimate succession rights, the son would have had to have moved in two years "before the time the rent-stabilized tenant vacated the apartment." In this case, the son is a few months short, unless his mother was disabled or elderly — in which case he would only have to have lived in the apartment for one year.

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It's no news that New York is changing and fast. Luxury condos, soaring rents, New Yorkers getting priced out of their longtime homes, longtime businesses getting priced out gentrified neighborhoods… In recent weeks, we've read about the 85-year-old grandmother getting evicted from her home in Little Italy (where she's lived since the 1960s) by her landlord, the Italian American Museum — a painful reminder that Little Italy continues shrinking, and there's not much of it left. We've also read about how photographer Jay Maisel, who purchased the Germania Bank building, a gorgeous graffiti-covered Bowery holdout, finally caved after 40 years and sold it for a sizable profit. Hell's Kitchen is another neighborhood that is changing fast. After more than a century in business on West 44th Street, in its original 1912 building, Dykes Lumber Yard has packed up and relocated. Citing city documents, DNAinfo reported that the family who owned the property, and the lumberyard, sold the building to condo developer Charles Friedman for just under 11 million dollars in June. The lumberyard is moving to 124 E. 124th St. Dykes President Charles Kreyer told DNAinfo that "Hell's Kitchen had become inhospitable to the business' industrial needs. 'The city was coming around and making everything difficult,' he said. 'People can't make deliveries, you can't load up a truck.'"

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Nearly a year ago, we reported that one of Mayor Bill de Blasio's goals was to see a more economically diverse New York City by building 80,000 new units of affordable housing. It's not been the smoothest of journeys, and it may get even bumpier soon. The problem? Overcrowding. Yeah, no kidding, you may say, and rightfully so, but it's even worse than we thought. According to new census estimates, the population of New York City soared to 8,491,079 — that's just 60,000 people short of the projected population in 2020. In fact, reports New York YIMBY, we will have reached the 2020 estimate by 2016. Whoops! Guess we underestimated just how many people love moving to the Big Apple. Of course, that means there's that many more people putting a strain on the city's aging infrastructure, the already competitive job market — and don't get us started on the housing crisis. If the population keeps growing at this rate, we're really gonna need those 80,000 new units and then some, and quickly before the endangered species that is the native New Yorker becomes extinct.

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We already know that February condo sales hit a historic low, but how did co-op sales fare? CityRealty, which provides end-to-end service for prospective apartment buyers and in-depth analysis of the New York real estate market, has crunched the numbers in its April 2015 monthly market report. Let's take a look at some of the highlights. 

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In the past few years, New York City co-op boards have begun to let residents buy units as limited liability corporations, or LLCs. Many boards now allow residents to change their ownership from an individual to a family trust as part of estate planning. As New York real estate values soar, the types of people buying apartments in the city's most expensive neighborhoods are changing and want anonymity — celebrities and buyers with enormous wealth, for example — and layers of financial protection. Those who live here less than half the year owe no city residency tax, and owning as an LLC can help reduce the risk of a residency audit.

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A READER ASKS: I live in a small co-op building in Brooklyn. I've been here for about two years. After doing some spring cleaning, I noticed a weird smell in my bedroom. It smelled as if I had cleaned with dirty water or a dirty mop, a very strong, unpleasant smell. I checked my mop to see if maybe it was the cause, but it didn't smell bad. After shifting some furniture around, I saw, very near the radiator, a black spot the size of a dollar coin surrounded by a few smaller, dime-shaped black spots. My husband says that we should just clean it ourselves, rather than drag the property manager into this. I think we should notify the board, even if we do clean it ourselves. I know it's small, but what if the problem behind the wall is a lot bigger? 

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