CO-OP/CONDO BUYERS

The weather is warmer and the street corners are mostly clear of Olympic-size slush pools that made walking around a major drag. Spotted near north Yonkers this week was a small crowd of people around the telltale open house sign. It has begun. And once spring is underway, reports DNAinfo, "buyers should brace for crowded open houses." StreetEasy compiled stats for DNAinfo that found, not surprisingly, that things get quietest in the winter months. Who wants to go out in weather like we had? And, from the seller's point of view, who wants a bunch of people trudging around their apartments in wet snow boots? So if you're looking and you've been underwhelmed by the options, take heart. More people will be putting their homes on the market as the weather improves and spring promises to be a busy season indeed. 

Read more

Before a young Al Capone packed his bags and headed to the Windy City to make a name for himself in Chicago's organized crime circuit, he cut his teeth in Brooklyn, where he was born and bred. Capone and his family lived at 21 Garfield Place. He would go across the street to the poolroom at 20 Garfield Place, where his dad taught him how to play. That building still stands today, but not for long. DNAinfo reports that "plans are underway to build a four-story, eight-unit apartment building with a penthouse on Garfield Place between Fourth and Fifth avenues." Yep, we're losing another colorful piece of New York history, even if it’s a little notorious, because the buildings at 20 Garfield Place as well as 18 Garfield Place are going to be demolished to make way for the condo project. DNAinfo references an urban legend that claims Capone hid "riches inside the walls of one of his homes on the block." Nothing's ever come of it, but on the off chance no one has checked the poolroom, well, the demolition crew may have a shot at finding a nice surprise! Who doesn't love a bit of treasure?

Photo by Nicholas Strini for Property Shark.

Read more

One of the many nice things of making the transition from renter to shareholder is that you can renovate your apartment to suit your needs. Well, provided you follow the building rules, as established by the board or management company. And provided you get board approval, confirm whether you need an alteration agreement, and obtain any requisite city permits. Hey, nothing worth having comes easy, right? Say you want to renovate your co-op, and want to take out a radiator in the living room to free up wall space. We typically hear of New Yorkers complaining about no heat in winter, but there are many who understand the sweltering hell their apartments can turn into, especially in older buildings. This is the case for one co-op shareholder, who writes to Brickunderground.com in this week's Ask an Expert: "How would I go about [getting rid of the radiator]? Would it affect the property values?" One of Brickunderground's experts offers sound advice: "If it's not too late, include the radiator removal as part of the renovation proposal you submit to the co-op board. Indeed, your building's alteration guidelines may specifically address radiators, and the board may have addressed a similar issue in the past." If you get the board's blessing, don't throw the radiator away. Keep it on hand in case "you or a future buyer wants it reinstalled," and make sure a licensed and insured plumber removes the radiator and caps the pipe. 

Read more

Who has the right to use ancillary rooms directly outside the service door of a specific apartment? The answer should be simple, but it rarely is. In Green v. Board of Directors of 880 Fifth Avenue Corporation and Francis L. Mitterhoff, the parties were faced with the classic question of whether the offering plan or historic use prevails. 

Read more

Getting older is a fact of life. As we've pointed out in the recent past, with older communities in co-ops and condos come new problems – but there may be new solutions, too. Ina Torton of Rutenberg Realty recognizes the need to develop new solutions. That's why she started a new seniors division at Rutenberg so she and a dozen of her colleagues can help older adults sell their homes and relocate to retirement facilities, reports the Daily News. It's "a niche she carved out during a 10-year tenure at Halstead Property" and one that is quite in demand. Citing a 2014 report from the U.S. Census Bureau, the report states that the population of Americans older than 65 will grow to 83.7 million by mid-century from just 43.1 million in 2012. This is a valuable resource that can help seniors, many of whom have lived in a co-op or condo for most of their lives, make the transition a lot less difficult.

Read more

Kuafu Properties, a Chinese private equity firm with an office in New York, plans to build a 47-story condo and hotel tower near Hudson Yards — if a judge rules in its favor and boots the development giant's local partners from the deal. According to the Daily News, Kuafu wants a judge to force local players Blackhouse Development and Siras Development to turn over their stakes in the project. If not, Kuafu will sell the land to the highest bidder and the tower may never see the light of day. Kuafu told the Daily News that Blackhouse and Siras "keep going behind its back to make decisions about the property, at 38th St. and Eleventh Avenue, despite the fact that their operating agreement dictates that every decision requires the vote of Kuafu's executives. Siras went behind its back to tap brokerage Compass to market the condo units, while Blackhouse keeps talking about the project to the press without the permission of all the partners." Spokespersons for Blackhouse and Siras did not immediately respond to the newspaper's requests for comment. The companies bought the development site last year for $115 million and "were planning a 380,000-square-foot mixed-use tower with 50 condo units, a 400-room hotel and high-end retail on the ground floors." With work on the tower now stalled, it seems like a waste of time, resources, and money. But Kuafu guesstimates the sellout of the project at $600 million — a nice jump from what the three companies paid. And let's face it. In New York, if these guys don't finish building that tower, whoever buys it probably will. Who says there isn't good drama in New York real estate?

Image source: Kaufu Properties

Read more

Spring may be allegedly around the corner, but the snow is still coming — an inch here, three there, falling on top of all the other snow this relentless winter has sent our way. Depending on where you live, snow may still be accumulated on rooftops and, unfortunately for one shareholder in a small brownstone co-op, terraces. The shareholder tells Ronda Kaysen in this week's "Ask Real Estate" column in The New York Times that his unit has a terrace directly above his neighbor’s bedroom ceiling. "The house rules and the proprietary lease require me to keep my terrace free from snow, but the rules do not explain where I should put the snow," he writes. Kaysen explains that when your apartment comes with a terrace, the burden of shoveling falls on your shoulders. Indeed, most co-ops and condominiums require residents with private balconies or terraces to shovel the snow and clear the ice that accumulates there. "While the rules are loud and clear about what to clean up, they are typically silent about how to clean up," Kaysen says. Even if your terrace doesn't face the street and sidewalk below and your downstairs neighbors give you the green light to knock the snow to the garden, it's not a good idea. Injure anyone with falling snow and you open yourself up to a lawsuit, explains real estate lawyer Steven R. Wagner. A better solution? Shovel it into a large container and let it melt in the shower. Them's the breaks, but look at it the bright side: you have a terrace you can enjoy once the weather lets us all thaw out a bit.

Read more

Just a little more than a month ago, a penthouse at One57 sold for $100 million, setting a new city record. But just as many real estate experts predicted, condo sales slowed down — and winter hasn't helped any. Only 310 Manhattan condos went into contract in January, representing a 6.3 percent decline in pending sales from December and the lowest monthly total in three years. Median time on market for condos jumped from 19 days in December to 82 days, the longest time on market since February 2013.

Read more

Considering the hefty price tags on some of the ultra-luxury units in super posh condos being constructed all over the city, you kind of expect a lot of bang for your buck — if you're one of the lucky buyers, of course. And developers are looking to deliver just that. Take one of the apartments planned for 53W53, an ultra-luxury residential tower being built next to the Museum of Modern Art. Well, take all of the apartments in that building. Each apartment's layout needs to accommodate the unusual architectural elements of the asymmetrical, 1,050-foot tower designed by Jean Nouvel, reports The New York Times, which will "taper as it rises like a shard of glass." So how do you figure out how the pieces of this very expensive puzzle will ultimately fit together? In the case of 53W53, you build a full-scale mock-up of a $10 million apartment in an industrial section of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and start working out all the kinks. The Times explains that the prototype functions as a lab of sorts, so developers can troubleshoot "most of the challenges posed by the building’s unusual design." How cool is that? 

Read more

It's becoming a tale of two sides of one city. On the one side, you have the working and middle class, struggling to make ends meet, vying for affordable housing, fighting to keep rezoning plans from driving them out of their homes. On the other, you have the mega rich, snapping up ultra-luxury condos in high-rise buildings such as Midtown's One57. And which side ends up getting the tax breaks, you ask? It looks like, in this case, it's good old One57, which just sold its penthouse for $100 million and got a $35 million tax break, "a subsidy offered to billionaire developers under 412-a tax abatement program," reports the Daily News. It also looks like hundreds of New Yorkers got mad as hell and protested the program last week in front of the high-end tower. According to the Daily News, "the protest comes amid a growing push to end the abatement program, which is set to expire this year unless it’s renewed by Albany pols." The Daily News, which featured One57 as a symbol of the city's growing divide between rich and poor in a separate news item, reported that "the feds are probing how One57 scored its tax break."

Read more