Outdoor Space

Many of the outdoor spaces I've seen also come with a basement level which to some people are un-liveable (damp, no windows etc).

Personally I wouldn't pay for the extra basement space unless the basement space was priced at an enormous discount.

Paying 50% of the interior price per square foot for the outdoor space would not be unreasonable if it was a true garden (reasonably private).

Thanks. I bought on UWS last May because I really liked the outdoor space. I was just wondering how big of a hit(paper) I was/am going to take.

bob420 are u selling your place?

Speaking of outdoor space, does anyone have a terrace & if so, do you use it? I really want a terrace, but fear I won't use it enough.
Thanks.

Bob,

Could you provide us with pros and cons of living with ground outdoor space. winter use vs summer, more cases of cockroaches,mice, maintaince, privacy etc.

I have a terrace and use it all the time.

Great for small parties, dining, reading, and city gardening.

If you like these things you'll use it. If not...too often I see such space used for storage.

I don't have a terrace, but I have a balcony (which I usually refer to as a lanai, ramada, mandapa, veranda, porch, deck, patio, country house, etc., but never terrace). It looks nice covered in snow. Otherwise, I use it during three seasons for dining, (electric) grilling, reading, surfing the world wide intertubes, growing blueberries, herbs and six different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, admiring the majestic Hudson, trying to see the little patch of Central Park treetops that allows me to claim a CP view, trying to figure out what bridge that is over the Harlem or East River, marveling at New Jersey's positively petro-powered sunsets . . . but mostly sipping and slurping alcoholics' beverages.

And yeah, a lot of people use them only for bicycle & broom storage.

I love having the outdoor space. It's about 600 sq ft, wood deck and bamboo fenced in. It's great for parties, grilling, hanging out and just having the feeling of extra space. In the warm weather, I use it all the time and keep the screen door closed. I didn't use it as much in the winter but I found reasons to! I haven't found any cons having a ground floor apt but I understand some people would prefer not to be on the ground floor. It was either a roof top or ground floor for this size outdoor space and I couldn't afford the roof top.

I haven't had any problems with bugs, mice etc. At least not yet. It is a coop and the maintenance is on a per share basis. The number of shares goes up each floor in my building so I end up paying the same maintenance as the higher apts but with a pretty big outdoor space. It's only accessible through my living room so it's pretty private.

Noticed one the other day at 205 WEA that had a full-size refrigerator.

And a big plus regarding a garden/backyard vs. on a structure of any kind is that (if it's okeh with your coop/condo) you can legally grill with charcoal or bottled gas.

[Although hard-piped natural gas grilling is allowed on open-top structures with proper clearance from combustible materials, and with building permit for that alteration.]

NWT, add an old couch and a warshing machine and it would almost seem like an Appalachian Shangri-La!!!

I have a 4000 sq ft garden - lawn, watering system, pond etc. I use it to throw parties of 50-100 guests. It is also great just to let the dogs out to go pee. Dont have to walk them or leave the building.

No bugs, or rodents or dampness. There is a bit of maintenance but I enjoy mowing my lawn in the middle of manhattan

Rule of thumb.
(Half the indoor asking square footage price) x (square footage of terrace)
Now there are good terraces and there are crappy terraces. There are terraces that face nothing and those with sweeping vistas. You got your set back terraces as compared to your shelf terrace. It goes on and on. Use the rule of thumb and then scale up or down a little depending on 'how good' it really is. Ultimatly, you will have to comp it out on likes to likes. Keep in mind that you have buyers like me that will not even look at place without one and other buyers that don't give a hoot.

alanhart, right, and tarpaper is a nice touch.

dwell, I have a terrace and I use it (heavily, most of the meals etc.) from April through November. And in winter, it's still a tremendous pleasure. Bundle up and have your coffee outside. And the garden and flowers! It's a summer house over Manhattan.

Tarpaper shingles on the walls -- or solid sheets of green tarpaper "bricks", Williamsburgh-style.

Artificial turf on the floor -- preferably a non-natural hue. Royal blue would be fitting.

I am in a very well maintained rental on the ground floor for a number of years. The garden is incredibly beautiful and I LOVE sitting outside and having BBQs. We have wonderful trees and flowers and it is a joy to sit outside. However, we sometimes see rats that run across the back wall -kind of an interstate highway for rodents. Once we had rats living in our back neighbor's yard and they tunneled into ours. It took a few months of rat traps and cementing in the tunnels to get rid of them. Never once had cockroaches. Have some ants. Our neighbor plays soccer in his backyard and jumps into our yard to retrieve his ball. We use it backyard a lot when teh weather is nice. Use it just for grilling when the weather is bad. Or to make snowmen.

sorry about the typos

There is NO formula for what outdoor space is worth. Let me give you an example to show why:

Take two apartments in the same building, next door to each other. Lets say were were talking about some building on CPW facing the park and we're on the 15th floor. Each terrace is a nice 15 foot by 15 foot setback with full park views. So in each case we have 225 square feet of terrace of the same exact "quality" (in other words, I'm trying to avoid the argument of comparing 225 square feet of outdoor space at the bottom of a light well to 225 square feet of penthouse terrace).

The first terrace is attached to a 500 square foot studio. The second terrace is attached to a 2,000 square foot Classic 6. Without the terrace, let's say the studio is worth ?$750,000? and the Classic 6 is worth ?$3 million?. With the terrace, the studio is worth ?$1.1 million? and the Classic 6 is worth ?$4 million?

Obviously I'm pulling these numbers out of thin air, but i don't think anyone can argue against the logic involved: the exact same terrace attached to 2 different apartments can vary a HUGE amount. The reason is the terrace is something that can never be bought itself: it only acts as an enhancement TO AN APARTMENT. As such, it affects a percentage of the apartment's worth more than it stands alone on it's own $PSF basis.