House on 81st St. - Sale at 229 East 81st Street

I think it looks so cool. I would love to just see it. They dropped the price again. I know there is some kind of story behind it. Do a search. Looks cheap now

adorable on the outside but unfortunately, 1/2 the space is in the basement.

I know - a shame. Can't legally make a bedroom down there. Illegally though I guess you can

it's a kind of cool concept, i am a big fan of back houses. but let's be real: you have basically a studio-sized space on the ground floor and a basement. the obvious thing would be to sell it to the folks who live upstairs and turn it into a single-family house, but on it's own, it isn't compelling.

HR: it was listed both ways, with and without the neighboring 2nd floor apt., a few months ago, went into contract and the contract fell through. Now both units are BOM but as separate listings, and the other one hasn't been reduced. Big downside is the fact that units are not combined and the 2nd floor apt. has an extra kitchen you would have to get rid of if you want a single family. Also, no pets. Also, you would still have an upstairs neighbor, 'cause there's a 3rd floor. Still, maintenance and PS290 make it attractive for families. Also, the fact that they obviously need to sell.

In sum, I think the duplex is attractively priced at 495K. The 3 rooms add up to 635 sqft plus kitchen and 1.5 baths. That comes up to roughly the same area you see in Jr4 that are noisier and less cute and currently offered for 550K or more. But the effect of the chop on that unit (unit B) has the effect of making unit E look like shit: 375K for half the sqft. Also the units in combination (if the sellers are still willing to sell them as a package) would go for 870K, which is a hair under the 895K they tried to sell them for 4 ms ago and couldn't.

What I would do is offer them 650K for the package, taking into account that it'll cost 100K to transform the 2nd floor kitchen and connect the units. That would get you a nice triplex.

If you eventually buy the entire house I think you should be able to change the no dog policy - unless it's part of the coop in front of it and goes by those rules

The "obvious thing" would be to turn the bottom level into a "great room" with kitchen (and existing half bath) and create a legal second bedroom upstairs where the LR window is. That would leave a little room near the entry for a "landing strip". No? Am I missing something?

If the units are combined, its hard to see if you could even fit in a small spiral staircase without loosing a good amount of space. I'm guessing you would have to apply for 2 separate mortgages also..

alanhart,

I would be surprised if you were legally allowed to put a kitchen in the basement. I wonder how 'damp' it is in the basement..

only in nyc could we be having a discussion about living in a basement for $650 K +. Perhaps this is part of the problem?

theres more

A unit in the front building sold for 175k. From the description it sounds like its a similar plan with a basement area. Wonder what this has done to the appraised value of the 2 units for sale.

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/373017-coop-229-east-81st-street-yorkville-new-york

Basement kitchens are extremely common in London. I don't see why they'd be illegal here. And I don't believe living rooms have any legal requirement to be above ground.

That front-building sale is very interesting, but being what is politely called "lower ground" and facing the street, worth a lot less. Also, brokers being brokers, I assume the 350 sf is the total including basement space, so the rear unit duplex is 2.5 times the size.

Anyway, I'm not buying. I'm just saying.

columbiacounty, it's not part of the problem, it's indicative of the problem. Too many people want to live on too little land with too little rapid transit, and too few need windows to watch illegally downloaded content on their giant flat-screen TVs.

you want to have a 'great room' in the basement? sounds fantastic! this apartment is, as i said before, a converted alcove studio with a finished basement. connecting it with the alcove studio above it does nothing because there is no room for a proper staircase. the thing to do is buy BOTH apartments above and make it a house, using the existing stair. otherwise, this could go for a lot less.

There is another issue with this unit. There are a total of 3 apts here. And only 2 for sale, so you wil not own the whole house. Additionally, the floors are very slanted and will require a great deal of work . I think 550k would be the right price for both units.

Not much to complaint about the apartment itself, we loved it and seems perfect for our family with 2 kids (basement for the kids). You enter through the front building hallway, which lead out to the courtyard. The courtyard is beautiful but it's shared so no BBQ allowed. I had a home inspection done on the apartment (before I sign the contract) and nothing too serious come out of the inspection. First floor bedroom is narrow but will fit a queen size bed but the floor is not quite level but building is old so inspector said it's settle and should be fine. Living room is really nice with the window to the courtyard. Kitchen is very small but workable with a pantry next to it. The stair going downstair is nice and open. Basement is nice open space with 2 large closets. Downstair bathroom is small and the toilet pump is not that strong but usable. Not too much light from the basement window, althrough it did have a few inches of spaces between window the the wall. It is really a nice and unique apartment for manhattan since the building is in the back, you don't even see the street. It's definitely worth seeing the apartment.

The problem is not the apartment. We withdraw our offer for this apartment earlier this week after 2 terrible weeks of time wasting trying to get information and answers about the building. We backed out of the deal not because of any one thing, but combination of not getting clear answers for question related to the building financials, coop board expenses, management company not knowing if the co-op board even have meeting minutes or not, and the proprietary lease not containing correct information about the seller. This apartment was put on sale late last year and I was told it didn't work out due to buyer financing falling through and was put back on the market a couple of months ago. After my own experience, I am not so sure that's the real reason for the last deal not working out.

This is curious because I just emailed the agent and she said it is no longer for sale. Was your offer the latest? (b1pwysd) That is very concerning that they would not show coop financials, particularly since you already had a contract out. Could you provide an idea of what price they were considering accepting? Were you thinking of buying both units or just the basement duplex?

Welcome to the world of small Coops. It's not unique at all to have difficulty getting Coop documents, financials, etc. It's often even hard to get what the rules are because........ they don't have any! the rules are whatever the current Board (or sometimes even just Board President) say they are. They keep lousy records, un-audited financials, no minutes of Board meetings, no records of anything period.......

One problem it that it's next to impossible to get a decent managing agent for a small building. Are you going to spend $40,000 on a management contract when the entire budget for the Coop is $150,00? Is anyone decent going to even semi-manage any Coop for less than $1500 a month?

Is this building self managed? Then it's worse because you've got someone who has a "real job" being asked to put time aside to take care of requests for information from someone else's buyer. And they are only on the Board to take care of their pet issue (sometimes literally their "pet issue").

To purple's question. According to the seller agent, there were 3 people bidding for the apartment include us. Our offer was original accepted at 485K on Thursday morning(for first floor/basement apartment only) and the contract supposed to come out by Friday. By Friday afternoon, my realtor informed me that seller wants us to counterbid another offer of 515K. Supposingly, they had already accepted our offer the day before but obviously, they are trying to get higher amount even after accepting our offer. We went up to 500K as a final offer, again they accepted it. The contract never came out, they eventually sent the financial for 2006 to 2008, which showed negatives even through they took out a ballon mortgage in 2007 and used up 75% of their LOC in 2008. We couldn't get answers to what they spent the money on and as previous mentioned, we never saw the meeting minutes. The management company doesn't know anything and completely disorganized. I will never consider a small coop again, it's not worth the possible "future" headaches.

What a mess. Any one of the above would have sent me fleeing. Trying to "nibble" me after accepting an offer says the seller is not going to do this deal in a straight forward way. Who needs 2+ months of seller generated headaches when you are about to part with $1/2 million? Bad, BAD financials. No minutes--are you kidding? Bad management. This is the largest investment of your life. And if you blow it you not only lose money--you also have no where to live. A "deal" like this is a nightmare. Glad you walked away. You will find something else. Fear not.