Pricing in floor difference...

ground floor has exclusive access to said courtyard?

top floor is walk-up?

Odds are the first floor unit is also smaller if it faces the street at all? And the top floor has the hallway also included in it? Is the top floor considerably bigger? What is the situation stoop wise?

answers: currently, access to the courtyard is through a sister building (it's a 2-townhouse coop) and first floor unit doesn't have direct access to it, but there is a canceled door that had that purpose who knows back when, so I guess there's a chance to redo it, maybe, although you would have to do a little staircase, and get permission, too.

Top-floor is walk-up.

First floor is smaller, but my impression is that the difference is 1300 vs 1200 sqft. I may be wrong because I didn't get a floor plan of the first floor, only of the top, but I toured both units. The difference is due to the stoop and entrance, which take up space on the 1st floor, and that space became an extra room on the top unit. However, in doing that they followed the floorplan of the 2nd and 3rd floors, whereas bacause it is the top floor they could probably "invade" a bigger percentage of the hallway if they get permission and are willing to move some walls.

Get permission - from whom? Here's your sticky wicket on this project. As far as your lower unit goes, they not only have foot traffic on the streetside but also, to some extent, in the courtyard. Will there be grilling allowed in said courtyard? Who has access to the courtyard?

One of the potential problems here is that you're coming into this all new & excited but what you think is the way to handle a situation & what the board thinks are possibly quite different. Is this a co-op? I know that the accepted mode for co-op interviews is 'smile sweetly & say as little as possible' but in this case, & with the very small community you have, I wonder if a conversation & a fact-finding mode might be the better rationale?

ground floor is where all the vermin come in too.

Trompiloco: that's what I was getting at with the questions. Also, in many cases, due to the same issue, the first floor has it's LR facing the back and BR facing the front, whereas the other units have the LR facing the front: what's the story here?

30 yrs., unusual thing is that both units have only one definite bedroom but lots of space to create 2 more if you so desire. In this particular case, since I need three bedrooms, the top floor unit's extra room gives me the chance to put only one br. facing the front and still use most of the front's width for LR [that unit has 3 windows in front], whereas the ground floor unit would force me to put 2 bedrooms in front and LR in back.

you really, really should look at the history of 136 - 140 West 16th St

I don't think he's listening.

30 yrs, I tried to look up that history, but streeteasy only listed 4 sales, none of them repeat ones. I'm not terribly good at ACRIS, although maybe I should finally learn how to manage with it.

kylewest, I'm sorry that I didn't automatically bow before your superior judgement, insight, knowledge and experience, and that that frustrates you. There have been over 40 posts in the other thread, and though most people would choose the 'no' option, that goes on to show that the thing is not so black and white.

Ground floor is an exception. From what I've seen, there is a "minimal" price difference in equivalent units, unless there is a major difference in floors.

In other words, for a 4 story building, floor 2-4 i think would be pretty similar. ground floor is a totally different animal (personally, it's not even an option for me, though I do prefer lower floors)

Given that the building is a walk-up, the first floor gains some appeal IMO. Walking up 5 or 6 flights of stairs is a nonstarter for me since I'm already burning up the sidewalks all over town; by the time I get home, I don't want to be looking at all those @%$#& stairs. I'll happily take the downstairs, thank you very much.

Actually, IMHO, in a walk-up the 2nd floor winds up charging a premium - top floors usually priced lower.