London Terrace Towers

Going to take a guess - rent controlled unit?

and now i feel like an idiot that i didnt figure it out - okay, next question, these units seem to sell for much less than regular units (some for under 30k - why? and who gets them?

castle - the units remain rent controlled until the tenant dies - and sometimes after, if there is a relative who has established residency and is then allowed by law to continue tenancy. You cannot raise the rent beyond the controlled limits, and the rent in many cases may not cover the maintenance charges.

i get it, but the units are i am talking about are sold - not rented, and they are sold, sometimes, for much less than similar apts

RCU means Residential Cooperative Unit. Sometimes with condops the unit number is recorded that way rather than the apartment number.

London Terrace Towers was condo'd in 1987, into two RCUs and about 20 commercial units. The two RCUs are owned by the cooperative. There's one RCU at the 9th Ave end and another at the 10th Ave end, but the one co-op owns both.

I don't see any <$30K sales, but they could be the sponsor selling occupied apartments.

Castle2071 - not an idiot...my guess was wrong. Oops.

The Co-Op has (4) addresses that are included in the Corporation named: London Terrace Towers Owners Corp, Inc. They are 405 West 23rd Street, 465 West 23rd Street, 470 West 24th Street and 410 West 24th Street. These addresses represent the four buildings located at the 9th and 10th Avenue corners.

The middle buildings with different addresses is named London Terrace Gardens which remain to date as rental apartments consiting of mainly one bedroom and studio apartments.

To address the question of why these units are sold at such deep discounts, what appears to be a discount is actually not; often residents will buy hallway space to incorporate additional square footage to their respective properties. This may account for the low prices. Since moving into the building and becoming a resident broker specialist almost 17 years ago, what I can offer here is, the prices that would reflect the hallways/rooms, would be obvious to me by the low numbers.
I trust this is helpful information?

Dear Mr. Solomon: I've seen your ads and your (lovely) video of the building(s). Can you tell me why the maintenance has become so high? I noted, for instance, Unit 6B at 410, and the maintenance is almost $1,400. When did the maintenance skyrocket so??? Were there major capital improvements or deferred maintenance which had to be taken care of? I live in a pre-war building myself and know that serious issues can develop. I love the building(s) and am interested in purchasing. Thanks for your help.

Maintenance at LT has always been higher than average. It's a full-service building with a pool. Unlike many other co-ops which offset costs by renting out the ground floors to commercial tenants, LT does not own the ground retail space and cannot benefit from it. Maintenance fees have increased throughout the city mainly based on increased labor costs and TAXES TAXES TAXES.

Plus the cost of oil, electricity, and gas. Something like 96& of LT running costs are covered by the maintenance paid by shareholder so when these expenses increase there is no option to raise maintenance charges. Plus the co-op has a large and rather expensive mortgage.

LT's financials through 2010 are at http://offeringplanet.com

At my co-op, RE taxes and labor account for 75% of expenses. In the five years from 2008, RE taxes have gone up 37% and labor 20.6%.

Yikes! That explains it. I guess all NYC coops and condos are being hit by large increases. Still, no city like NYC!!!