Walk Up

That's up to you...make an offer

My concern is in the re-sale value. I am a single person that needs a lot of space (I am an artist) so I am looking at large family size apartments. I presume that folks with kids might have a strong preference for an elevator. I was just wondering how to factor that in to the price of an apartment.

Emmitt, in formal written appraisals, the major New York City appraisal firms deduct between 0.5% and 1.0% of the value of the apartment for a fourth floor walk-up (e.g., up to $5,000 off for a $500,000 apartment). Third floor apartments likely will see between a 0% and 0.5% deduction. Apartments that are partially below street level or which are "walk-downs" from the buildings lobbies also get slight deductions.

.5%-1% seems way too little to deduct for a fourth floor walkup. If a comparable elevator apartment would be $500K, it's hard to imagine paying more than $400-$450 for the 4th floor walkup. So, I guess I'm thinking 10-20% would be more appropriate.

I agree with #5. A fouth floor walk-up is tough but I would buy a third floor and not expect much of a discount.

Come on Julia. For most people, if you can walk up to the third floor, you can walk up to the fourth. I'm not gonna expect a nominal discount for the former but a 20% discount for the latter.

I agree with Julia - the apartment is "3G" so initially I thought that the walk up would be no problem - who would have trouble walking up to the third floor. But when it turned out that the first floor had no numbers (so that 3G was on the fourth floor) I started to have second thoughts about walking up so high.

Well, then you've answered your own question. But don't expect sellers on the fourth floor of a walk-up to discount their price by a significant amount relative to an identical apartment on the third floor. Ain't gonna happen.

I'd have to think the discount for the third floor walkup should be at least 5%, mayber closer to 10%. First, it's way more inconvenient every time you need to carry things in and out (groceries, day-to-day, and luggage when you go away). Second, there's a much smaller group of potential buyers since many people would never consider a walkup at all.

Also, you have to remember every time you have something delivered, they'll charge per flight of stairs...

It depends on if there's something--skylit kitchen, private roofdeck, etc.--that offsets the climb and the inconvenience.

Family will NOT want to live there. strollers up and down....forget a couple lbs of groceries...try lugging a 25 lb kid or 2 up four flights a couple times of day. Plus the stairs are a danger to the under 2 crowd....

My wife and I are parents of a toddler, and when we recently went on the hunt for a larger place we didn't even look at walk-ups for the reasons grunty has stated above. While I obviously don't speak for everyone with small children, I suspect most would feel the same.

I lived on a 6th floor walk up. The rent was pretty much the same as the first floor. In NY, they can ask whatever they'd like and someone will go for it. A 85 year old man lived on my floor and walked those stairs once everyday. I had great leg muscles and great breathing stamina after that!

I know someone who won a bidding war for a ravishingly reno'd (featured in magazines) 6th-floor walk-up in Jackson Heights.