250 Mercer St

Any the maintenance keeps growings. The maintenance of this apartment was ~$3500 one-two years back. My guess is high maintenance cost of the old building and a lot of maintenance staff.

This came up awhile back, but I can't find the thread. Gist was: big underlying mortgage and high taxes.

Soho, is expensive.

This is the thread you are looking for:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/16991-250-mercer-street-co-op-please-help-me-with-some-adviceopinions
30-years participated in this discussion, he's very knowledgeable about downtown coops, so I would give his posts more weight.

This does not explain the why the maintenance went up so much since the place the listed last time a couple of years back. Morgage rates are only lower if the building refinanced. 13% increase in maintenance in less than 2 yeas is high for a place with already high maintenance.

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/85826-coop-250-mercer-street-noho-new-york

$3580 maintenance in the previous listing. Unionized employees, taxes and actual maintenance of the building is causing the increase in my best guess. The maintenance will only go up but your mortgage does not!! Given the high maintenance and broadway location makes the place overpriced by $300K in my opinion.

Taking into consideration a comp, for every $500 of higher maintenance, how much should the asking price be lowered to? anyone?

Simple math. Assuming maintenance will increase at the rate of inflation plus 1%. Calculate the present value of a growing annuity with the current interest rates. $500 a month is $6000 a year. I would calculate at least 30 years of that. $180,000 - I am assuming that the discount rate is the same as the rate of increase of maintenance. If the maintenance were to remain constant, its NPV would be lower. Say $100,000 at 5% discount rate. annual cost / (1- interest rate)

I'm not sure it's that simple. To me, it really depends why the maintenance is so far above the norm. Say a luxury, full service building in a prime location (with the staff and taxes to match) has a very high maintenance, because the board is conservative, the building is fancy and the owners like to have a big reserve fund. Should they be penalized? Not at all.
On the other hand, a building that was converted recently and saddled with an enormous debt and low reserves should take a well-deserved hit. Remember, you are buying shares in a corporation, not real estate. You can't have a simple formula based on absolute numbers.

Maly, for 250 mercer, I only calculating the reduction in value of the apartment due to the maintenance increase by $500 a month assuming all the services remained unchanged.

In your example, the building price should still be penalized as you are paying separately for those expensive services any way - and the cost of the unionized employees and their health care will continues to increase at a rate above inflation. Think GM.

Also the apartment is combination of 2br which is 1200 sq ft and 550 sq ft studio. Gets you to 1800 sq ft. Maintenance is higher than a similat 2br and a studio combo. Think coop jacked up the maintenance of the combined apartiment as some of the corridor store (30 sq ft) is now a part of the apartment.

Think 1.6mm is a fair price considering the kitchen and bathroom at ok but dated.