RE Tax increases since 2006 in your Coop?

About the same here.

2009 $12,203
2008 ..$9,884
2007 ..$9,382
2006 ..$7,882
2005 ..$6,297
2004 ..$4,270
2003 ..$5,970
2002 ..$3,453
2001 ..$3,233
2000 ..$2,980

we've been kinda lucky in our Tax-Abated, Income Restricted Coop.
Its not an HDFC but a 250% of Median Income Limited Coop.
That comes to a household income of less than 192K/year.

Where we have been lucky is that Maintenance has decreased 2 years in a row.
Small percentages but definitely greatly appreciated!
Is it any wonder our Board has been happily and easily re-elected!!

Curious though, given the NYC+NY State of Financial Affairs, Property Tax increases seem to be a way to raise lots of revenue without much ability on the taxpayers part to complain. Sure you can protest but does it really do any good?

How to account for that sort of thing when thinking of a Coop or Condo purchase these days?
X amount today could be 3X next year??

Can only bleed the people so much. Need to do away with the abatements. Surprised they don't enact new taxes on abated properties.

Executives at Related have begun to complain because they are beginning to lose tax abatements on their 80/20 rental buildings. At first, I thought their complaints were off-base, because, after-all they have had the abatements for twenty years. Then I looked at the city's co-op and condo comparable rents analysis on ACRIS and I realized that Related has got a point. Look at the assumed gross income per square foot by building type which is the key yardstick for tax assessments. Almost every recent or 20 or even 30 year old cookie cutter condo is appraised at 42. Many coops are at 25 to 35. 15 CPW is at 57, while 740 Park Avenue is at 36. Market rate rental buildings are at 50. There is no fairness to the system but many coops are still advantaged, compared to condos.

The entire assessed value based on comp rentals is crazy. A building 1 block from me has much lower comparable rents but has a doorman and roof deck. We don't. For some reason, one of our comparable rents is a park avenue doorman building. I am on UWS.

The whole system is based on rental rates because if they used unit sales, then Coop and Condo owners would really have something to complain about. Related's complaints may not be as valid as they may seem: they not only got the tax abatements, they got market rent for that time period. The reason why older Coops and Condos have lower taxes is because the buildings they are comparable to ALSO pay lower taxes as rental buildings. It's not really a Coops vs Condos thing, either. In most cases it's an "age of the building" issue. For example, 15 CPW was built in what, 2007? 740 Park - 1930?

Now, how about some numbers from you Coop unit owners?

30yrs, if they're like me they can't find their old co-op financials. That's why I calculated from the per-share amounts in the annual tax letters.

bob420, isn't your co-op paying a tax-certiori(?) lawyer to challenge your comparables? Mine are 375 WEA and 25 W 81st, which seem OK. Our gross-per-ft² is $31.

30yrs, I appreciate your point about the age of buildings. Still cannot reconcile why an expensive rental zip code like 10014 has lower gross income per square foot numbers. Yes, the buildings are older, and there are certainly some rs/rc tenants, but the market rates are at a huge premium to generic uptown buildings with higher gross inc psf figures. Tax-wise, I admire the 1961-built condo component of Park West Village on the UWS because their gross inc psf is 15! The apartments used to be priced at a discount as well, but the introduction of Whole Foods onsite has eliminated that. In fact they are asking a slight premium to the immediate neighborhood now.

My tax records indicate i paid lower property taxes in 2009 than 2006 (timing?), but I paid 24% more in 2009 than 2005. That was on a condo, just for your comparison purposes.

Actually, we are challenging. But I think it is going to trial and can take about 3 or so years. In the mean time, we've been told that we can't apply for any yearly reductions or whatever crumbs they throw you. Pick or choose.

I think with the budgetary problems going forward, the city will continue to feel pressure to raise property taxes. It only makes sense that it raise the taxes of the advantaged owners disproportionately. It is a natural consequence of ACRIS and the easy, transparent comparisons of obviously wealthy residents paying low taxes.

Co-op owners, in general, pay much less/sales price for taxes than newly-built unabated condos. Prewar co-ops do better than postwar co-ops in the same area.

I am in a pre war coop and I can't imagine paying more in taxes than I am for a 750 sq ft 1 BR.

Tell me how much your apt would sell for, and your taxes.

Thats exactly where things get even more shady, PMG!
Property Taxes are THE untapped source of INCOME to very cash strapped NY with its relatively low Property Tax Rates . . .

and where will it end, fairly or not? . . . just bleed em as dry as possible?
The wealthy are connected enough, so it likely wont happen disproportionately to them!
Not everyone, though, who owns ANY type of Property in NY has the funds to dispute Property Taxes!
What?? hire an Attorney to certify Property Tax rates/amounts, at his hourly rate, to help him cover his Property Taxes??

In todays Ownership Game, how does make provisions for this going forward?

And what about these new Condos and Coops with The Tax Abatement Future Time Bombs??
Abatements vary in expiration: 7-10-15-20-25 Years where the Taxes are expected to literally QUADRUPLE!!

Doesn't seem like it could anyhow be 'pretty'

Hundreds of thousands, or even millions stashed, is not going to be enough, if Joe Blow walking down the street cant scrape 2 nickels together!
[ . . . and there are thousands of Joe Blows; we and they, just dont know it quite yet, but we've seen some of their relatives before -- Metrocards help MTA riders take subways and buses to ALL parts of NYC!!]

or is it enuff to just kinda bide time n hope for the best? . . . . what? . . . . Andy Cuomo is gonna save us?
He's got his own damn Property Taxes to pay, and HIS Time, to bide!

Check out the taxes at 200 RSB, very close to or past the abatement period.

The gross inc psf of generic condos is 42. RSB is slightly higher. Rushmore higher still, as are some other luxury condos from this decade. Super luxury condos are in the 50s. Why should 25 CPW, a prewar condo in lux Columbus Circle nabe be 38? Why should Park West Village, a comfortable 1960 condo be 15 which is lower than most of Central Harlem?

It doesn't even matter what the apt would sell for because the assessed value keeps going up even with rents and prices decreasing.

I don't know your building, but the assessed value is a fixed % of the market value. So even if the market is down, your bldg may be catching up to its assessed value.

PMG: then you'll really choke on Brooklyn brownstone taxes :) If a bstone has been a 1 or 2 or 3 family for a long time, you're looking at annual taxes below 10k on a 3m brownstone.

Bob if you're not paying around $500 /mo in real estate taxes, you're getting a deal, and your taxes will rise faster than the average. That's just my opinion.

Forgive my ignorance as I know nothing about coops, but wouldn't some of the increases in coops taxes be attributed to refinancing by the coops because of lowering interest rates. And these refis causing new current appraisals increasing the tax?

Bob: just think what you would be paying in taxes for a postwar new condo-as-built (unabated). It's somewhat irrelevant to look at what other buildings are paying (though not irrelevant to look at their market value).

10023, I'm familiar with the brownstone brooklyn tax advantage. It used to be quite a bit more of an advantage in Manhattan then it is now. The DOF has been ratcheting up the assessments on Manhattan brownstones for years. But there is some odd law, a bit like rent control idiocy that limits tax increases on brownstones, irrespective of the assessed values.

I am paying about 700 a month in taxes.

Truth: nope, nothing to do with that.

For all buildings, a "market" value is determined. That market value may be close to what can be realized on the market if the building were sold or not (this is what 30yrs is saying - for large buildings, market value for co-ops/condos is THEORETICALLY based on market value of similarly sized rentals).

Multiply the market value by fixed % (every category has a different #), you get assessed value, and then multiply assessed value by fixed % to get taxes owed.

For many buildings, NYC Finance Dep't has an assessed value LOWER than the maximum assessed value by formula.
For 1-3 fam dwellings, this is because increases in assessed value are capped (thus the low taxes on Bk brownstones) barring significant renovation (and only if they figure that out).
I don't know what the formula is for limiting the assessed value of larger buildings - I imagine there is one, and most buildings are slowly/quickly catching up to their assessed value. For newly built condos with unabated taxes (or where the abatement has run out), there is no "capping" of the assessed value. Thus they tend to pay the higher taxes.

This explains almost all the examples given by PMG.
1) 25CPW is a PREWAR condo, so it's being compared to other prewar rentals. You also get low taxes at 500WEA and the Ansonia (other prewar condos). Ditto the Mercantile.
2) Super luxury newly-built condos once past whatever abatement they get pay the highest/sqft taxes.

PMG: only if you have actual RC/RS units in yr building.

Bob240: your taxes may be high compared to other co-ops in your area, esp. prewar co-ops, but it isn't high necessarily compared to a newly-built unabated condo (think of that as your max).

The reason I mentioned the other building 1 block away is because our management company manages that building as well and agreed that there was no reason our gross-per-ft² is considerably higher.

Bob240: as far as I know, you can appeal the market value. But not the assessed value, since that is formulaic and it is irrelevant as to how close other buildings are to their formulaic assessed value. If you find differently, please let me know.

Bob240: have you looked at the other building's gross income/sqft, not just the one that happens to be abnormally low? Unfortunately, you can't cherry pick your examples when making the case to the Finance Dep't.

i looked up my old building. there just happens to be a unit in the same line as the one i had, one flight lower. i don't recall what my taxes were when i sold, but i know they were right around $400 when I bought. common charges were also $400, this was 2001. condo conversion, 1980's i believe, of a pre-war warehouse, no doorman (which i think affects the taxes a fair amount).

today, the taxes are over $900. total taxes and common charges have more than doubled since 2001. total taxes and common charges are now more than half of what i pay in rent.

I looked up the comparables and don't understand why they are both on the UES when my building is on UWS. I would think a comparable would be something in the same area.

Bob: so look at other buildings in your area (not just the super-low example) and see what they are assessed at.

Buildings like the Sofia on the UWS or Mercantile in Chelsea which were prewar industrial / warehouse conversions benefit from the prewar rental comparison. But it is disingenuous since 100% or the units were gut renovated in the 80s and 90s. These buildings are nicer than new construction condos of their conversion eras, but they pay less in taxes. They are not like the standard residential prewar conversions where you have old rs/rc tenants in place, theoretically devaluing the gross inc psf in the buildings.

AR: yes, taxes have doubled, even the "super-low" bldgs. My biggest reason for getting a sale of the Stuy-PCV complexes to tenants is the increased tax revenues for the city. I would bet that the owners, both Metlife & Tishman, even accounting for the illegal tax reduction, were not paying what a co-op would be.

Doesn't matter if it's silly, it's the law. Sorry, Matt, not one that we can choose to break. I am not going into my personal tax situation, but it would be enough to make one sick as to the "injustice". I just comfort myself with thinking that I pay far less than an owner of a larger apt at 200RSB :)

The city's spreadsheets (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/property/property_condo_coop_comp_rental.shtml) for 2010/2011 are fun to play with.

FWIW, lowest average gross-per-ft² is $12.86 for the 26 D4 buildings in neighborhood Harlem-Upper.

Highest is $36.60 for the 55 in Village-Central.

My neighborhood (130 buildings) will average $34, so my $32 next year won't be that bad.

PMG, i agree. the condo conversions were often a good deal. but not all of them. some of the later ones are paying a much higher amount in taxes.

10023, it would be interesting to see what the taxes would be here. no doorman lowers it significantly, i believe, but yes i doubt tishman and metlife were paying much of anything in taxes here. what would be great for the city would also be the transfer taxes.

Is it common practice to use rent comparables for value purposes that are in entirely different neighborhoods? Seems strange to me.

Should enact a new tax on tax abated properties.

Bob: FYI, taxes on 10-1br-unit walkup apt buildings (usually converted bstones) average 80k in the W70s. So that's approx. 8k annually per unit, which is more or less what you're paying.

Bob: no, I don't think it's common practice. But I don't know how much it will help you to look at taxes on comparable bldgs on the UWS, because assessments are also high. Just be careful of what you wish for.
As for abated bldgs, time takes care of that. 10 years are up in no time at all.

Hmmm, highest D4s in Manhattan, at $50, are the Sherry Netherland and http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/16-west-74-street-manhattan.

NWT: we should meet up so I can tell you my tale of tax woes.

Time will take care of it but in the meantime they will squeeze every last drop out of taxable properties. It's not like once the abatements are up, taxes will go back down.

Yes, but you know that abated buyers pay through the nose for that privilege, because they overvalue the abated taxes. Doesn't help you, I know.