St. George Tower

yep...a huge mortgage on the building. Basically you are only buyign about 60% of the apartment as the buildings owes so much on the underlying mortgage.

I've never understood thwy that didnt matter to most new yorkers.......

Because by and large, most New Yorkers don't look at it that way -- as buying only "60% of the apartment". They look at it only in terms of THEIR mortgage and their bottom-line monthly maintenance charges. The building's underlying mortgage is not on their personal balance sheet, and unlike the size of their personal mortgage, has no effect on their ability to sell and leave.

Most co-ops were formed 20 or more years ago, and their underlying mortgages reflect that. A co-op accountant once told me they look at anything under $50K per apartment as being no big deal.

There're some co-ops with huge mortgages, in the tens of millions, often because they'd been land-lease and then recently bought the land. E.g., 2 Fifth and that one in the far-east 60s.

With those, when you allocate the mortgage per apartment, the numbers get high enough to impact the maintenance and prices.

Agreed, a lot of buyers don't pay much attention to the share of the debt (mortgage) and assets (reserve fund) they'd be taking on.

Forgot to say, that $50K is looked at in context.

Take 998 Fifth, with only 18 apartments. They're spending more than $6,000,000 on facade work. If they'd had to borrow, that'd be more than $300,000 per apartment, but still trivial relative to prices there.

(As it happened, several years ago they sold their ground-floor doctors' offices as an apartment, for $9,000,000, so didn't have to borrow.)

Didn't the St. George used to be an SRO, years ago -- before it got converted to condos?

There is probably a lot of mortgage debt on this property, as deanc said.

it was a hotel then turned long term welfare hotel, then..... finally condos

It's $11,000,000, not bad for that big a building.

The co-op has a pretty good web site: http://www.111hicksstreet.com/building/development_finance.php4

I have recently financed a unit in this building, and have it approved for great rates and cheap closing costs. Call or email me to find out more.

Michael Most
Senior Mortgage Consultant
917-841-8096
Email: michael.most@citi.com

The "MOST" Trusted Name in Home Loans !

Anyone know how much of the maintenance is tax deductible?

35%

Why so many apartments on sale all of a sudden? I wonder if people are fleeing the building? Any thoughts?

I haven't seen so many apartments for sale at the same time...Any idea why all of a sudden? Fleeing the building??

13 of 275 units on the market, 2 of those already contract. I haven't followed Brooklyn Heights lately...in Covid-Manhattan, those would be considered good numbers.

Maintenance also doesn't seem too excessive, about $2/ft from the handful of listings I browsed. For a building with minimal staff, that's high but not crazy.

No insight on how the mortgage/reserve situation has evolved from the comments 8yr ago. Do your diligence.

Joe, you are incorrect on a number of counts.

First of all, the cooperative corporation holds title to both tax lot that it occupies. Yes, when the coop was first considered, the buildings were leased from the City/State, but one building was transfered upon closing of the cooperative plan while the other (the tower) remained leased for tax abatement benefits. The tower was later purchased by the cooperative for a nominal fee ($10). Case in point, the coop holds fee title to both tax lots and the improvements thereon.

It is also not correct to say that the building's maintenance is "the highest in Brooklyn Heights." If you look at any of the other large cooperatives in the area, their maintenance is similar per square foot and layout. Every large, fireproof, elevator building in the area has seen a dramatic increase in their real estate taxes as almost every building has seen an increase in their assessed value of approximately 60% over the last five years. (Please see DOF records for 60 and 70 Remsen and 75 Henry and 101 Clark Street, for examples). Furthermore, to 111's credit, the building is able handle the increase in real estate taxes and also to undertake capital improvements without any special assessments, dramatic increases in maintenance, or reduction in services. Examples are a recently completed multi-million-dollar facade overhaul that took several years, the current elevator modernization project that involves complete overalls of all four elevators, and extensive impending roof repairs. The revolving debt is not a problem and is typically seen in other large building in the city. In fact, the mortgage was recently refinanced, which helped offset some of the increased real estate taxes that are due.

Funny that you brought up 75 Henry as an example to compare it with 111 Hicks - a perfect case in point, an average maintenance for a one bedroom apartment @ 75 Henry with a balcony and a view of the city is under $1000, a comparable apartment @ 111 Hicks (most don't have balconies) would have its maintenance north of $1,500; 2 bedrooms at 75 Henry have maintenance under $1,200, while at 111 Hicks it is around $2000. These numbers speak volumes.