52 East 78 street

Is the idea to be in the PS6 zone? This one looks to be as cheap as you'll find, but for a little more money and quite a bit less maintenance you could get more space, e.g. at 65 E 76th or in the chunk of the zone that's east of Park.

Yes PS6 is the idea, the one on 76th is pretty attractive and larger but again a 50% cash down is over my capacity.
I can do a max 35% down. I just know the space will be tight in 4-5 years and to resell with this high maintenance might be an issue?

Something is off about 52E78. The last sale with financing was in 2008, and it doesn't even show up in . http://worldonefinancial.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/coop-listing-citi-2012.pdf. I don't think it's the $100K in underlying mortgage per average apartment, which is high but not that high, but you should ask your mortgage broker what's going on with it.

Doesn't matter, though, as 4-5 years isn't long enough to be selling then buying again.

The broker mentioned a bad deal with the retail/ doc space on the ground level.

You could drop the west of Lex thing. There are four blocks 79th to 84th ok for PS6 to 3 Av.

i hear good things about the schools in westchester.