Condos or Coops

Manhattan

fieldchester, would you care to elaborate? The new condo building at Downtown Brooklyn is very appealing, with 421 tax abatement.

It's Brooklyn, not Manhattan. And downtown Brooklyn, so you can't even say it's an interesting, fun, charming part of Brooklyn.

and tax abatements eventually run out.

I vote for Sutton Place, convenient to everything in midtown. If you tell me you work in Brooklyn or on Wall Street I might give you a different answer. Also you will generally get more space in an older co-op than in a new condo for the $1.5 mm.

I am mostly a Manhattan co-op broker, but a couple of years ago I put a client in a condo building in Downtown Brooklyn, and he's very happy there. Depending on your commute, need for services, etc., I would say Downtown Brooklyn. Just realize that the building boom is creating a lot of new stock that might be competition in the rental market, so even though a condo offers the advantages of being more rentable than a co-op, I wouldn't count on it being rentable at a great price.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Given in the amount of price growth in each of those 2 markets, my gut feeling is that if there comes a market correction it will be worse in the Brooklyn property.