Maintenance is nuts. How do I fix it & stay in NY?

While your post is thin in details (Apt size, doorman or not, floor etc), living in Manhattan will never be cheap. You have real estate taxes, elevator, and having some one manage (super, maintaining common areas, managing agent) the building for you aren’t cheap in Manhattan due to high labor cost. In a house, owner puts in a lot of time to maintain the house and arranges for the various contractors to come in for routine repairs. In a coop, you aren’t doing any of that. Zillow is a good place for you to compare the costs vs other cities but Manhattan being more expensive is a fact. And you forgot city income tax which you don’t have in almost all other places.

Or you can just compare rental prices for a similar apartments in various cities. You will get your answer on the cost differential. Manhattan is just more expensive in every way vs other US cities except for the transportation cost if you take the subway.

To live in a co-op or rental apartment, particularly in New York, is essentially to have servants: somebody to shovel the snow, sweep the sidewalk, maintain the furnace, water heater, pipes, take in packages and mail, open the door, keep the hallways clean, drive the taxi or subway, prepare the restaurant and take out food, and provide all the services of urban living. The fewer amenities you have or use, the fewer servants you will need.

New York is an excellent retirement community - Lots to do at all prices levels, excellent medical facilities, lots of transportation options for non-drivers, easy access to groceries, prepared food, etc. And, with your building help, it's essentially a form of assisted living facility (without the meds!). But, it is a luxury facility, and many people's retirement income or health isn't up to the task. (I'd suggest that the apples to apples comparison is not apartment vs house. It's apartment vs an actual facility.)

> While your post is thin in details (Apt size, doorman or not, floor etc)

Roughly 40 units, no doorman, fifth floor, elevator, landmarked building

Interestingly put, Aaron2!

Completely agree with Aaron2. NYC is a great place to retire. Many of city amenities are heavily discounted and optimized for seniors. I am trying to convince my mom to buy a HDFC coop instead of her house when she retires, so she doesn't have to handle garbage and repairs

>Roughly 40 units, no doorman, fifth floor, elevator, landmarked building
how large is the apartment? How many bedrooms/bathrooms?

NYC coops maintenance is high primarily because of taxes, with labor costs being a distant second reason, and most coops have a collective mortgage which can contribute to high maintenance depending on size. RE taxes in NYC are calculated in ways that are dumb and unfair, and Manhattan apartment dwellers are subsidizing rest of the city, paying more than would be fair based on property values. My apartment building has a doorman and an elevator, yet about 70% of total maintenance goes towards paying taxes (and I can back into how much of my apartment's maintenance goes towards taxes by applying this ratio). I have a small house in another state far away, and the taxes on that house PER YEAR are lower than taxes on my NYC apartment PER MONTH (the value of the house is ~1/3 the value of NYC apartment).

Outside NYC, taxes are really variable. In Westchester and NJ, I have been looking at some 3br+ houses and they all have taxes in $1100-1800 per month range, or about 1.5-2% of value of the house per year, basically similar to my apartment. However, NJ and NY have discounts on taxes for seniors (there might be income thresholds to get the discount), and if you instead get an apartment, it would be a lot cheaper than a house with lower taxes.

Taxes vary a lot by state. Texas that does not charge some other taxes, so they make up for it in high real estate taxes. Check this out:
https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/property-taxes-by-state

Seconding Krolik's idea that co-op maintenance is mostly taxes, and adding that this is a political choice to tax property (which is held by middle class and rich people) rather than income (which comes overwhelmingly to rich people). We have a middle-of-the-road Democratic governor, and a conservative, basically Republican mayor, so I guess this political choice doesn't irritate others the way it irritates me.

Labor is a big second, and prevailing wage just hurt buildings that were trying to use nonunion labor. (Buildings do have a choice not to sign onto prevailing wage, but then they lose their tax abatements.)

If you already don't have a doorman, then it's hard to cut your labor costs more. One possibility is to move into a building that has more units (so your proportionate share of the super's salary goes down).

ali r.
{upstairs realty}

I'd echo Ali/Krolik here in terms of cost.
While NYC might be a "good" place to retire if by "good" we mean fun, and your nest egg will support it..

People vastly underestimate how much lower your burn rate will be literally anywhere else.

My hometown where my parents still reside, their RE tax has been flat to down for 20 years.. in nominal terms. In real terms it's down-down. My house in nowhere hasn't really had a tax increase.

People also sometimes overestimate home maintenance costs to justify living in apartments.
Instead of $20-30k/year outgoing (with above-inflation increases) forever in maintenance .. you have a handful of regular maintenance stuff in the $5k range. Occasionally you have some big ticket $10-20k range items that need replacing every 20 years. The list of these is finite, and doesn't add up to the $15-25k/year difference in ongoing regular maintenance cost.

Further, the cost of labor for any trades in the city is vastly higher than the rest of the country. I can probably repaint my entire house for what 3 different guys referred by my super wanted to simply paint my master bath in NYC. There's numerous small things I have done around the house that I end up like.. $200 bills. I haven't had anyone in the trades into my apartment to do anything that didn't cost 2-3x that.

NYC cable/internet is about 2-3x my nowhere bill. NYC electricity rates are 2x my nowhere rate.

My retired parents & in-laws burn rates in their respective paid off 3 bed/3 bath home is easily under $1k/month all-in.

That's less than maintenance&tax on even a paid off studio in NYC, and then you need to pay insurance/electric/gas/internet/cable/garage parking/xmas tips/etc.

Totally agree. My 4br/3ba + garage + backyard house in nowhere has taxes of less than $1500 per year!!! Maintenance did add up to quite a bit (spent around $3k last year on repairs), and I am paying for a home warranty ($650/y) and insurance ($1k/y). Mortgage is not a lot because the property was cheap, below case-shiller average.

But what to do in that town that has a line at Applebees (because there isn't really any better place to eat or enough restaurants in general)? and how to get around?

You would have to add a car, car maintenance, gas, and car insurance to your mix of expenses.

Also, schools in that town suck, not sure how good the hospitals are, and as a female still of reproductive age, I am concerned that the red state does not allow abortions.

@Krolik - for sure, but there's a wide range of "nowheres" to fit interests & budgets.

My nowhere / parents / in-laws are all in blue states.

My in-laws live in a town with a walkable downtown filled with cafes, restaurants, book shop, record store, and other small retail.. some of which is long gone in NYC due to high rents. The last time I was there it was actually full of rainbow flags for pride celebration. Nonetheless a great home could certainly be had below $500k, and if not picky, half that.

Not everything is "Manhattan or Alabama".

Different goods & services needs from private & public sector depending on where one is in their life, so that mix is going to be very different between a retiree vs a family with young children.

Re: car, I think you'll find yourself owning one, one way or another, in the next decade. Almost every NYC real estate owning, young child having couple I know ends up doing it eventually. Even with how much more of an expensive luxury it ends up being in the city.

Let's take a nice Nowhere - Omaha Nebraska. You can buy a 623ft condo in downtown Omaha that's walkable and near good hospitals for $155k, $249/month maintenance. Where they get you is on property taxes - they add $175/month, which is high relative to the market value of the property. Even with a mortgage, that's a total housing cost of less than $1000. If you have $155k laying around, your housing cost is still only about $425 a month. (I'm looking at 300 S 16th St Apt 402.)

So yes, as Mike Bloomberg said, living in NYC is a luxury. If things like abortions on demand and the opera are so important to you that you'll pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for such luxuries, more power to you. Just don't kvetch about the cost of living here.

(I realize the irony of my statement as a NY resident - but as people here know, I've been ready to move to Nowhere for a long time.)

@George - exactly
I'm not sure what the number is, but I fully believe past a certain income, staying in NYC is diminishing returns. Mostly because that level of income could allow you to live like a king anywhere else, rather than feel "middle class" in NYC.

Re: arguing the convenience of building staff as "servants" who handle "all the little things" that a homeowner has to otherwise. I disagree.. there's tons of things that need repair or service in both a condo & home - HVAC, appliance, plumbing, paint, drywall, lighting fixtures, etc.. which are the higher wear & tear items you will be dealing with more often, and they are all worse/slower/more $$ in city.

In nowhere, I call my guy and he shows up, sorts it out day or night, weekday or weekend. No delays, no filing paperwork with a management company for approval. No coordinating water/gas line shutdowns scheduled in advance. Even an interior painter had to file paperwork with my building to be legit.

Simple appliance replacements are a mess, city units have odd sized appliances & everything built now is built-ins.. which looks great until you have to replace any appliance. Good luck finding exact same size. I have an appliance on the way out that is going to cost 4x to replace because it's a built in and the cabinetry door is damaged. A friend is basically living w/o a working stove & oven since replacing the odd sized unit essentially means renovating his whole kitchen. Another friend who went through the same for months when their building had a gas line issue, they finally gave up and switched to electric. Imagine not being able to cook in your $4M loft for months and the resolution costing $5k?

In the city I am subject to leaks from my neighbors units or building facade which I can not control, nor resolve myself. I am also subject to building plumbing issues like hot/cold water mixing due to complex valve/recirculation pumps and hot/cold cartridges failing in other units

In my home, I might pay a few grand to add another line to my mini split AC system. In my condo, my guest bedroom / home office is generally 5-7F+ different than rest of apartment. Adding a zone, if even possible, would require sacrificing a closet, condo approval & coordination for the fluid loop modification, new ductwork, and $1000s in drywall/paint repair alone. Probably a $10K project if I was lucky.

So in your own home, you pick up the phone and write a smaller check. You decide what, how much, and when to fix things.

In the city, there are about 15 other steps involved, it takes longer, costs more, and sometimes you do not get a say. Even getting a sofa delivered is calls/emails/paperwork.

>> I'm not sure what the number is, but I fully believe past a certain income, staying in NYC is diminishing returns. Mostly because that level of income could allow you to live like a king anywhere else, rather than feel "middle class" in NYC.

Past a certain income, you can live like a king wherever you want, including NYC.

So much depends on what you want. I know people with 8-figure incomes & 9-figure net worths perfectly happy in “middle class” Manhattan apts. In the most extreme case, it’s a $2M / 1600 sq ft apt, with kids, no second home. On the flip side, I have friends in their late 20’s with total HHI in the mid-6-figures living in $8-10K/mo apts, wearing expensive clothes, and vacationing in hotels that cost $1500 a night. I lived my 20’s perfectly contently on an income of $40K/yr in today’s money.

If $1500/mo in maintenance is an issue for the OP, I’d suggest figuring out another way of living that is financially comfortable without concern. Life’s too short, and worrying about making ends meet in your later years doesn’t seem any fun.

Keep in mind property tax rebates kick in for seniors at 82k per year and get more generous on a sliding scale as income lowers. And NY state does not tax SS income.

One of the first things someone told me was that maintenance only goes up. This, plus the fact that many buildings may need extensive work due to local law 97, probably make buying less than what you can afford advisable. All the amenities that NY has to offer come at a cost. Opera tickets are not cheap.

Does anyone know if there's a tax map of NYC? Or are all buildings assessed without regard to neighborhood or borough?

>Does anyone know if there's a tax map of NYC? Or are all buildings assessed without regard to neighborhood or borough?

Taxes are very much neighborhood dependent.

Indeed, and they only go up.
Further, if you purchase in what is currently an “underpriced” area, the taxes are likely to converge quickly.

My new dev condo in WB taxes are up 40% in 6 years (as is my maintenance).

Meanwhile an established UWS condo I lived in previously looks to only be up about 20% tax wise in same period.

Does that 40% include any phaseout of abatement?

@nada - no, we never had an abatement

unless you buy a brownstone that benefits from a cap on SF homes. Some owners of 4000 sqft properties only pay few hundred dollars a month

@Krolik thanks for that - does the city publish a map or even a list of whatever they use to determine neighborhood lines (census blocks?census tracts?) by property tax rates? I've been looking at NYC.gov's planning website but see nothing available. This is mostly just my inner nerd wondering and I love maps.

It is supposedly based on equivalent unit rent income, though how they derive that I don't know.
https://streeteasy.com/blog/nyc-property-taxes/

Full service Co-Op buildings have maintenance that is roughly $1500-$2000/sf. A 1000 sf apartment probably has $2000/month maintenance, but that escalates as the floors rise

Maintenance also includes NYC real estate taxes , which are in the range of 50-65% of the maintenance total. (i.e. , a $2000/month maintenance may have $1200 in RE taxes imbedded)
Staff expenses are usually 15-20%
All other expenses may total 20% ( heating, insurance , management costs, elevators, plumbing)

I think more owners will find maintenance increasing over the next few years, as coops are forced to refinance their mortgages at higher rates and their multiyear contracts for services expire and need to be renegotiated at prices impacted by inflation. Running expenses in my coop (largish 1920s elevator building in decent shape, no doorman) are up 20% or more since 2019 and you better believe that maintenance has kept up with the costs.

And don't forget huge increases from Local Law 97 mandates.

Interested parties can use this calculator to quantify the increase. FYI, default energy costs are commercial rather than residential rates, but it's not hard to look up any changes:
https://www.be-exchange.org/calculator/.

My coop seems to be ok for the next decade at least.

Source: https://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/Bricks-Bucks/2022/A-New-Tool-to-Help-Co-ops-and-Condos-Cut-Carbon-Emissions

@Dickens Add to that eventual costs as LL97 is phased in

@Dickens: Thanks for the calculator link! My building looks good until 2040 (at which time I don't expect to be there anyway), but we've also been reasonably aggressive about heating/cooling system upgrades, and I don't know if those are reflected in the calculator's numbers.

If the olds on the board would cut back a bit on the heating, we'd probably be good into the next century.