building at 42 West 71st Street

True. But the seller is spectacularly unmotivated. Inherited the townhouse, and is now just sitting on it.

And the seller appears to believe the market is still rising having offered it 6 months ago at $6.5mm!

6.5m was with the rent-controlled tenant in place. 7m+ is to have it delivered vacant.

Does it cost $500k to vacate tenants? Why would anyone pay for that?????

If it is a rent controlled unit, I don't believe vacancy automatically 'de-controls' it. I'm no expert but have done some checking on this. Perhaps others more knowledgeable could fill in.

True, but if you have complete vacancy, you can file to convert the entire house to 1-family or 2-family, and poof, the apartment vanishes so the rent-control status is moot. If you did NOT change the C of O, then yes, you are right, apt remains RC unless you spend enough money renovating it to bring the legal rent to above 2k or whatever the "luxury" decontrol rent is now.

UWSmom - the tenant pays $100 or something like that. Why on earth would you not ask for 500k to vacate? RC lease is a very valuable thing to have.

Also, another way to relocate tenant is to offer him/her comparable space elsewhere and hope that they will accept - to buy a studio somewhere else and pay the maintenance is close to 500k - don't forget, once someone has made it to their 60s with no major diseases like cancer and no chronic diseases like diabetes, MS, PS, their projected lifespan is much greater than the average lifespan of say, a 20 year old.

I assumed the 500k was payment to the current owner to do the work of vacating someone, not direct payment to the tenant. Is that how it typically works, RC tenants get paid off? Yes - I would ask for as much as I could get if I were one.

However, as the new owner, couldn't you begin renovating the place with the RC tenant still there. Could make for pretty unpleasant living conditions (which could motivate them to move sooner or for a lower price)? That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure many smart people have already dealt w/ this and many other annoying scenarios that are very hard to solve.

Right, presumably the current owner has already talked it over with the RC tenant and the 500k differential reflects what the RC tenant wants.

You can renovate with the RC tenant there but remember, their living conditions cannot be affected adversely. You can do unpleasant things like shutting off the water, turning off the heat but they can equally do things (and remember RC tenants are usually retired and have time) like call the DOB to shut down your job, etc.

RC tenants are a tenacious bunch - if the apt is indeed their primary residence, they have lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s in NYC and they're not going to go without a fight.

And also, if you are renovating around the tenant, you can't count on them moving out and in the interim, that affects the type of renovation you can do. In this case, I believe the tenant has 3rd floor rear studio, so you cannot take over the staircase which is a huge waste of space.

Good for them!! I don't know if I'd have the heart make their life truly miserable, but I could certainly threaten w/ the best of them.

Regardless of the rent control tenant, it still needs to be gutted - they aren't offering a discount for it.

No, they are certainly not offering any kind of discount. Time will tell if the seller really has to sell.