Q Three shareholders organized the development of 861 square feet of unused courtyard space behind their building, after having surveyed the building for interest (57 percent of shareholders responded—of which 70 percent were in favo…

I currently run my family’s construction business and have been doing so since I left management business over four years ago. Recently, I was asked to renovate an apartment for a client in a luxurious East Side apartment building. The b…

It’s no secret—in fact, it’s been a problem for years: residential developers in Manhattan and other hot areas like Downtown Brooklyn are running out of space. Various solutions have been applied to the space issue over the years.…

Mortgage financiers are gearing up for a different lending landscape in 2007. To succeed in the coming year, lenders will need to pay attention, look around and get in front of trends.  Here are a few trends we can already foresee: …

One of the major initiatives which will soon benefit New York City’s co-op and condominium landscape is the ongoing effort to certify the resident managers and superintendents that live and work in city housing. It’s time to dust off A…

There is a tendency among many co-op boards, building managers and developers to consider “green” building technologies as extras—or as luxuries that have nothing to do with their need to reduce costs. That kind of thinking is so …

There was a time when many of the city’s key resident management/superintendent associations didn’t communicate much. The Manhattan Resident Managers Club, Inc., the Metropolitan Building Managers of New York, the Scandinavian-American B…

Westchester County is known for, among other things, its grand, multi-million dollar mansions and historic homes found in its posh communities such as Scarsdale, Bronxville and Brewster. Many of these homes were built in the 1950s, when …

In what may prove to be a significant victory for cooperative and condominium boards sued for housing discrimination, an appellate court recently applied the protection of the business judgment rule to a discrimination claim for disabili…

The bathroom is one of the most used rooms in the home—albeit in short intervals.  We all have our own vision of the ultimate bathroom, from natural light and optimal storage space, to telephones, Jacuzzi baths and flat screen TVs. But u…