In the past few years, new products have become available that offer many advantages to co-ops and condos. Here are just a few of the products that we have found most beneficial from the standpoint of economy and reliability. Infrared M…
In many co-ops and condos it is the managing agent's responsibility to work with the board, superintendent and maintenance staff, vendors and other building professionals to create a safe and satisfying living environment for shareholders. …
The Off-Season: Keeping Your Boiler Efficient Through the Spring, Summer and Fall Now that winter is drawing to a close, residential and commercial buildings will soon be switching their heating systems off and their air conditio…
Once upon time, finding a new apartment in Manhattan began with the classified ad pages of the New York Times. Perused over Sunday morning brunch, and circled with red ink, these ads led the prospective buyer to brokers' offices, open house…
Imagine living in a building where your neighbors do whatever renovation work they want with no restrictions. Some believe they are do-it-yourself electricians and they move wiring within the apartment. Others put kitchens in the basement. …
The offices of Benjamin James Associates, a 60-broker real estate firm in downtown Manhattan, look nothing like the typical brokerage firms dotting the city. No signs outside the old Broadway office building near Union Square announce the p…
In the final years of the 20th Century, buyers of Manhattan residential real estate faced the Herculean task of facing the capital gains tax law, which eliminated the "rollover" of capital gains from the sale of one primary residence to the…
It wasn’t so long ago that most New York City real estate professionals disdained all electronic devices. Sage advice dictated that nothing would replace the face-to-face or voice-to-voice relationship between buyer and broker and seller an…
Back in 1995 I barely knew what the Internet was. No one knew that it would do more than anything to change homebuying process since the classified ad. Our little website experiment called corcoran.com has grown bigger than The Corcoran Gro…
By all accounts, 1999 was a banner year for New York real estate. On virtually all fronts, 1999 broke all previous records both in the market in general, and here at William B. May. Prices at every level have increased. Large apartments wer…