Category: Building Operations

Like people, buildings age. Even under the best of atmospheric conditions, dust, dirt and grime accumulate, changing a building’s appearance over time. Often it’s not until a building’s façade is cleaned that one notices how it was dirty to…

Hiring any type of professional is a delicate process - but when your building or HOA's curb appeal is in the balance, choosing the right pro for the job is crucial to maintaining value and keeping trees, plants, flowerbeds, and other lands…

What's a reserve study, and why should your building or HOA conduct them regularly? Find out why they're a crucial part of your community's financial, mechanical, and structural health! 

If you are a New York homeowner, you may have heard about STAR , a program under the state's Department of Taxation and Finance that helps provides property tax relief.  If not, you may be missing out on potential savings. Here's an in…

Like single-family homes, condominium units tend to be owner-occupied. Financing for these units therefore tends to follow traditional guidelines and requirements centered on owner occupancy. But what happens when a condo unit is held as an…

In recent years, “home-sharing” or “short-term” rental sites have been experiencing increasing popularity as well as political and media attention in many so-called destination cities. At the time of this article, the most popular of these …

In any large city, parking is a big deal—it’s often hard to find, and when you do find a spot, it can be very expensive. Parking spaces not only provide urban drivers with freedom and mobility in the crowded cityscape, but they can be a ser…

Today, some eight years after the Great Recession, financing for co-op and condominium buildings and individual unit purchases is widely available.  The market is overall quite healthy, and though there have been some systemic changes to th…

For many people, one of the most attractive aspects of co-op or condo living is the fact that everything, from the windows to the elevators to the numbers on the apartment doors, looks great; clean, bright, elegant and well-maintained. For …

By all accounts, the New York City co-op and condo market is continuing its healthy, active trend of the past few years (although the frantic activity of the immediate post-Recession years seems to have eased somewhat—particularly at the up…