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…
Property maintenance is a major responsibility of ownership. In many unique ways, maintenance programs in a co-op or condo buildings – especially in older properties having architectural or design features with important artistic histories…
Trees may seem like the ultimate in low-maintenance landscaping; they’re naturally occurring, live for decades (sometimes centuries), don’t really require much in the way of watering, and sometimes don’t even need pruning. But while all t…
Building maintenance follows a schedule based on the seasons, each of which presents a unique set of challenges to a co-op or condo. At certain times of the year, it just makes sense to do certain regular maintenance projects: weatherizing,…