When it comes to tax revenue, New York City has 20.4 billion reasons to thank the real estate industry. According to trade association Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the city's real estate industry generated about $20.4 billi…
A home equity line of credit (HELOC) is defined by Wikipedia as “a loan in which the lender agrees to lend a maximum amount within an agreed period (called a term), where the collateral is the borrower’s equity in his/her house (akin to…
There has been a recent push by federal, state and local legislators to get reverse mortgages or Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) approved for residential cooperatives. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) h…
As just about every mother tells her child, it’s important to share with others. The same can be true when it comes to condos and homeowners associations — especially for smaller buildings that may be doing everything they can to control co…
With the advent of benchmarking and retrofitting programs in New York City and throughout the nation, more condo and co-op properties are becoming knowledgeable about the latest energy technology and its associated cost-savings. They are re…
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 …
Small co-ops and condos face a special set of challenges relative to controlling expenses. The building has to be heated, the real estate taxes paid, and the halls cleaned. Unlike in larger buildings, the cost isn’t shared by dozens or pe…
As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., once said, taxes are the price we pay for civilization. While that may be true, its truth doesn't make a hefty tax bill any easier to swallow, especially when it comes to city and state property taxes. There…
When it comes to multi-family communities with shared accommodations, failing to plan for a rainy day could mean that when the rains do eventually come—and they will—bailing out will be much harder, and more costly, than it might have been …
When the Bloomberg mayoral administration launched PlaNYC in 2007, New York City took notice. The program focused on the environment, and included everything from planting street trees to reducing carbon emissions, upgrading building codes …