Some co-ops won’t let residents move out

A building in the Windsor Oaks complex in Bayside, Queens.

The problem with co-op boards trying to maintain price floors is not a new one.  But it is a nasty one.

The New York Daily News underscored the point in chronicling the plights a while back of one Tom McClusky, who inherited a three-bedroom co-op in Bayside, Queens, as well as other apartment owners.

McClusky had listed the unit at $223,000 to meet the building’s minimum.  When he tried to lower the price, his broker told him the board wouldn’t approve, and they didn’t, for a month.

A year and 20 prospective buyers later, according to the News article, the apartment

You can buy your own New York City island

Own a piece of (the) rock. . . Rat Island.

Updated on 9/21 at end:

Off City Island in the Bronx, a New York City island called “Rat” can be yours at auction on Oct. 2.

The New York Daily News reported in 2009 that one Red Brennan, a 40-year marine contractor who salvaged barges and stored equipment there, was trying to unload the thing for $300,000.  Well, he failed in that effort.

The barren 2.5-acre Rat Island is to be sold at 1 p.m.

The Big Apple: City’s estate auction is a dud

Undercounted immigrants may explain smaller population than believed

New York City’s population reached a record high for a 10-year census of 8,175,133, according to the 2010 count released on Thursday, but it fell far short of the official forecast.

Mayor Bloomberg immediately challenged the Census Bureau’s finding, saying it shortchanged the city by as many as 225,000 people.

He said it was “inconceivable” that Queens grew by only 1,343 people since 2000 and suggested that the profusion of apartments listed as vacant in places such as Flushing and in a swath of southwest Brooklyn meant the census missed many hard-to-count immigrants.

There’s something about Inez Dickens and her taxes

City Councilwoman Inez Dickens co-owns four Harlem apartment buildings that have for months owed the city more than $100,000 in property taxes.

Dickens’ properties also

The High Road: What’s up with Sheldon Good in its upcoming auction of condos in Manhattan and Queens?

I’m old-fashioned in at least one respect.  I get the New York Times delivered to my door, and that’s how I normally learn about real estate auctions.

Whether by the public administrators of Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn or by companies that specialize in such auctions, advertisements in print are the norm.

Not so, it seems, with Sheldon Good & Co.,