HDFC

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Condo in luxe high-rise heads to city’s auction, other properties have much lower minimums

This condo at 401 E. 60th St. is one floor below unit to be auctioned and may be slightly smaller.

This unit at 401 E. 60th St. is a floor below one to be auctioned and may be slightly smaller.

A condo in the Lenox Hill neighborhood will be offered with a minimum bid of $1.2 million at the first city auction of Manhattan properties since June.

Public Administrator Ethel J. Griffin scheduled the sale of 13 properties from the Lower East Side to Inwood for March 21.  Minimum bids range from $45,000 for an income-limited studio in Harlem to the East Side condo’s $1.2 million.

The estate of one Ronald Cohen, the four-room unit 24C in Bridge Tower Place, a full-service 1999 building at 401 E. 60th St., is advertised as having 1,130 square feet with common charges of $1,400 monthly and annual taxes of $21,000.  Active listings in the building average Continue reading →

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Out and About: Homes for buyers on tight budget

Apartment building

Built in 1910, this low-rise has 20 apartments on five floors — and no elevator — but represents value for a hardy soul.

They exist, those apartments for buyers on a tight budget.

It will not surprise them that low prices inevitably mean compromise, usually serious tradeoffs for homeownership in Manhattan.

Among the issues they can more or less count on are lack of light, excess of stairs, cramped quarters, dismal condition, inconvenient location, noisy streets or neighbors, grim public spaces, minimal amenities such as doorman or live-in super, or persistent visits by creatures parading on more than two legs. Continue reading →

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Out and About: ‘Affordable’ co-op needs fix-up

Kitchen of 775-sf apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Some Manhattan apartments in popular neighborhoods actually are affordable for buyers whose incomes put them in the middle class.

However, many of those units have less realized than actually fulfilled potential such as one in the low 90s close to Central Park.

The co-op is in one of the formerly city-owned buildings transferred to a Housing Development Fund Corp. and thus is known as an HDFC apartment.

HDFC apartments come with income restrictions, but they are reasonably liberal.  The latest median income standards Continue reading →