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Manhattan/Brooklyn/NYC condos and co-ops


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2012 Apr 10, 3:51am   3,005 views  6 comments

by Michinaga   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

I know most people on here are California/SF=based, but is there anybody out there who owns a condo or co-op in NYC and wants to share info or stories?

I've been giving more and more thought to going back to New York (from Tokyo, where I live now and own my own condo) and might be making the move in 2014 or '15. It'll be central NYC or nothing -- neither my wife nor I will ever be able to use an automobile, so we don't want to live in an area where a car is a necessity, or even where more than a tiny fraction of the people around us have them. Manhattan is perfect in this regard.

Since I own my home and don't yet have kids, I'm able to save the vast majority of my income. I earn the equivalent of about $5000 per month and probably save half of that even after taxes. My only expenses are building maintenance ($150/mo), property tax ($260/yr), food, and grad school tuition ($500/mo) -- and that last one will come off the books next year.

I've managed to save over $80k in the last few years. With the dollar on the upswing, now might be the time to repatriate it and possibly invest in a home to live in a few years from now. It certainly isn't earning me any interest sitting in the bank!

That's a 20% down payment on a $400k apartment, and $400k goes pretty far even in Manhattan. We'd be looking for about 400-600 square feet, and I'm surprised at how much is available at that price in good locations. Looking at rents and subtracting out maintenance, you still see a lot of places where the selling price beats the magic ratio of 150-200 months' rent.

The ideal would be to buy something now, then rent it out and have the tenants cover my mortgage until I get there. Then when I move in, I use the income from my existing condo to supplement my income. No idea what the NYC job market will be like a few years from now, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm much more worried about heavy inflation destroying my savings before I get a chance to make use of it.

Of course, most apartments are co-ops, and they want you to sublet after living in the place for a few years, not before. So I'm probably just looking at condos. And the potential tax breaks might not be fully utilizable, since I have only foreign-earned income, aside from income that renting this condo out might bring in. (I have a US SSN, savings account, and credit rating, so I don't think I'll be denied a mortgage.) Can mortgage/homebuyer-related tadx credits be carried forward into years where they'll be more useful?

Have neighborhoods changed a lot in the last 10-15 years? I loved the NYU area years ago and wouldn't mind being within walking distance of the Strand bookstore at Broadway and 12th. But having come to prefer quieter areas (the Mrs. certainly does), further north is just fine. Murray Hill was quiet to the point of dullness back then; how about now? Brooklyn Heights is nice enough, as is Williamsburg, but further east is a problem as the Mrs. doesn't want to have to walk more than about 500 meters to the subway.

So, Patrick.net hive-mind, any advice? I'm not committed to doing anything just yet, but find myself looking at listings and even tax records and records of past sales more and more. What's the NYC market like?

#housing

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1   NickO   2012 Apr 10, 4:27am  

Manhattan is a great investment for long term but to buy and rent and then count on the income... the courts are really really liberal in the 5 boroughs. NO SYMPATHY FOR LANDLORDS. I have heard countless horror stories from friends/ landlords who had to go to court for violations or if someone stopped paying rent and then got screwed in court with lawyer fees and delays. I had a nightmare myself in Queens. If you buy you better live there. I just saw a listing for a nice 2 bedroom duplex condo for sale in my hood- Kew Gardens which is extremely nice. 300 K and a lot bigger than a 600 sq feet shoebox 17 minutes to NYC by railroad. Must you live in Manhattan??

2   Michinaga   2012 Apr 10, 5:12am  

Nick, thanks for the input! If landlords are having to show up in court for things, that's a major crimp in the plan, as I won't live anywhere nearby for several years. I guess I could pay a broker to find tenants for me and then handle that stuff, though it'll reduce profits a lot.

We don't have to live in Manhattan, but it's the area I'm most familiar with. The outer boroughs don't have the density that we want (really, 600 ft^2 is a palace, coming from cramped Tokyo), and I know next to nothing about neighborhood quality. It would really feel like a crapshoot to buy something in an area where I haven't spent much time, particularly since what time I have spent in the city is a decade ago.

The only time I've ever been as far east as your neighborhood is going to Mets games at the now-gone Shea Stadium. What kinds of ethnicities live there? Long ago, Shea was surrounded by a Korean neighborhood. Is it still like that? That's one thing I miss about not being in NYC -- all the ethnic variety, all the languages, all the exotic food.

3   NickO   2012 Apr 10, 5:38am  

Michinaga says

If landlords are having to show up in court for things, that's a major crimp in the plan, as I won't live anywhere nearby for several years. I guess I could pay a broker to find tenants for me and then handle that stuff, though it'll reduce profits a lot.

Absentee landlord from another country will be really hard. You would need a relative here or a management company to handle everything for you. Thats way to much control to give up in my opinion. Prices most likely will go down further so wahts the rush?

4   NickO   2012 Apr 10, 5:40am  

Michinaga says

The only time I've ever been as far east as your neighborhood is going to Mets games at the now-gone Shea Stadium. What kinds of ethnicities live there? Long ago, Shea was surrounded by a Korean neighborhood. Is it still like that? That's one thing I miss about not being in NYC -- all the ethnic variety, all the languages, all the exotic food.

Yes the area is even more so Korean and Chinese now all through and down main st and kissena blvd. Great cheap eats there and you want density then thats the place to be! Go to google street maps and you can probably see for yourself.

5   CaffeineAddict   2012 Apr 10, 7:07am  

Unless Manhattan real estate has changed a lot in the last few years, I don't think 400k goes very far in midtown Manhattan especially...maybe in the other boroughs.

6   Michinaga   2012 Apr 11, 1:14am  

CaffeineAddict, really? In the outer boroughs you'll have no problem, of course, but even in Manhattan, there are a ton.

Not sure if this Zillow link will carry the contents of my search fields:

http://www.zillow.com/homes/Manhattan-New-York-NY_rb/#/homes/for_sale/100000-500000_price/370-1852_mp/priced_sort/40.795293,-73.901081,40.749013,-74.014206_rect/12_zm/

...so if not, enter 100,000 and 500,000 as the lower and upper bounds for price and check only the "for sale" box. Midtown and the Theater District are pretty empty, but not the rest of the island.

Not all listings include square footage, so if you enter something there, you'll lose most of the listings -- just click on some examples and see how big the condos look. The majority seem to be 500 ft^2 or bigger.

Randomly selected:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/101-W-23rd-St-APT-5H-New-York-NY-10011/72515880_zpid/

...great location; 850 square feet!

We have a two-room apartment with one bedroom and one, bigger, living room; the total is 405 ft^2 (38 m^2). It's livable -- and would be more so if the ceilings were higher and we could stretch bookcases all the way up, which we could easily do in a non-earthquake-prone city like NYC -- but we'd like something just a little bigger. When renting, we had 44 m^2 plus a balcony, which was just right.

So urban-sized apartments are no problem!

Of course, there are other things to look out for, such as insane maintenance charges ($1000+ for a small condo, really?) among them, but it certainly looks easy enough to live ni Manhattan for under $400k. That's why I want to ask around and see if this is really true.

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