Ever wonder how the monthly charges are determined on condos and co-ops?

How Monthly Fees Are Calculated in Co-ops and Condos

Wednesday, March 27, 2013, by Jeremiah Budin

Curbed University delivers insider tips and non-boring advice on how to buy, sell, or rent a home or apartment. Additional questions welcomed to tips@curbed.com. Today's topic: monthly fees!
Today's Curbed U lesson is short and sweet. Those pesky monthly fees that you're always having to pay. How are they calculated? This is how:
Condos: Common charges in a condo are calculated by taking each unit owner's percentage of common interests and multiplying it by the total operating costs of the building. Percentage of common interests is figured based mostly on the total amount of space that an apartment occupies, but also on other factors, such as its location within the building. A penthouse, therefore, would generally have higher common charges per square foot than a second-floor pad. The total operating costs of the building include things like heat, hot water, electricity in common areas such hallways and the lobby, building staff, and amenities such as pools, gyms, concierge, etc. Subtracted from that total is any income received by the building from things like laundry rooms.

Read Full Story Here: http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/03/27/how_monthly_fees_are_calculated_in_coops_and_condos.php

Why the Upper West Side may be your best investment

Study Finds Upper West Side Is A Magnet For Real Estate Investors

By: Jill Urban

 

More than any other neighborhood in Manhattan, the Upper West Side is attracting real estate investors at a breakneck pace, according to a new report by Eastern Consolidated.

 

More than any other neighborhood in Manhattan, the Upper West Side is attracting real estate investors at a breakneck pace, according to a new report by Eastern Consolidated. NY1's Real Estate reporter Jill Urban filed the following report.
There is little question that investors regard New York City as a safe place to put their money, but a new report by Barbara Byrne Denham, the chief economist of Eastern Consolidated, finds that one neighborhood in particular — the Upper West Side — is proving to be an investor magnet.

Read the full story here:

http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/real_estate/179230/study-finds-upper-west-side-is-a-magnet-for-real-estate-investors

Not your Grandma's murphy bed...Is this the house of the future?

Linon Luxor Folding Bed (Google Affiliae

New Trend? More siblings becoming roommates.

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Suzanne Dengel, at left, and her twin, Colleen, have been close since their days of dressing identically. Now they share a studio in the financial district. “It felt like a natural progression to get an apartment together,” Suzanne Dengel says.

By JOANNE KAUFMAN

Published: March 1, 2013

From the time they were middle-school students in Manhattan, Arielle Patrick and her brother, Andrew, had an agreement: come college graduation, if they weren’t married they would share a “bachelor/bachelorette pad” in the city. They were serious enough about the matter to put the pact in writing on a piece of loose-leaf paper and, with great earnestness, to sign their names at the bottom.

So it was that in September 2012, a dozen years later, the Patricks signed their names at the bottom of a lease for a fourth-floor walk-up in Midtown East.

Read full story here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/realestate/siblings-as-roommates-mom-always-said-to-share.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1362585889-zG3U6pKPAnVH40/eyC3OOQ