Understanding the pros and cons of purchasing property with a landlease

The invitation for the cocktail party at the Azure, a new Upper East Side condop building, called for a celebration—“Una Gran Fiesta!”—but it was really more of an entreaty. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Jacky Teplitzky, who’s marketing apartments in the building, had learned that only a quarter of the calls inquiring about the project were coming from brokers and their clients. (Usually, it’s more like three-quarters.) Soon she discovered that a major issue wasn’t the pThe invitation for the cocktail party at the Azure, a new Upper East Side condop building, called for a celebration—“Una Gran Fiesta!”—but it was really more of an entreaty. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Jacky Teplitzky, who’s marketing apartments in the building, had learned that only a quarter of the calls inquiring about the project were coming from brokers and their clients. (Usually, it’s more like three-quarters.) Soon she discovered that a major issue wasn’t the project so much as its underpinnings. The building has a land lease, meaning that residents pay rent for the ground on which it stands instead of owning it outright, as most co-ops and condos do.roject so much as its underpinnings. The building has a land lease, meaning that residents pay rent for the ground on which it stands instead of owning it outright, as most co-ops and condos do.
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