New york homes prices: public sale prices and market context

In a dense city, a sale is rarely a sale of a house. It is a sale of a legal position, and the number attached to it measures the lot, the unused capacity above it, the form of ownership, the building's permitted use and its protection status, all before it measures the rooms. That is why sale figures for city houses are so hard to compare and so easy to misread. This site publishes none of them in any case, because a transaction is a location record and the site does not locate anyone. What it can do is explain what such a number contains, so that the reader who meets one elsewhere knows how little it says about the building.

Nothing here identifies a property, a party or a price.

What to take away

• City property comes in three legal forms, and a number attached to one of them is not comparable with the others.
• What is being sold often includes things you cannot see: development capacity, permitted use, and the absence or presence of protection.
• The public record shows that a document was lodged. It shows the building through permits, and it shows people through nothing, which is where this site stops.

Three legal forms

The same physical building can be owned in three different ways, and the differences are large.

The whole building. A townhouse or row house held outright is real property: land and building together, with the owner responsible for everything from the roof to the sidewalk. A number attached to this form includes the land, and in a dense city the land can be most of it.

The condominium unit. A unit in a building is real property too, but only the unit: a volume of air bounded by walls, plus a share of the common parts. The land is shared. A number here measures the unit and its position in the building, and the monthly obligations of the building are a separate matter.

The cooperative share. In a cooperative, the buyer acquires shares in a corporation that owns the building, and a lease on a unit. This is not real property in the usual sense; it is stock and a lease. Transfers are approved by the corporation, financing is treated differently, and the record of a transfer is different from a deed. A number attached to this form is measuring something else again.

A reader who compares a figure for one form with a figure for another is comparing a piece of land with a volume of air with a block of shares. It is not a comparison of houses.

What is being sold that you cannot see

Beyond the rooms, several things travel with a city property and can dominate a number.

Development capacity. Zoning allows a certain amount of building on a lot, under the districts and controls described in the city's zoning districts and tools guide. Where the existing building uses less than that, the difference has value, and in some circumstances it can be transferred. A modest house on a lot that could carry something much larger is being valued for what it is not.

Permitted use. A row house legally configured as a single dwelling and one legally configured as several units are different properties, even if they look identical from the street. The permitted configuration is a matter of record with the building department, and converting between the two is a regulated process.

Protection. A designated building or a building in a designated district carries restrictions that bind any owner. Designation can raise or lower the number depending on who is buying and why, and it is public precisely because it binds the building rather than the person, a principle explained under privacy-safe celebrity maps.

The condition of the shell. In a stacked, narrow house, the elements that survive every refit, party walls, stair position, flues and window openings, are what the buyer is actually getting, as New York homes sets out. Finishes are temporary. A number that reflects finishes is measuring the previous owner's taste.

What the record shows

The city records transfers and related documents in a public system, and the city's own description of how the property records system works is the right place to learn what it holds. In outline: the record shows that an instrument was lodged, on a date, between named parties, with a stated consideration where one is stated.

What it does not show is most of what people want from it.

• It does not show who lives in the building. Parties to a transfer are frequently entities, and occupancy is recorded nowhere public.
• It does not show a co-op transfer as a deed, because there is no deed; the record is of a different kind and carries different information.
• It does not show the building's condition, its plan or its alterations. Those live in permits and in the fabric.
• It does not show the date of agreement, only the date of lodging.

Used for the building, the public record is valuable: the permit history tells you what was built and when, and the designation record describes the architecture. Used for the person, it is surveillance by another name, and the general reasoning on how records work and where their legitimate use ends is set out in purchases and sales.

Why the number says so little about the house

Take an imaginary row house, not a real one. Its number, if it were sold, would bundle: the lot and its position on the block; the unused capacity above the roof; whether it is legally one dwelling or several; whether it is designated; the state of the roof, the party walls and the stair; the finishes; the market on that day; and the terms two parties reached. The rooms themselves, the thing a reader of this site cares about, are a small part of that bundle, and the record separates none of it.

Which is why, even setting privacy aside, the site would have no use for the figure. The plan of a narrow deep house, the way it solves light and depth, the twenty things worth reading on its facade and inside it, as New York homes list walks through, are all available without it. And the reasons a large house costs what it does to build, which are about envelope and span rather than land, are discussed under mansions.

Common questions

Is a co-op cheaper than a condo of the same size?

The question compares two different legal objects, and any general answer would be wrong somewhere. The forms differ in what is owned, how transfers are approved and how the building's costs are shared, and a figure for one is not a figure for the other.

Does designation reduce what a building is worth?

It changes what can be done with the building and therefore who wants it. Whether that raises or lowers a number depends on the buyer. The designation itself is a public description of the architecture and is the part of the record this site uses.

Can I find out who owns a building from the record?

You can find the party named on the last recorded instrument, which is often an entity and is never a statement of who lives there. This site does not go further than that, and does not go that far.

What is the useful public record for a building?

The permit history, which dates its alterations; the designation record, if any, which describes it; and the zoning, which explains its shape and the pressure on its lot. All three are about the parcel and none is about a person.