Manhattan views vs LA outdoor space: the rules behind each

A Manhattan views home and a Los Angeles house with a pool can carry the same asking price and still be different purchases. The Manhattan view premium rests on New York rules that keep a sightline open: the Zoning Resolution, landmark designation and the transfer of air rights. In Los Angeles the money goes to flat, usable outdoor space instead, and that premium rests on the lot, the fire rules and the house staying insurable. The same split runs through the listings in both cities: in New York much of the asking price reflects legal protection of a sightline, and in Los Angeles much of it reflects ground you can use.

What to take away

The Manhattan premium is a legal premium

Two apartments with the same layout can sit far apart in price because of what stands in front of the window. The view is free. The certainty that the view stays open is what a buyer actually pays for.

A park boundary, a landmark district, a height limit on a neighboring block or a purchased set of air rights all keep a sightline clear. In New York the height and bulk limits come from the city's Zoning Resolution. Each protection costs money to secure. Each one can be undone when a permit changes.

Landmark designation, with park frontage, is among the strongest of them. The Landmarks Preservation Commission protects significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status and regulating them after designation; there are more than 38,000 landmark properties in the city, most of them in 157 historic districts and extensions. The Landmarks Law lists among its purposes to stabilize and improve property values, which is the view premium stated as policy.

Air rights have their own authority. Under Zoning Resolution section 81-213, within the East Midtown and Theater Subdistricts the City Planning Commission may permit a transfer of development rights from zoning lots occupied by landmark buildings to lots in the surrounding area, by special permit. The application runs through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which leaves a public record at the Commission, and any restriction filed against the zoning lot is recorded at the City Register. Floor area that moves to a receiving site can become the tower that closes someone else's sightline.

Cooperatives add a second filter to the same apartment. A co-op board reviews your finances, your references and your plans for the unit, and it can reject the purchase.

That approval gate, plus monthly common charges and building assessments, is much of why New York penthouses cost per square foot more than a large house in the hills.

Floor height works the same way. The same floor plan is worth more high up with an open sightline and less behind another building's mechanical bulkhead.

The dark middle floors of a deep Manhattan building come from the same narrow lots, which is why light is priced floor by floor.

What an outdoor amenity buys in Los Angeles

Los Angeles sells hours outdoors. A pool, a lawn, a covered kitchen and a guest house can be used most of the year, and that use is the amenity a buyer is paying for.

Wide, shallow lots put all of it on one level. Flat parcels in Beverly Hills and similar neighborhoods carry a premium over hillside land with the same square footage.

Hillside parcels trade differently. A steep lot in Bel Air can carry grading, brush clearance and construction rules that shrink the usable footprint below what a listing photo suggests. In the City of Los Angeles those limits come from the Baseline Hillside Ordinance, which caps grading and floor area on steep lots, and a parcel in the coastal zone also needs a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission or from the city under its certified Local Coastal Program.

Fire and earthquake rules add recurring cost. Defensible space, ignition resistant materials and seismic retrofits are annual and one-time expenses that a Manhattan view never carries. California maps the exposure as the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, and construction in that zone follows Chapter 7A of the California Building Standards Code. Inside the city, the Los Angeles Fire Department runs the annual brush clearance inspection for the same reason.

Insurance is the other way an LA outdoor premium can disappear. When a regular insurer will not cover a fire-exposed house, the fallback is the California FAIR Plan, which is available to California residents and businesses who cannot obtain insurance through a regular insurance company. It was created by the Governor and Legislature but is a private association run by insurance companies, under oversight from the California Department of Insurance. A buyer should ask before the offer whether the house is insurable on the regular market or only through the FAIR Plan.

For how soil, slope and fire maps shape the same house, see Los Angeles homes list.

Comparing the two premiums side by side

The two markets reward different things, and they punish different mistakes.

How to compare two homes at a similar asking price

Put a Manhattan apartment and a Los Angeles house beside each other at the same asking price, and the money goes to different places. Work through the comparison in four steps:

Rules that limit what a tour may ask and show

Selling a view is legal. Steering a buyer is not. A tour script that describes a neighborhood by the people who live in it can cross that line quickly.

The Fair Housing Act rules for tours collect HUD guidance, NAR conduct rules and state commission limits in one place, which matters when a listing agent wants to screen visitors.

Buyer checks before you commit

Ask three questions about anything you are buying for the view or the yard, whether it is a listed celebrity home or a private mansion. Who controls the land in front of the sightline? What is the annual cost of the outdoor space? What happens to your insurance after a bad fire season?

For the paperwork side, HUD's homebuying resources explain what an association may charge and what to read before closing. The Closing Disclosure you receive at closing, the form that replaced the HUD-1 Settlement Statement, itemizes those charges line by line.

Common questions