Estate Sale Broker’s Commish Drops: Huge UWS Co-op Sells For 27% Less Than Ask

A 2,500 square foot 8 room co-op apartment at 277 West End Avenue on the Upper West Side just sold for $2.2 million, a huge drop from the original $3 million list price.


Buchbinder Warren associate broker Anne Abbott had this estate sale listing. Her commission must have taken a nosedive from the $90,000 (using a 3% commission rate) that she would have split on a fifty-fifty basis with her office if the co-op sold for it’s original $3,000,000 list price That would have mean a cool $45,000 commish for Abbot.

Instead, the apartment ultimately sold for 26.67% less than the ask, dropping a whopping $800,000 to close at $2,200,000. If the buyer’s and seller’s brokers split a 6% commission on the sale, it would mean that each side’s take dropped to $66,000. The broker’s split would have been $33,000.

Although it’s a huge apartment in a pet-friendly building down the street from Fairway, close to Zabar’s, and a 30-second walk to Riverside Park, the unit’s drawback was that it had a view of the self-managed Schwab House, the monstrous block-long co-op just across the street.

The apartment was old, but appears to have good bones. The current bedroom layout could potentially be converted into four.

Maintenance on the unit was very hefty: $2,836.92 per month, 50% of which is tax-deductible.. The co-op board allows up to $75% financing.

Likely renovations include modernizing a severely outdated kitchen, and trying to get permission from the co-op to have a washer-dryer combo in the apartment.