Category — Co-op Boards

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Likely renovations include modernizing a severely outdated kitchen, and trying to get permission from the co-op to have a washer-dryer combo in the apartment.

Moby’s spectacular penthouse co-op apartment in the El Dorado at 300 Central Park West is still on the market for $7.5 million, but is it in contract again?


In January, the El Dorado’s co-op board rejected Moby’s potential buyer, despite reportedly being close to his asking price.

Now, however, his real estate brokers do not have the apartment amongst their listings. Moby’s agents include:

• John Edwards at Corcoran
• Joan McArdle at Prudential Douglas Elliman
• Lee Zimmerman at Corcoran

The real question is whether that means the cooperative apartment is in contract.

Moby — whose real name is Richard Melville Hall — bought the apartment for $4.5 million in 2005 from Robert C. Schuler.

This is a gem of an apartment rising four floors to the top of the El Dorado’s southwestern tower overlooking CPW.

Photo credits ElDoradoPenthouse.com

Material girl and savvy businesswoman Madonna just paid $7 million for her neighbor’s adjoining co-op apartment at 1 West 64th Street and Central Park West. The cooperative is known as Harperley Hall.

That appears to put an end to her breach of contract lawsuit against the coop board and managing agent Midboro Management which claimed they held up the sale of 868 shares allocated to neighbor Julie Clarke Thayer’s apartment.

Madonna’s neighbors include:

• Actress Fran Drescher, who paid $1,895,000 for her co-op in 2004 via a trust that she created;
• N.Y. Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger;
• Bob Weinstein, the film executive who is joined at the hip in Hollywood with his brother Harvey;
• Lamberto Andreotti, the Executive Vice President and President of Worldwide Pharmaceuticals at Bristol-Meyers Squibb. He paid $5 million for his apartment.

When it’s combined, this will be quite the space! Her existing apartment is a 6,000-square-foot duplex with its own gym and beauty salon.

This will make for a nice space for the entertainer, hubby Guy Ritchie, and their kids. They’ll be able to reach out and touch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons! Interestingly, the co-op was purchased by Madonna in her name only.

Hats off to her NYC real estate attorneys for making the deal go through.

Photo credits: Flickr and Tony Barton