129 East 82nd Street

The building is a 1916 prewar of eleven stories, dark brown brick over a limestone base, with a canopied entrance and a punched-window elevation — the restrained middle register of Upper East Side apartment design just before the 1920s boom. Architectural and listing records attribute it to Emery Roth working for Bing & Bing, and the attribution is plausible on both dating and typology; it is not confirmed in Department of Buildings or Landmarks records, and we do not present it as settled.

Interior stock is what the plan and the period imply: full entry foyers, defined rooms, high ceilings by contemporary standards, and generous closets, in layouts running from classic two-bedrooms up through classic-six configurations. Department of Buildings filings record apartment combinations in 2002 and 2006, so a handful of the largest apartments are assembled rather than original. Listing records describe wood-burning fireplaces in the building; buyers should confirm working status and any flue restrictions for a specific unit rather than assuming them, since fireplace status varies apartment to apartment in prewar houses of this age.

There is a service elevator in addition to the passenger elevator, and the house rules direct all moves, deliveries and trades to it — a meaningful quality-of-life detail in an eleven-story building with three apartments a floor.

The cooperative runs a full-time doorman, a live-in superintendent and a union staff covered by a Building Service 32BJ collective bargaining agreement. Central laundry and private basement storage bins are available to shareholders. Management is outside and institutional.

Capital posture, from the audited financial statements on file for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020: the corporation held roughly $959,000 in cash at year-end 2021, plus about $115,000 in a reserve account held with its mortgage lender and an untouched $500,000 line of credit. The underlying mortgage is $2,300,000 at 3.23 percent, amortizing on a schedule that leaves a balloon of roughly $1,982,000 at the January 1, 2030 maturity.

Recent capital work is documented and was funded by assessment rather than from reserves. In April 2019 the corporation imposed a capital assessment of approximately $250,000 — $33.45 per share — to fund rehabilitation of the building's exterior and replacement of elevator door lock monitors, payable at a 5 percent discount if settled by June 1, 2019 or over six, twelve or eighteen months. The corporation expended approximately $470,000 on that exterior and elevator work during 2019, so the assessment covered a little more than half the cost.

The 2021 reserve disclosure deserves attention. It reports that the corporation had not conducted a study of the remaining useful lives of common-property components, its governing documents do not require reserve accumulation, and the auditors formally note the omission of the required supplementary information on future major repairs. When capital needs arrive, the stated mechanisms are available cash, a maintenance increase, a special assessment, borrowing, or deferral. On a 32-apartment building with a 7,560-share capital structure, an assessment moves quickly to a real per-apartment number — the 2019 exercise is the worked example.

A holder of unsold shares — a successor to the original sponsor — was still offering unsold apartments under an amendment to the offering plan filed as recently as 2021. The 2021 materials describe no board representation or control for that holder; they do not establish its current holdings or rights. Obtain the current unsold-share schedule, board composition and governing rights for lender and purchaser review before characterizing the position as small or non-controlling.

The reviewed record identifies two J-51 grants; reconcile each exemption and abatement component with the benefit certificates and current tax bills before treating all benefits as expired.

The first J-51 was initiated in 1993 on certified alteration work of $169,700 — a 14-year exemption with a 90 percent abatement. The abatement ran from tax year 1993 at roughly $14,141 a year and stepped down to a final partial year of $4,242 in tax year 2004. It has been fully burned off for more than two decades.

A second, much smaller J-51 was initiated in 2012 on certified work of just $17,307, producing an abatement of roughly $1,442 a year across the entire cooperative. The city's published J-51 record runs through fiscal year 2018, at which point about $6,858 of that grant's balance remained — which would imply exhaustion of that abatement balance in the early 2020s at the same run rate. That projection does not verify actual exhaustion or the separate exemption term.

The practical conclusion for a buyer is simple: do not underwrite any J-51 benefit at 129 East 82nd Street. The abatement line that does appear on the corporation's income statement, roughly $90,000 a year, is the co-op/condo property tax abatement passed through to eligible primary-resident shareholders — a personal benefit that depends on how you occupy the apartment, not a building-level tax break that transfers with the shares.

Ownership form: Cooperative shares with a proprietary lease, inside a two-unit condominium. Board approval and an interview are required. Closing timelines run to cooperative norms, not condominium norms.

Flip tax: 2 percent of the sale price, paid by the seller, per the corporation's stated transfer-fee policy in the audited financial statements on file. Model it before setting a net-proceeds expectation.

Financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity: Not published. Both are board-set and available only from the managing agent. Ask before you offer.

Subletting: Permitted with board consent under the proprietary lease. Seasoning, term caps and the sublet fee schedule come from the managing agent.

Pied-à-terre, trusts, LLCs, co-purchase and guarantors: Not documented in the records available to us; confirm in the proprietary lease and house rules at offer stage.

Pets: Permitted with board approval, via a pet approval form, city licensing and vaccination documentation, a $250 security deposit, an indemnification agreement and a 30-day trial period, per the house rules on file.

Smoking: Prohibited in common areas and in any apartment from which smoke escapes into another apartment or a common area.

Alterations: All apartment alterations require board or managing-agent approval; the house rules impose an 80 percent floor-covering requirement outside kitchens, baths, closets and foyers, and restrict construction noise to weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026 to date) cleared a median $941/sf (floor-adjusted) across 2 sales. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 4.6% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01511-7501). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

You are buying shares, not a deed. City data will tell you this is a condominium. It is not. Plan for a board package, an interview, board-set financing limits and a cooperative timeline.

Confirm current assessments alongside maintenance. The 2020–2021 operating assessment and 2019 capital assessment are historical records; obtain current schedules, balances and funding plans before budgeting today’s carry.

Confirm the flip tax at 2 percent. It is documented and it is on the seller — which means it is on you when you sell.

Verify each J-51 component before taking credit. Use full taxes as a conservative scenario until current bills and certificates establish any remaining exemption or abatement; the archive and run-rate estimate alone do not prove both grants are fully expired.

Check the lot before you compare. 167 East 82nd Street is on the same block and is a condominium. 176 East 82nd Street is on the adjoining block. Neither is a like-for-like comparable to this building.

Ask about the underlying mortgage's 2030 balloon. Roughly $1.98 million refinances in January 2030 across 7,560 shares. Small in absolute terms, meaningful per share — model it.

Lead with the block and the scale. A doorman, a live-in superintendent, a service elevator and three apartments a floor between Park and Lexington is the product. Say it plainly.

Get out in front of the 2 percent transfer fee. Buyers' attorneys will find it. Present it, and run the Seller Closing Cost Calculator against your real net.

Explain the condop structure before diligence does. Some buyers and some lenders react to a cooperative sitting inside a condominium. It is a conventional 1980s conversion device, it has been in place since 1988, and the documents on file explain it — which is a better position than letting the question surface late.

Establish the comparable sample. Assess dated sales for relevance and sample size, accounting for the specific line and layout; 32 apartments alone do not establish thin comparables. Bring the corridor's prewar co-op set, adjusted for tenure and carry.

If you're considering 129 East 82nd Street, also evaluate:

• 167 East 82nd Street (Merritt House) — same block, lot 7502; a true condominium conversion with individually deeded apartments, and the tenure contrast to this building
• 122 East 82nd Street — 1912 building converted to cooperative in 1983; the closest peer across the street by vintage and tenure
• 108 East 82nd Street — prewar cooperative of roughly 36 apartments, attributed to Schwartz & Gross; the nearest like-for-like on scale
• 112 East 83rd Street — boutique prewar cooperative one block north
• 120 East 83rd Street — a 20-residence prewar cooperative; the smaller-building alternative
• 108 East 86th Street — 1924 building converted from rental; the Carnegie Hill prewar comparison
• 115 East 86th Street — 1928 building converted to cooperative in 1982; a larger prewar co-op nearby
• 176 East 82nd Street (Étage) — adjoining block, lot 7503; a nine-residence new-construction condominium and the modern alternative
• 175 East 82nd Street — CetraRuddy Architects new-construction condominium; the full-amenity contrast