147 South Oxford Street

Five stories over a cellar, on a rectangular 5,000-square-foot plot fronting South Oxford Street, with roughly 16,780 square feet of building above it. Twenty-one apartments, five on the first floor and four on each floor above.

The line structure is unusually easy to read because Schedule A prices it plainly. On the upper floors the A line runs 4½ rooms, the B line 3½, and the C and D lines five rooms each, all with one bath. On the first floor the four principal apartments are four-room units with one and a half baths — the only apartments in the building with a second bath — alongside a three-room, one-bath unit. Share allocations track that hierarchy from 175 shares at the small end to 340 at the large end, out of 6,000 total.

The room count carries a footnote worth repeating to any buyer. The plan states that rooms were counted using the City's permitted zoning-room designation, and its own definitions include a dining alcove or entrance foyer in the count. A five-room apartment here is a two-bedroom with a foyer and a dining alcove, not a three-bedroom. Compare floor plans, not room numbers, when you set price against the district's other small co-ops.

Because the building sits outside the historic district, windows, façade repairs and any exterior alteration proceed on the ordinary Department of Buildings track without Landmarks review. The reported five-story building falls below FISP’s higher-than-six-stories threshold; it still needs exterior maintenance and any applicable DOB permits.

This is a small self-directed corporation with a light staffing model. The conversion budget carried a single payroll line of $6,000 for the first year against $100,800 of maintenance income, alongside a management fee of the same size, and the corporation's later operating statements show the same shape: a janitor line rather than a staff, an elevator maintenance line, laundry income, and professional fees. There is no doorman.

Heat and hot water are master metered and carried in maintenance; cooking gas is separately metered and billed to the shareholder. Because the building has an elevator, its fixed operating base is higher than a comparable walk-up — elevator maintenance, inspection and eventual modernization are recurring line items that a four-story walk-up co-op simply does not carry; check the current budget and financial statements for how modernization in a 21-unit building would be funded.

Two documents deserve early attention. The first is the underlying mortgage: the corporation carried debt through the statements available in the Roebling Research Library, and the loan’s current balance, rate, debt service and maturity should be reviewed alongside taxes, operating expenses, reserves and capital commitments. The second is the flip fee. The corporation's audited statements record flip-fee income year after year, which establishes that a transfer fee exists; the rate is not documented in the papers reviewed and should be confirmed before anyone models net proceeds.

Sale and assignment: Under the plan and by-laws as filed, a shareholder may sell shares and assign the proprietary lease subject to the corporation's right of first refusal and not to a right of approval. The cooperative's current purchase application describes an admissions committee that reviews, interviews and approves. Confirm which governs today, in writing.

Subletting: The same right-of-first-refusal-without-approval framework applies to sublets under the plan as filed. Confirm current board policy, any term limits and any sublet fee.

Transfer fee: Charged in practice — the corporation's financial statements record flip-fee income. Rate not documented in the plan; confirm.

Purchase process: Application through Goldin Management to the cooperative's admissions committee, with a $200 application fee, three years of federal returns, a balance sheet, mortgage commitment, employment, landlord and neighbor references, and resumes for each proposed shareholder.

Tax status: J-51 was projected at conversion and priced into the plan's maintenance schedule. No phase-out year is asserted here; pull the current tax bill for the specific unit.

Pets, financing minimums, pied-à-terre and washer/dryer: Not documented in the materials reviewed. Confirm each against the current house rules and purchase application.

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. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2021): a median $538/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 3.5% 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 3-02005-0029). 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.

Read the sale and sublet language twice. The 1987 by-laws give the corporation a right of first refusal and no right of approval. The current application describes an approving admissions committee. Ask for the governing document and the current house rules before you assume either.

The elevator is the building's advantage and its cost. It puts fifth-floor apartments in play for buyers who would not consider a walk-up, and it adds a maintenance and modernization obligation that twenty-one shareholders absorb directly.

Do not read the room count as a bedroom count. The plan uses the City's zoning-room method and counts foyers and dining alcoves. A five-room apartment is a two-bedroom with a foyer.

Ask about the underlying mortgage and the flip fee. Both exist in the record and both move numbers. Get the current loan terms and the current transfer-fee rate in writing.

Understand what the district line costs and saves you. No Landmarks review on windows and façade work. Also no historic-district address to price against. Both are real.

Lead with the elevator and the rehabilitation. Describe the elevator and the documented 1988 rehabilitation, while distinguishing the original delivery specifications from current condition.

Make the transfer framework explicit and documented. If the right-of-first-refusal-without-approval structure still governs, it is the strongest line in the listing and it should be supported by the current by-laws, not by the 1987 plan alone.

Sell the transit position honestly. Two blocks to Atlantic Terminal, the Long Island Rail Road and the subway concentration underneath it. That is a specific buyer, and reaching them beats competing on brownstone charm the building does not have.

Price against the right set. The correct comparables are Fort Greene and Clinton Hill small co-ops of fifteen to forty units, adjusted for the elevator and for the absence of a historic-district address — not the row-house conversions inside the 1978 boundary.

If you're considering 147 South Oxford Street, also evaluate:

• 60 South Oxford Street — ten-unit co-op on the same street inside the historic district; the clearest test of what the district line is worth
• 149 Lafayette Avenue — ten-unit 1930s co-op in the district; the closest peer by vintage and building type
• 147 Lafayette Avenue — the Lafayette Court group; a 1930s remodeling of 1860s houses, at similar unit count
• 159 Lafayette Avenue — twin 1897 flats buildings run as one co-op; a walk-up cross-check on price per room
• 122 Ashland Place — large Fort Greene co-op at the Cultural District edge; the scale-and-services alternative
• 191 Willoughby Street — the same decision at institutional scale, with staff and amenity overhead
• 264 Cumberland Street (The Sanctuary) — the district's boutique condominium alternative, for buyers weighing ownership form
• 372 DeKalb Avenue (Clinton Mews) — Clinton Hill co-op just east; a useful price-per-room benchmark outside Fort Greene