170 East 79th Street

Fifteen stories of brown brick over a four-story limestone base, mid-block on a 43-by-102-foot lot, with a balustraded roofline and balustraded openings at the lower floors that were the subject of a 2016–17 Department of Buildings repair filing; confirm completion and current condition. The building carries about 52,000 square feet of residential area — roughly 2,260 square feet per apartment across twenty-three homes, before common areas.

The mix is narrow by design: predominantly seven-room simplexes and duplexes, with a small number of much smaller apartments at the base and the top. Recorded transfers over the last two decades have moved 1B, 2B, 4B, 7B, 8B, 10B, 11B, 12B, 13B, 14B, PH-B, 9/10B and the full A-line duplex stack, which is essentially the whole building turning over once. City records count 26 units; the cooperative's audited statements count 23. The gap does not alone establish combinations; compare the dated records, amended share schedule, approved alteration plans and current legal occupancy before resolving it.

Full-service at boutique scale: doorman, live-in resident manager, a union staff under the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ contract, central laundry, private storage, a bike room, a roof deck, and a landscaped garden. The house rules on file are strict in the ways small prewar houses tend to be — an 80 percent carpeting requirement in every room but kitchens and baths, service-entrance delivery for packages and groceries, move-ins and move-outs limited to weekday hours with seven working days' notice and a refundable deposit, front-door keys issued only to permanent residents, and a formal alteration agreement approved by the board, the managing agent and the superintendent before any work begins.

The building still heats with fuel oil, which is why a fuel surcharge appeared as a separate assessment in 2022 and 2023 before being dropped from the following budget. Real estate taxes are the dominant line: at roughly $745,000 in the most recent year on file, they run close to 46 percent of total expenditures. The assessment roll shows no exemption; abatements apply at the bill level, so check the tax bill. Maintenance rose 4.75 percent in one recent year and 4.50 percent the next, and the cooperative operated close to break-even before depreciation in both.

Two items in the financial statements deserve a buyer's attention. First, the cooperative has not conducted a study of the remaining useful lives of its building components, and the auditor's report expressly notes that management omitted the supplementary information about future major repairs and replacements that accounting standards call for. The missing study and supplementary disclosure do not establish that no capital plan exists; request current budgets, engineering reports and board planning records. Second, the reserve fund fell by roughly $120,000 across the most recent year on file, funding about $121,000 of building improvements. The $275,000 credit line was undrawn at the cited year-end; verify current availability, borrowing terms and repayment obligations rather than treating it as cash reserves.

Ownership here is by shares and proprietary lease, and the board reviews every purchaser. Expect a full financial and personal board package and an interview. The flip tax is 1.5 percent of the sale price, payable by the seller, per management-sourced records; the buyer pays an application processing fee, a package reproduction fee, and a separate financing fee where a mortgage is involved, with refundable move-in and move-out deposits on both sides.

The published financing ceiling is where the record breaks down. The management-sourced portal's structured policy field says 70 percent; the building description on the same portal says 50 percent. Those imply very different buyers, and the difference is not something to resolve from a website. Confirm it in writing with the managing agent before you make an offer, and confirm the post-closing liquidity expectation at the same time — the reviewed materials do not establish the current liquidity requirement or which qualification most often limits purchases.

Pets are permitted with written board consent, capped at one dog and two cats. Non-family occupancy without the shareholder in residence requires prior written board consent, which is the mechanism through which the board controls pied-à-terre use; purchases through trusts, LLCs and other entities are similarly a matter of board policy rather than published rule. Short-term rentals are prohibited. The house rules on file are dated October 25, 2013 and are amendable by board resolution at any time, so treat them as the framework and the managing agent as the authority.

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 (2015): a median $996/sf (recorded) across 2 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount 4.8% 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 1-01413-0045). 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.

Model the 2031 refinance. The underlying mortgage is interest-only at 3.00 percent and matures September 1, 2031. Nothing is being paid down. The replacement rate is not known; if it is higher, debt service on the same balance rises with it. Model more than one rate — it is the fact most listings will not mention.

Settle the financing ceiling in writing. Fifty percent and seventy percent are different buildings. Get the answer from the managing agent, in writing, before you offer — and ask for the post-closing liquidity expectation in the same email.

Ask for the current capital plan. The cited statements lack a reserve study and the auditor flagged missing future-repair disclosure; that does not establish no planning exists. Also request the specific ages of the boiler, elevators, roof and facade, the most recent Local Law 11 filing and its findings, and any assessment the board has discussed. The reserve balance alone will not tell you what you need.

Understand the annual June assessment. It is not a capital assessment. It offsets the co-op/condo property tax abatement credits the corporation passes through to eligible shareholders, and it recurs. Read it alongside the abatement credit, not on its own.

Verify the unit count and the plan. City records say 26 units; the audited statements say 23. The count difference alone does not establish its cause. Review the current share schedule and DOB approval/sign-off history for the specific apartment alongside the original Schedule A.

Budget the insurance. Shareholders are required to carry $3,000,000 in personal liability coverage and at least $100,000 in all-risk property coverage. That is above the Upper East Side norm and it is a real annual line.

Search under both street numbers. The city addresses this lot as 168 East 79th Street; ACRIS records the apartments under 168 and 170. Your attorney should run both.

Lead with the plan, not the address. A seven-room prewar duplex with a wood-burning fireplace and a private elevator landing, in a twenty-three-unit full-service house, is the product. Market it against the prewar cooperatives on East 78th, 79th and 80th Streets — not against the newer condominiums on the same block, which serve a different buyer.

Get ahead of the mortgage question. Sophisticated buyers' counsel will find the 2031 interest-only maturity in the financials. Hand it over early with the reserve position, the line of credit and the recent maintenance history alongside it, and you control the narrative instead of answering it under pressure.

Assemble the diligence file before you list. Recent audited financials, house rules, proprietary lease, alteration agreement, facade and Local Law 11 history, and the Department of Buildings sign-off record for your apartment. Buyers' counsel in this corridor reads all of it.

Price condition honestly. Compare renovated and estate-condition sales and estimate the specific work required; condition alone does not guarantee a premium or sale. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator against your asking strategy before you set it.

If you're considering 170 East 79th Street, also evaluate:

• 156 East 79th Street — Schwartz & Gross, 1917; prewar cooperative on the same block face, converted 1967
• 161 East 79th Street — Rouse & Goldstone, 1915; converted to cooperative in 1962, the same year as 170
• 151 East 79th Street — Rouse & Goldstone, 1925; prewar cooperative across the street
• 173 East 79th Street — 1928 prewar masonry cooperative directly opposite
• 139 East 79th Street — Louis Allen Abramson, 1928; converted in 1946, one of the corridor's earliest cooperatives
• 170 East 78th Street — 1927 cooperative one block south; the closest peer on vintage
• 167 East 78th Street — Robert P. Rogers and Alfred Easton Poor, 1928; boutique prewar cooperative
• 162 East 80th Street — 1926 prewar red brick and limestone cooperative
• 124 East 79th Street — the 1985 ground-up condominium on this same tax block; the condominium alternative and the building most often confused with this one
• 135 East 79th Street — Studio Sofield's 2013 condominium; the new-construction alternative at a higher price tier
• 177 East 79th Street — 1980 postwar infill cooperative; the lower-priced alternative on the block