18 Orchard Street

The building is an early-twentieth-century Lower East Side loft-and-store type — masonry, roughly 25 feet wide, five floors over a cellar on a lot about 89 feet deep, with commercial space at grade and workshop floors above. PLUTO dates it to 1920 and listing records to 1915; neither is documented by a filing available online, and the exact year is unresolved.

The 1998–99 conversion produced full-floor residences reached by a keyed elevator — roughly 7,535 residential square feet across four apartments, so plates in the neighborhood of 1,800 square feet each, with the top residence larger because it takes in the penthouse level. Because they are full-floor and were never marketed as a standardized line, layouts and areas differ meaningfully and should be verified per unit. The commercial unit at grade and cellar is a separate tax lot in separate ownership and has traded independently of the residences since 1999 — a detail that matters, because the residential owners do not control it.

There is no staff, no doorman and no amenity program. The capital record is what a four-unit building's record looks like: interior partition and plumbing work in 2000 and 2004, a roof catwalk and terrace structure in 2003, a parapet railing in 2008, sprinkler modifications on the fifth floor and penthouse in 2010, bulkhead, skylight and exterior restoration in 2011, and a sidewalk shed, scaffold and hoist for facade work in 2013 and again in 2021.

Those facade cycles are the operative item for a buyer. The five- versus six-level descriptions do not establish height above six stories, the FISP/Local Law 11 threshold. Confirm the approved height before asserting a filing cycle. Ask for façade inspection and maintenance records, reserves and assessments, and the declaration’s allocation of costs to the four residential units and commercial unit; five units do not establish equal shares or five distinct owners.

No offering plan for this condominium was located in the Compass Offering Plan Library or in The Roebling Research Library, and the building has no management-sourced policy record. The pet policy, any pied-à-terre restriction, subletting rules and minimum lease term, financing limits, and any flip tax or transfer fee cannot be stated here and must be obtained in writing from the managing agent before an offer is made. What the public record does establish: units here have been owned by an individual, by limited liability companies and by a living trust, so entity and trust ownership have been accommodated. Read the recorded declaration, amendments, bylaws and current house rules together to establish rights of first refusal, permitted uses, voting rights and expense allocations. Four residential units do not establish four equal votes or four distinct owners.

Recent sales

Recent closings 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 (2024): a median $1,472/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00298-7502; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Get the offering plan from the managing agent — we could not locate one. Neither document library carries it. Until you have it you do not have the policy stack, the common-interest schedule or the original unit areas.

There is no J-51 and never was. Do not model a burn-off. Start from the current tax bill on your unit lot; it still changes with assessments, rates and any other benefits.

Understand the commercial unit. Separate tax lot, separate owner, its own common-interest share. Ask how its charges are allocated and what use is permitted.

Confirm the floor count against the plan. City records say five stories; some filings and listing records describe six levels. For the top residence in particular, verify what you are buying.

Underwrite five-unit governance and the facade cycle. Four apartments and one store, no staff. Read the last two audits for the reserve balance and any assessments, read the minutes, and confirm façade condition, planned work and whether the approved height triggers FISP before contract.

Assemble the document file before you list. With no plan located in the two libraries reviewed, the buyer's attorney will ask for the declaration, by-laws, house rules, the last two audits and the facade file. Having them ready can reduce document requests, but it does not establish a four- or ten-week contract timeline.

Document the tax position. The roll shows no J-51 or other exemption, so there is no scheduled step-up; confirm on the unit's tax bill. Total cost still depends on each unit's charges, taxes, financing and assessments.

Price against the corridor, not against the building — there is no usable price series at this address — and do not let buyers conflate this with the larger Orchard Street condominiums. 48 Orchard is a 26-unit 2003 building and 196 Orchard is a 94-unit 2018 tower. This is four apartments over a store.

If you're considering 18 Orchard Street, also evaluate:

• 21 Ludlow Street — 23-residence prewar loft conversion around the corner; the closest comparison on building type
• 48 Orchard Street — 26-unit 2003 condominium a few blocks north on the same street; the newer, larger alternative
• 196 Orchard — the 94-unit 2018 Orchard Street condominium; the full-amenity comparison
• 133 Essex Street — 16-residence mid-2000s condominium on Essex Street
• 202 Broome Street — Broome Street condominium to the north
• 242 Broome Street — newer Broome Street condominium in the Essex Crossing footprint
• 38 Delancey Street — larger Delancey Street condominium with retained commercial floors; the mixed-use comparison
• 61 Rivington Street — 11-residence adaptive reuse of a 1905 library; the small-building conversion peer
• 100 Norfolk Street — 38-residence 2016 condominium north of Delancey
• 150 Rivington Street — 45-residence 2018 condominium; the new-development benchmark for the corridor