The Bayard House (203 East 72nd Street)

The tower rises 27 above-ground stories plus a cellar and sub-cellar, to 263 feet above curb per the offering plan. It is faced in beige brick with a punched-window elevation, characteristic of the better mid-1960s Upper East Side apartment houses rather than of the era's white-brick stock. The four-story building along the northern end of the block is red brick in a Georgian-revival idiom and, per the offering plan, was reconstructed around 1947 — nearly two decades before the tower. The two were assembled into one cooperative at conversion.

Apartment composition follows the split. The tower carries the majority of the inventory across 27 floors, with the upper stack picking up open north, east and south exposures over the low-rise blocks of Lenox Hill and, on the highest floors, long river and midtown outlooks. The low-rise apartments trade on scale and quiet rather than view. Department of Buildings alteration filings across the building show a steady pattern of two-apartment combinations from the early 2000s onward, so the current mix is wider than the as-offered schedule and includes assembled units that do not appear in the 1978 plan.

Buyers should read the exposure question carefully. The Third Avenue elevation faces an active retail and bus corridor; the East 72nd and East 73rd Street elevations face mid-block. Window line matters more here than floor number.

The Bayard House runs as a full-service cooperative with an attended lobby, a union staff covered by a Building Service 32BJ collective bargaining agreement, a cellar-level fitness room built out under a 2001 alteration and operated on a membership-fee basis, central laundry and storage. Payroll and related expenses, real estate taxes and utilities are the three dominant lines in the operating budget, and the corporation's 2022 budget forecast set maintenance at $42.13 per share per year.

The capital posture, from the audited financial statements on file for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, is worth a buyer's attention on both sides of the ledger. On the strong side: the corporation refinanced in December 2021 into a $7,200,000 National Cooperative Bank mortgage at 3.18 percent, interest only, maturing January 1, 2032, and carries an undrawn $1,000,000 revolving line of credit; cash and cash equivalents stood above $3.7 million at year-end 2021; a contingency fund funded by transfer and sublet fees stood near $588,000; and a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan taken in 2021 was fully forgiven in January 2022.

On the side that requires diligence: the corporation's governing documents do not require the accumulation of funds for future major repairs, no reserve study has been performed, and the auditors note the omission of the required supplementary information on future major repairs and replacements. Capital spending in 2020 was modest — gym equipment and an air-conditioning renovation — and there was none recorded in 2021. A building of this age and scale will face facade, elevator and mechanical cycles; the funding mechanism, on the corporation's own disclosure, is available cash, borrowing, maintenance increases or assessment rather than an accumulated reserve. Ask for the most recent financial statements and the current capital plan, not the 2021 set summarized here.

One further item belongs in any underwriting: the mortgage is interest-only through a January 1, 2032 maturity. Principal is not amortizing, so the full $7.2 million refinances into whatever rate environment exists in 2031. On roughly 103,000 shares that is a manageable per-share exposure, but it is a real one, and it should be modeled rather than assumed away.

Ownership form: Cooperative. Purchases require board approval and a personal interview after a full board package; closings run materially longer than condominium closings.

Board approval and package: The by-laws require board authorization for both the sale of shares with assignment of the proprietary lease and for subletting. Expect a conventional Upper East Side package — two years of tax returns, a full financial statement, liquid-asset verification, and personal and professional references.

Financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity: Not published. Postwar Upper East Side cooperatives of this scale commonly cap financing between 70 and 80 percent and require post-closing liquidity measured in years of maintenance and debt service, but The Bayard House's current standards are set by the board and available only from the managing agent. Do not assume; ask before you offer.

Subletting: Permitted with board consent under the proprietary lease and by-laws. The corporation charges sublet fees, which flow to the contingency fund. Seasoning requirements, term limits and the fee schedule come from the managing agent.

Flip tax / transfer fee: Exists and is material to the corporation's reserve funding — transfer and sublet fees together ran roughly $143,000 to $178,000 a year in 2020 and 2021. Management's published schedule (September 2026) gives 2% of the purchase price, paid by the buyer; any different allocation is a matter for the contract.

Pied-à-terre, trusts, LLCs, co-purchase and guarantors: Not documented in the records available to us. Cooperatives of this profile typically consider these case by case rather than permitting or barring them outright. Confirm with the managing agent at offer stage.

Pets: Not documented in the records available to us. Confirm the current house rules.

Real estate taxes: No building-level abatement. The abatement figure on the corporation's income statement is the co-op/condo property tax abatement passed through to eligible primary-resident shareholders.

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 (2025): a median $1,383/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2026. 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 1-01427-0001). 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.

Search by BBL, not by address. PLUTO files this lot as 1251 Third Avenue. Any automated valuation, tax lookup or permit search run against "203 East 72nd Street" will return a partial record at best. Use BBL 1014270001 or BIN 1085194.

Establish which building your apartment is in. The tower and the four-story building are one cooperative but two products. Comparables should be drawn from the same structure and, ideally, the same line.

Underwrite the interest-only mortgage. $7.2 million at 3.18 percent, interest only, matures January 1, 2032. No principal is being retired. Model the refinance.

Ask what has not been reserved. The corporation does not maintain a reserve study and its governing documents do not require reserve accumulation. That is a disclosure, not a defect — but it means capital work is funded by cash, borrowing, maintenance increases or assessment when it arrives.

The commercial lease is an asset with a horizon. It runs to December 27, 2041 with fixed escalations. That makes the commercial rent line predictable through 2041, and it also caps it: the corporation cannot mark that space to market before then. It does not fix maintenance, which still moves with taxes, payroll, insurance, capital work and the mortgage refinancing; compare the lease income with current expenses and the tenant's payment record.

Get the policy stack in writing before you offer. Financing ceiling, post-closing liquidity, sublet seasoning and pet rules are board-set and unpublished here; the flip tax is 2% of the purchase price, buyer-paid, on management's September 2026 schedule. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator once you have the real numbers.

Lead with the address, not the avenue. The entrance is on East 72nd Street and the building presents as a cross-street co-op. Buyers who first see the listing as a Third Avenue address price it accordingly; the framing matters.

Present the carrying-cost story properly. Commercial income covers a substantial share of the operating budget. Maintenance that looks low relative to square footage has a documented reason, and saying so up front survives attorney diligence better than letting a buyer discover it.

Know who pays the flip tax. Management's September 2026 schedule gives 2% of the purchase price, paid by the buyer; confirm the current schedule and any contract allocation before you set a price expectation, and run the Seller Closing Cost Calculator against the real figure.

Condition is the swing factor. In a 1978 conversion with combination activity running through the 2000s, the spread between renovated and estate-condition units is wide. Price to the renovation math or renovate to the price.

If you're considering The Bayard House, also evaluate:

• 220 East 73rd Street and 230 East 73rd Street — Emery Roth's Eastgate buildings for Bing & Bing, directly north; the prewar alternative on the same blocks
• 225 East 73rd Street — another Eastgate building; a different tenure and vintage on the adjoining block
• 215 East 72nd Street — 1929 cooperative a short walk east on the same street; the prewar comparison at similar scale
• 1280 Third Avenue — 1966 cooperative of roughly 120 units; the closest like-for-like by vintage, avenue and tenure
• 1270 Third Avenue — 1958 building converted in 1987; the postwar avenue alternative with a later conversion
• 1250 Third Avenue — 1960 full-service cooperative of roughly 183 units; the larger postwar peer
• 150 East 73rd Street — Cross & Cross, 1922–23; the boutique prewar step up in tone and down in scale
• 155 East 72nd Street — a different block and a different building profile on the same street
• 132 East 72nd Street — the mid-block Lenox Hill alternative west of Lexington