204 Forsyth Street

Seven stories on a 49-foot frontage, built to the C4-4A envelope with a curb cut and two parking spaces at grade — unusual on a Lower East Side infill lot, and a scarce asset in resale.

The offering plan's Schedule A sets out the composition precisely:

• Unit 1 — 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, approximately 2,682 square feet, with a 1,075-square-foot rear yard, a 75-square-foot roof terrace and 538 square feet of cellar areaways as limited common elements
• Floors 2 through 5 — two residences per floor, each 2 bedrooms and 2 baths at roughly 1,520 to 1,550 square feet. The plan summary also identifies 70-square-foot balconies; confirm the specific units and floor coverage against Schedule A, because the stated balcony count and floor range do not reconcile
• Unit 6 — a full-floor 3-bedroom, 3.5-bath residence of approximately 2,963 square feet, with two 70-square-foot balconies and a 94-square-foot terrace
• Unit PH — 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, approximately 2,593 square feet, with terraces of 366 and 291 square feet and a 1,983-square-foot roof area
• Two parking space units, each with a stated allocation of 324 square feet and 153 square feet of actual vehicle space

One naming note that trips up buyers pulling records: the offering plan designates the paired residences on floors 2 through 5 as the A and B lines. The recorded deeds and unit-lot schedule use N and S — 2N, 2S, 3N, 3S and so on. They are the same apartments.

Two disclosures in the plan deserve emphasis, because they are the kind of thing that surfaces late in diligence when it should surface early.

Lot-line windows. The plan identifies specific windows as lot-line windows that could be permanently sealed if a new building rises within sixty feet on the adjacent parcel: one north-facing second-bedroom window in each of the A-line residences on floors 2 through 5; one south-facing second-bedroom window in each B-line residence on those floors; two windows in Unit 6 (master bathroom facing north, third bedroom facing south); and four in the penthouse — two in the master bedroom and one in the kitchen facing north, one in the second bedroom facing south. The plan further provides that the cost of any required sealing may fall on the affected unit owner rather than on the condominium. Any buyer in these lines should have counsel look at the neighboring lots' development capacity.

Stated square footage. Schedule A's figures are measured from the exterior face of the exterior walls and include a pro rata allocation of common hallway space — 123.5 square feet for each residence on floors 2 through 5, 75.4 for Unit 6, 269 for the penthouse. The plan states expressly that this allocated area is not inside the apartment and that the usable volume is meaningfully less than the stated dimension. Underwrite from the floor plan, not from the headline number.

The amenity program is scaled to eleven residences: an attended lobby, a fitness room, bicycle storage, and a recreation room in the cellar available to all residents. Washers and dryers are in-unit. Electricity and gas are separately metered to each residence and are not carried in common charges.

The building is fully sprinklered with an automatic smoke, heat and carbon monoxide detection system and a standpipe, all filed and signed off in conjunction with the new-building application. It received its final certificate of occupancy in October 2018 and has operated under it since.

One item from the plan belongs in front of every buyer: the sponsor established no reserve fund separate from the working capital fund, and the plan states in terms that in the absence of a reserve, significant repairs or replacements are likely to be funded through increased common charges or special assessments. That was a 2014-era disclosure about a then-new building; eight years into occupancy the relevant question is what reserve the board has since built. Ask for the most recent financial statements and the reserve balance before contract.

This is a straightforward condominium and it behaves like one. Purchase by an LLC or trust, purchase as a pied-à-terre, purchase by a foreign buyer, and subletting are all permitted without a board approval process. What governs instead is a right of first refusal: a unit owner intending to sell or lease must give the board written notice with a fully executed contract or lease, and the board has twenty days to elect to take the deal on the same terms. If it declines or is silent, the owner has thirty days to close. Transfers by gift, will or intestacy, and transfers by or to a mortgagee, are exempt.

The sponsor's original control provisions ran until the later of 50 percent of common interests conveyed or the fifth anniversary of the first closing. The first closing was in July 2018, and all eleven residences and both parking units have long since conveyed to unrelated owners, so the initial control period has run.

Pet rules, alteration procedure and any resale capital contribution are not in the plan sections on file. Confirm all three with the managing agent.

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. Most recent trades (2023) cleared a median $1,556/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. 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 5.7% 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 1-00422-7503; 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.

Model the tax line honestly. No benefit expiration is documented in the reviewed records, but that does not establish a fixed tax assessment; taxes, common charges and assessments can change. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator side by side with any abated comparable; total cost over your hold period depends on each unit's charges, taxes, financing and assessments.

Check the lot line before you fall in love with a bedroom. The plan names the windows. Have your attorney check the development capacity of the adjacent lots, and understand that sealing costs may fall on you rather than on the building.

Ask for the reserve. The sponsor funded no separate reserve fund. Eight years of operation should have produced one; the financial statements will say.

Price the outliers separately. Two deeded parking space units are a scarce Lower East Side asset with their own resale market, and Unit 1 — with a 1,075-square-foot rear yard and 538 square feet of cellar areaways — is not a comparable for the floor-through residences above it.

Show the specific size and outlook. Present the unit’s floor plan and stated area with Schedule A’s exterior-wall and common-hallway measurement caveat. Eleven residences in roughly 19,000 square feet of building area does not establish an average usable interior or superiority to every nearby building.

Document the tax position. Provide the current unit bill, benefit schedule and assessment history. The original unabated projection does not guarantee future taxes or establish a carrying-cost advantage over nearby apartments.

Get ahead of the lot-line disclosure, and document the reserve. The windows are in the offering plan and a buyer's attorney will find them; arriving there first costs nothing. A well-capitalized eleven-unit condominium is easy to underwrite, an opaque one is not — provide the statements.

If you're considering 204 Forsyth Street, also evaluate:

• 199 Chrystie Street — the closest like-for-like: boutique new construction one block west, facing the same park
• 215 Chrystie Street — larger-format new development on the park's west side
• 183 Chrystie Street — boutique Chrystie Street condominium at similar unit scale
• 165 Chrystie Street — small-building condominium alternative on the park corridor
• 175 Chrystie Street — the neighboring Chrystie Street condominium
• 196 Orchard Street — full-service Lower East Side condominium with a deeper amenity program
• 36 Rivington Street — boutique condominium two blocks south
• 250 Bowery — the Bowery-frontage new-development alternative
• 195 Bowery — boutique Bowery condominium at comparable unit count