238 West 108th Street (The Columbia House)

The building fills its lot to a depth of about eighty-five feet, six stories inside a contextual envelope that keeps the streetwall in line with the buildings on either side. Each floor is one residence. On a twenty-five-foot lot that produces the classic townhouse-width plan — glass at the front and rear, party walls on both flanks — executed with an elevator. Listing records describe high ceilings, crown moldings, a working fireplace in each residence, central air, and private outdoor space attached to every unit. With six units and a keyed elevator opening into the apartments, there is effectively no public corridor above the lobby.

The assessment roll is a useful proxy for relative size: the base residence and the top-floor residence carry materially higher market values than the four floors between them, which are assessed identically to one another — a pattern consistent with a garden-level or duplexed base unit and a penthouse with roof access, with four uniform full-floor apartments stacked between. Confirm actual square footage and outdoor-space allocation against the unit deed and the declaration rather than against any published figure.

There is no staff, and a six-unit building could not support one. Services are a remotely operable video intercom, a keyed elevator and private storage; management is handled by a managing agent for a very small association.

The arithmetic cuts both ways. Common charges in a six-unit building with no amenity program and no payroll are structurally low, which is the format's principal carrying-cost advantage. But six owners also carry the roof, the elevator, the boiler and the facade with no dilution, and a single capital item lands hard. The building is young enough that major systems may still be original and approaching first replacement — which is exactly the moment to ask for the operating budget, the reserve balance, several years of minutes and any assessment history. We hold no offering plan and no financial statements for this building in either library; that picture has to come from the managing agent.

Ownership form: Condominium. There is no co-op board admission; purchases run through the condominium's application and right-of-first-refusal process.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign purchase: All permitted under the standard condominium framework. Confirm minimum lease terms and any sublet registration requirement with the managing agent.

Pets: Permitted per management-sourced records.

Flip tax: Not documented. Confirm before pricing a sale.

Real estate taxes: No 421-a and no other exemption on any unit lot in the FY2023 through FY2027 rolls. Use the current bill for the specific unit and confirm all applicable benefits, including any eligible primary-residence condominium abatement; model future assessment, rate and charge changes separately.

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 $1,079/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 4.3% 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 1-01879-7501; 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.

The 421-a has fully expired. The benefit began in fiscal 2011, ran ten years, and produced a zero exemption from fiscal 2021 onward. A figure relying on that expired 421-a award is stale; a separate eligible abatement may still apply, so check the actual unit bill. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator against the current bill.

Do not read PLUTO's 2007 as delivery. The new-building permit issued in 2007; first closings were August 2009; temporary certificates ran from 2012 and the final certificate of occupancy issued March 1, 2016.

Six owners, no dilution. Ask for the budget, the reserve, the minutes and the assessment history before contract. One elevator modernization here is a materially different event than in a sixty-unit building.

Confirm the outdoor space in the deed. Terraces, roof rights and garden use in a small condominium are allocated by the declaration and the unit deed, and limited common-element rights are not always what the marketing implies.

No landmark constraint. Unusually for this part of the Upper West Side, the lot carries no designation of any kind and LPC has no permit history here. Window and exterior work go straight to DOB — a quiet advantage over most of the surrounding inventory.

Test the light. All the glass is at the front and rear. Walk a specific floor at the hour you would actually be home.

Lead with the format. Document the particular residence’s full-floor plan, private outdoor rights, direct elevator entry, working fireplace and operative condominium rules. Compare those features with actual nearby alternatives rather than claiming surrounding blocks cannot match them.

Be direct about taxes. A buyer's attorney will find the expired 421-a in the first week. Presenting the current full bill up front converts a discovery into a disclosed number.

Have the association's documents ready. With no offering plan or financials in circulation, buyers price uncertainty. The budget, reserve position, house rules and minutes on day one remove that discount.

Price against condominiums, not co-ops. The prewar cooperatives on this street carry different economics, different approval risk and a different buyer pool.

If you're considering 238 West 108th Street, also evaluate:

• 272 West 107th Street (The Straus Park Condominium) — a 2004 ground-up condominium a block south; the nearest new-construction alternative, at full-service scale
• 545 West 110th Street — a 2005–06 ground-up condominium; similar vintage, far larger denominator
• 610 West 110th Street — a 1921–22 building converted to condominium; prewar rooms with condominium rules
• 285 West 110th Street (Circa Central Park) — a 2016 ground-up condominium; the newest alternative nearby
• 241 West 108th Street — a 1911 cooperative across the street; the prewar co-op alternative on the same block
• 255 West 108th Street (The Manchester) — a 1910 corner cooperative at Broadway; the full-service prewar alternative
• 329 West 108th Street — a cooperative assembled from 1899 townhouses; the small-building co-op alternative
• 300 West 109th Street (The Manhasset) — the landmarked Broadway apartment house a block north; a very different scale and ownership structure