244 East 52nd Street (Minuet)

Fifteen residences across seven floors produces two to three apartments per landing above the ground floor, and a clean vertical stack. Gross floor areas from the Department of Finance unit-lot roll run: 610 square feet in the A line on floors two through four; 917 square feet in the C line on floors two through four; 1,090 square feet at 2B and 3B; 1,295 square feet at 5A and 6A; 1,314 square feet at 5B and 6B; 1,878 square feet at the seventh-floor penthouse; and 2,561 square feet at 1A, the ground-floor residence that takes the rear yard. Department of Finance gross areas are not marketed interior areas and will read larger; use them for relative scale, not for a price-per-foot calculation.

The offering ran from one-bedrooms through a four-bedroom penthouse with substantial private outdoor space. Balconies sit at the western end of the fifth and sixth floors, the roof terrace above the seventh floor carries lounge seating, an outdoor kitchen and a dining area, and the 30-foot rear yard sits behind the ground floor. Interiors are wide-plank white oak with custom cabinetry, Taj Mahal quartzite in the kitchens and North Pearl marble in the baths.

The staffing model is the single most important operating fact and the one most often glossed over. Minuet has a part-time doorman supplemented by virtual doorman service — not a 24-hour attended lobby. For a 15-unit building this is the economically rational choice, and it holds common charges down, but a buyer trading out of a full-service building should price the difference in service honestly before writing an offer. The amenity set is otherwise complete for the scale: fitness center with a yoga and movement studio, laundry room, bicycle storage, private storage available for purchase, and the roof terrace.

This is the most useful thing a buyer can know about Minuet, and it comes out of ACRIS and the assessment roll rather than out of a marketing sheet.

The condominium declaration was recorded on February 12, 2024. Since then, nine of the 15 residences have closed to nine separate, unrelated purchasers — individuals, a living trust, and two limited liability companies — with recorded closings running from May 2024 through September 2025. The units that have transferred are 2A, 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A and 6A.

Six residences remained in sponsor ownership on the FY2027 assessment roll: 1A, 3C, 4C, 5B, 6B and PH7. Two of those are the largest apartments in the building. That is roughly forty percent of the offering still held by the sponsor more than two years after the first closing and more than three years after the sales launch, at a pace of about four closings a year.

None of this is a defect. It is leverage, and it is measurable. A sponsor with carrying costs on six unabated Class 2 tax lots and a construction loan behind them is a different counterparty from a resale seller, and the negotiation runs on different terms — closing-cost allocation, appliance and finish credits, storage, and the transfer taxes a sponsor customarily asks the purchaser to absorb are all on the table alongside price.

Minuet carries no tax abatement. Every one of the 15 residential unit lots shows zero exempt value and no exemption code in the FY2027 assessment roll, and the condominium billing lot shows the same across the FY2025 through FY2027 rolls. There is no 421-a benefit, no 485-x benefit and no J-51 benefit attached to this building.

The practical consequence is that the monthly number does not move. Buyers who have underwritten abated new-development inventory elsewhere in Manhattan are used to a real estate tax line that starts small and steps up over a decade or more; here it starts at full Class 2 assessment and stays there. That makes Minuet more expensive month-to-month than an abated comparable at the same price — and it also removes the abatement-burnoff cliff that shows up on resale in abated buildings five and ten years out. Run the carrying number, not the sticker.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. 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 (2025) cleared a median $1,742/sf across 5 sales. 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 1-01325-7505) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. 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.

Establish first whether your unit is a sponsor sale or a resale. Six residences were still sponsor-held on the most recent assessment roll. On a sponsor unit the purchaser is customarily asked to absorb the New York State and New York City transfer taxes and the sponsor's attorney fee — real money at this price point, and all of it negotiable when the sponsor is carrying inventory into a third year. On a resale, those costs sit with the seller in the ordinary course.

Underwrite the tax line, not the price. There is no abatement. Pull the current tax bill for the specific unit lot and put the full number into your carrying-cost model before you agree on price.

Test the staffing. Part-time doorman plus virtual doorman is a genuine cost saving and a genuine service reduction. Visit in the evening.

Ask about the lot-line walls. The east and west flanks are largely solid by design. Confirm which openings, if any, are lot-line windows in your specific unit, and understand that those can be lost to a neighboring development.

Read the offering plan. File no. CD20-0034. We do not carry a copy; request it from the sponsor and have your attorney review the budget, the common-charge allocation, the sponsor's obligations while it retains units, and the board control provisions.

You are competing with the sponsor. Six unsold residences in a 15-unit building means the sponsor is a permanent comparable, and it can offer concessions a resale seller cannot match on paper. Know the sponsor's current asking prices and its remaining inventory before you set yours.

Lead with what a sponsor unit cannot offer — a clean, fast closing with ordinary-course cost allocation, no sponsor transfer-tax absorption, and no construction-punchlist exposure.

Document the building's condition. A 2024 Certificate of Occupancy, new mechanicals, and no deferred capital are the strongest arguments this building has. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator and put the honest monthly number in front of buyers rather than letting the unabated tax bill surface late in diligence.

If you're considering 244 East 52nd Street, also evaluate:

• 249 East 50th Street — a 2019 boutique condominium by the same architect, Isaac & Stern; the closest like-for-like in scale, era and design vocabulary
• 250 East 53rd Street (The Veneto) — 2006 glass-and-masonry condominium; the full-service alternative at larger scale
• 226 East 52nd Street (The Enclave) — 1984 condominium on the same blockfront corridor
• 216 East 52nd Street (The Pantheon) — turn-of-the-century building converted to condominium; the loft-character alternative on the same block
• 245 East 50th Street — 1980 condominium; established Turtle Bay condominium inventory
• 211 East 51st Street — 1958 building reclad and rebuilt internally as a high-design condominium
• 400 East 51st Street (The Grand Beekman) — the new-classical condominium alternative a few blocks east
• 230 East 50th Street — 1927–1929 cooperative; the prewar co-op alternative on the corridor at a lower price per foot