281 West 11th Street
281 West 11th Street, New York, NY 10014
West Village
BBL 1006230055 · BIN 1011365
- Year built
- 1901
- Type
- Cooperative
- Landmark
- Designated
- Financing
- 20% minimum down payment per listing records (an 80% loan-to-value ceiling) — confirm with the managing agent
- Flip tax
- Not documented in the records on file — confirm with the managing agent
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 281 West 11th Street would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.
281 West 11th Street is a turn-of-the-century walk-up apartment house on a residential West Village block, inside the Greenwich Village Historic District since 1969. It is a small building in every sense: 19 apartments on a 25-foot lot, a budget of roughly $300,000 a year, and a board where a handful of decisions set the carrying cost for everyone.
The buyer-relevant facts are structural. The building converted in 1989, and the sponsor held a significant block of apartments for three decades afterward — seven of 19 as recently as February 2021. Most of that block sold in 2021 and 2022. What remains, by our reading of ACRIS, is two apartments that the 2021 amendment listed as occupied by rent-stabilized tenants. For a building this size, the sponsor's remaining position and the co-op's recent capital assessments matter more than any amenity.
The block itself is the appeal: West 11th Street between West 4th and Bleecker is a row of 19th-century houses and small apartment buildings under landmark protection, a short walk from Abingdon Square and the Hudson River waterfront. Landmark protection limits what can be built next door, and it also means façade and window work at this building goes through LPC.
Architecture and unit composition
LPC credits the building to Charles Rentz for D. Rosenbaum in 1901: a five-story brick-and-stone apartment house on a standard 25-foot village lot, built to the tenement-house pattern of four apartments a floor. LPC's survey notes the ground floor has been considerably altered; the upper façade carries the original masonry, which the co-op repaired under a brick and brownstone repair program filed with DOB in 2016.
Apartments are lettered A through D on each floor, with lower-level apartments below the first floor (L-A, L-C). Most homes are studios and one-bedrooms. Over time, shareholders have combined apartments — DOB records a 1A–1B combination in 2000 and a 1AB–1LA combination in 2014 — and the upper floors include duplexes joining the fourth and fifth floors (4/5C and 4D/5D in ACRIS). That is why the count drifts from source to source: 19 apartments under the offering plan, 20 in DOF and PLUTO, 18 shareholder units in the 2020 audited statements, and between 16 and 20 in DOB job filings depending on the year. The combined and duplex units trade in a different price bracket from the studios.
A 2014 DOB filing covers a new laundry room and refuse room in the cellar; whether the laundry is operating should be confirmed on a visit.
Building operations
Per the plan amendment and audited financial statements on file:
Mortgage. The corporation's 2012 mortgage from a cooperative lender, $900,000 at 4.04%, was set to mature on December 1, 2022 with a balance of about $545,000. ACRIS records a July 2021 refinancing — a new $1.0 million consolidated mortgage with a different bank. The terms of that loan are not on file; get the rate, maturity and amortization from the managing agent. The corporation also had a $200,000 credit line, of which $121,500 was drawn at the end of 2020.
Assessments. A special assessment has been in place since March 1, 2018 "for an indefinite period" to cover façade and adjacent sidewalk work, repay draws on the credit line and rebuild reserves. A separate capital assessment raised about $115,000 in each of 2019 and 2020. The 2021 amendment flagged the 2020 budget as a special risk because the projected operating deficit exceeded 10% of income. Whether both assessments continue in 2026 is the first question for the managing agent.
Taxes. Real estate taxes were just over half of the corporation's 2020 expenses. Like many small co-ops, the board bills an assessment roughly equal to the co-op tax abatement credited to eligible shareholders.
Abatements. DOF records show a J-51 benefit from 1966 — a 12-year exemption and an abatement on about $40,700 of certified renovation cost, which points to a mid-1960s modernization of the building while it was still a rental. The abatement ended in the mid-1970s and the exemption by 1977. No J-51 benefit is active; the only exemption on the current roll is small and at the shareholder level.
Sponsor position. Per the February 2021 amendment, the sponsor held seven unsold apartments (575 shares, 30.6% of the total), five of them vacant and held for sale. ACRIS shows the sponsor selling five apartments between June 2021 and September 2022. The two that remain on that list were occupied by rent-stabilized tenants in 2021, and no transfer of either appears in ACRIS since. Sponsor representatives held two of seven board seats in 2021, while resident directors held the majority. Confirm the current sponsor holdings and board composition before contract.
Policy framework
The policy stack here comes from listing records, not from governing documents on file. Treat every line as something to confirm with the managing agent:
Board approval. Standard co-op board package and interview; shares transfer only with board consent.
Financing. 20% minimum down payment per listing records.
Subletting. Permitted after two years of residence per listing records. The 2020 audited statements show meaningful sublet-fee income, which confirms subletting happens in practice.
Pied-à-terre and co-purchasing. Permitted per listing records.
Flip tax, trust and LLC purchases. Not documented. Get the board's written position before an offer depends on either.
Recent sales
ACRIS shows share transfers to unrelated buyers every year or two since 2004, and a burst of sponsor sales in 2021–2022 as the vacant sponsor apartments reached the market. Pricing splits sharply by product. The studios and one-bedrooms, including the lower-level apartments, form the building's entry tier. The combined fourth- and fifth-floor duplexes trade at a multiple of that and are the building's top tier. As a co-op, value is read per room and by line. Walk-up stairs discount the upper floors for some buyers, and the duplexes' extra space outweighs that for others. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 23, 2025 | 4/5C | $2,000,000 |
| Jul 1, 2025 | 4/5C | $1,895,000 |
| Jun 28, 2024 | 4B | $640,000 |
| Feb 6, 2023 | 4H | $975,000 |
| Jan 9, 2023 | 4/5C | $1,750,000 |
| Aug 25, 2022 | 4A | $625,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00623-0055) 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.
Buying here? Co-op closing costs typically run 2 to 3% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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What to know if you’re buying
Get the post-2021 mortgage terms. The 2021 refinancing replaced a loan that was due in 2022. Its maturity and rate set the next refinancing risk, and none of that is in the records on file.
Ask whether the 2018 assessment has ended. It was levied for an indefinite period. Your carrying cost is maintenance plus any assessment still running.
Know what the sponsor still holds. Two rent-stabilized apartments, if our reading of ACRIS is right. That is roughly a tenth of the building — small, but relevant to the sublet cap, lender questionnaires and the board's budget.
It is a walk-up. Price the stairs honestly, especially for a fifth-floor or duplex purchase.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the block and the landmark district. West 11th between West 4th and Bleecker does real work in a sale.
Have the capital story ready. Buyers' attorneys will read the 2021 amendment's special-risk language. Current statements showing the façade work done and the budget stable are the answer.
Combined apartments need paperwork. If you are selling a combination or duplex, have the DOB sign-offs and the board's alteration approvals in the file.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 281 West 11th Street, also evaluate:
- 295 West 11th Street — larger 1920 cooperative at the Bleecker Street end of the same block
- 270 West 11th Street — 1915 cooperative on the same stretch of West 11th
- 226 West 11th Street — landmarked walk-up cooperative on West 11th Street
- 256 West 10th Street — walk-up cooperative a block south
- 79 Perry Street — five-story walk-up cooperative of the same era
- 247 West 12th Street — 1910–11 cooperative a block north
- 11 Charlton Street — 1910 cooperative south of Houston Street, of the same prewar vintage
More West Village buildings
- 256 West 10th Street (Hudson Mews) — 1911 co-op
- 270 West 11th Street (Tudor Arms) — 1915 co-op
- 275 West 10th Street (The Shephard) — 1896 condominium
- 296 West 10th Street — 1998 condominium
- 299 West 12th Street — 1930 condominium by Emery Roth
- 302 West 12th Street — 1929 condominium by Boak & Paris
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across West Village — read The Roebling Team Guide to West Village.
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
Considering a move at 281 West 11th Street?
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