44 Remsen Street
44 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002510028 · BIN 3002127
- Year built
- 1844
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 10
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- Designated
- Flip tax
- Declining scale keyed to holding period: 3.0% if sold under 2 years, 2.5% under 3 years, 2.0% under 4 years, 1.5% under 5 years, none after 5 years
- Financing
- 20% minimum down payment
- Subletting
- Permitted with board approval on a one-year lease; $500 application fee (renters and buyers); $50 per month sublet charge; all sublet charges must be current before a resale application is reviewed
- Pets
- All pets must be approved by the co-op board of directors (purchase application)
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated April 2013 (fees/flip tax/down payment); February 1, 2006 (board package and fees)). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
44 Remsen Street is an 1844 Greek Revival house — one of the oldest buildings on the street and among the older residential structures in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. Its LPC record names Augustus Moore as the developer, placing it in the same 1844 building season that produced 58 Remsen Street a few doors west under a different builder. That is the founding generation of Remsen Street: low, wide, plainly detailed Greek Revival houses put up while Brooklyn Heights was still becoming the country's first commuter suburb, before the Italianate rows of the 1850s and 1860s filled in around them and long before the interwar apartment houses arrived at the corners.
What makes the building worth understanding today is not the ornament — Greek Revival is the district's least demonstrative style — but the way it is governed. The house holds ten apartments across four floors on 1,604 shares, and 44 Remsen Street Owners Corp. runs it with an unusually specific rulebook for its size. The centerpiece is the flip tax, and it is not a flat percentage. It steps down with holding period: 3.0 percent on a resale inside two years, 2.5 percent inside three, 2.0 percent inside four, 1.5 percent inside five, and nothing at all after five. Most Brooklyn co-ops that charge a transfer fee charge the same fee whether the seller held for eighteen months or eighteen years. This corporation taxes speed and forgives patience.
The rest of the policy set is consistent. Twenty percent down. Subletting permitted, but only on a one-year lease, with board approval, a $500 fee, and a $50 monthly charge running the term — and unpaid sublet charges must be cleared before the board will look at a resale application. Pets require board approval. Alterations require an alteration agreement. Non-family occupants may not stay more than a month without written consent. It reads as a building that decided on purpose to be a house of long-term owner-occupants and to make the alternatives expensive rather than prohibit them.
Architecture and unit composition
The Greek Revival houses of the Heights are recognizable by restraint. The style, dominant here through the 1830s and 1840s, gives a four-story front with a raised stoop, plain rectangular stone lintels and sills, a low top story, a simple cornice, and an entrance framed with flat pilasters and an entablature — the American classical vocabulary applied to a narrow city lot. The LPC's district records classify 44 Remsen in exactly that register, and protection extends to the whole street wall: façade, stoop, ironwork, cornice, and windows all require Landmarks approval before change.
Inside, the ten apartments are the product of subdividing a single-family house, which means plan variety rather than plan repetition. There are no lines here in the apartment-house sense: a garden-level apartment, a parlor floor with the original ceiling heights, and upper-floor units under the low ceilings of the top story are three different products. Rear apartments look over the block interior, front apartments over Remsen Street's street trees. Evaluate the specific apartment; the building average tells you very little.
Building operations
44 Remsen Street Owners Corp. operates the building through Adventure Properties, Inc., a management firm on Clark Street, under a written board-approval package and fee schedule in place at least since February 2006. The process is conventional for a small co-op and unusually well documented for one: an application per purchaser, contract, credit release, net-worth statement, two personal and two business references, current tax returns, three months of bank statements, and — where financing — the commitment letter and a lender recognition agreement executed by the board president at closing. An interview may be requested; closings are held at the co-op attorney's office.
For an 1844 masonry house in a landmarked streetscape, the recurring capital obligations are the façade and stoop, the cornice, the roof, and the window sash, each of which runs through the LPC. There is no elevator and no staff, and the scale is small: the corporation's 2009 statements show maintenance income of about $84,000 against roughly $106,000 of total expense including depreciation, real estate taxes near $29,600, and a mortgage balance around $303,700. One major project moves everyone's maintenance and there is no payroll to cut. The financial statements in The Roebling Research Library run from the mid-1990s forward and are short — read the full run, not one year.
Recent sales
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 8, 2025 | 3 | $600,000 |
| Sep 20, 2024 | 8 | $610,000 |
| Jul 19, 2023 | 5 | $610,000 |
| Mar 26, 2021 | 4/6 | $1,650,000 |
| Jul 17, 2019 | 5 | $625,000 |
| Feb 14, 2019 | 10 | $583,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00251-0028) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Model the flip tax as an exit cost from day one. A sale inside two years carries 3.0 percent; after five years it carries nothing. If your horizon is short, that alone can decide the building.
Twenty percent down is the documented floor. Confirm the board's current requirement early — small boards revisit financing standards more often than large ones.
Read the full financial run. Ten apartments and no staff means one façade or roof cycle is felt by every shareholder. Ask about assessment history and reserves specifically.
Get the prospectus. The offering plan is not in general circulation here; management provides a copy for a fee, and your attorney should read it before contract.
What to know if you’re selling
Date the flip tax in your net sheet. Your closing date relative to your purchase date can move the fee by two and a half points of the sale price. Time it deliberately.
Clear the ledger first. Maintenance, assessments, late fees, and sublet charges must be paid in full before the board will review a purchaser's application. Nothing delays a small-co-op closing faster.
Sell the date. An 1844 Greek Revival house with an LPC-recorded builder is a real differentiator in a market where most conversion co-ops are anonymous. Put Augustus Moore and 1844 in the first paragraph.
Prepare a complete package. The board's checklist is specific and incomplete packages are returned.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 44 Remsen Street, also evaluate:
- 58 Remsen Street — the other 1844 Greek Revival house on this block, ten apartments and a garden
- 73 Remsen Street — the three-apartment rowhouse co-op across the street
- 134 Remsen Street — an 1861 pair cut into small apartments in the 1940s
- 87 Hicks Street — small nineteenth-century walk-up co-op, comparable scale
- 151 Joralemon Street — 20-unit prewar walk-up converted in the early 1980s
- 10 Montague Terrace — nineteenth-century mansion converted to apartments
- 60 Remsen Street — the street's full-service postwar alternative, for contrast
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.
Considering a move at 44 Remsen Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 44 Remsen 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.