Updated May 2026 by Corey Cohen, Roebling Team TL;DR If you're a non-U.S. buyer purchasing a Manhattan apartment, three rules cover 90% of the decision: Buy a condo, not a co-op. Most Manhattan co-ops will reject you. Condos almost universally accept foreign buyers with a clean financial package. 2. Structure the purchase carefully. The choice between buying in your personal name, an LLC, or a trust has significant implications for U.S. tax exposure — especially U.S. estate t

TL;DR Before you sign a contract on any Manhattan co-op, you (or your attorney) should read three documents: the audited financial statements for the last two years, the building's current operating budget, and the last 12 months of board meeting minutes. From these, five numbers tell you almost everything you need to know: per-unit reserves, operating margin, underlying mortgage status, maintenance trend, and assessment history. Most buyers don't bother. The ones who do save

Rough rule for a Manhattan co-op: your gross household income needs to be roughly 3 to 4x the all-in annual housing cost (mortgage P&I + maintenance) to clear most boards. For a typical $1.5M co-op with 25% down at current rates, that's roughly $300K to $375K of household income. Condos use the lender's debt-to-income standard, which is more permissive — closer to 2.5 to 3x housing cost — so the same apartment might be financeable at $225K to $275K of income. Boards also want

A "sponsor unit" is an apartment owned by the original developer (or a successor sponsor) that has never been sold to an individual owner. They show up in both co-op and condo buildings, and they come with one big upside — typically no board approval — and one big downside — buyer often pays the transfer taxes the seller would normally cover. Whether a sponsor unit is a good deal depends on three numbers: the price, the closing-cost shift, and how the unit's condition compare