| Followers | 80 |
| Posts | 82226 |
| Boards Moderated | 2 |
| Alias Born | 12/26/2003 |
Sunday, March 06, 2011 4:53:52 PM
When It Comes to Taxes, Older Is Better
Top, Frances Roberts for The New York Times; bottom, Chester Higgins/The New York Times
Taxes on this Rosedale, Queens, house, bottom, are more than double those at 720 Park Avenue, top, when true market values are considered
By JOSH BARBANEL Published: December 11, 2005
IF you can afford the many millions you need to live at 720 Park Avenue - and you squeak past the co-op board - you will find yourself in a building with all the advantages New York has to offer. It is one of the great old Park Avenue luxury apartment buildings, with tasteful 12-room apartments and neighbors who grace the social pages, the business pages and the lists of the world's richest people.
But 720 Park Avenue and its neighboring prewar dowagers, up and down the great streets of the city, enjoy another advantage: they pay uncommonly low property taxes, when compared with the market value of their apartments.
While the owners at 720 Park, which sits on the corner of 70th Street, pay about $40,000 per apartment in taxes each year, an analysis by The New York Times estimated that they would pay two to three times that if they were taxed at their true market values, under the system used for calculating taxes for single-family homes.
The analysis of 68,000 sales by The Times found that this advantage is woven into the tax base of most older co-ops and to a lesser extent many condominiums and postwar co-ops across Manhattan as market values have risen sharply. State law bars assessors from basing taxes for condos and co-ops at their true market value.
Average taxes on Manhattan co-ops and condos are lower than they would be if they were taxed the way some of the most heavily taxed houses are. But it is prewar co-ops that have the greatest tax advantage. On average, they pay significantly lower taxes as a percentage of market value than the taxes paid by even typical one- to three-family homes across the city. And buildings with unusually high recent market values, like 720 Park Avenue, pay unusually low taxes, even when compared to newer condominiums.
The owners of 720 Park Avenue pay about $3.20 for each $1,000 in value, based on estimates of the market value made by The Times from recent sales data.
On 148th Road in Rosedale, Queens, the mostly middle-class owners of boxy two-family homes - nurses, cabdrivers, mechanics and the like - pay more than $9 for each $1,000 in market value. They are among about 44,000 homeowners who pay at or close to the city's top tax rate. "I assumed that they pay more on Park Avenue," said Allyson Davilar, a nurse at North Shore University Hospital who has lived on 148th Road for 11 years. She pays $4,390 in taxes on a two-family house valued at $478,000 last year.
Jacqueline Stewart, a private duty nurse who lives next door, paid $435,000 for her house two years ago. Two weeks ago, Ms. Stewart received a notice raising her taxes by $181, to $4,390. Her husband, Godfrey, who maintains equipment for White Castle restaurants, said he didn't mind paying the taxes if Rosedale received good services, but he had complaints about the schools and what he said was the limited police presence in the neighborhood.
.........Very long article, tells the ins and outs and the differences between, co ops ..and the pre war 1931 properties
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/realestate/11cov.html?sq=park%20avenue%20tax&st=cse&scp=3&pagewanted=all
Top, Frances Roberts for The New York Times; bottom, Chester Higgins/The New York Times
Taxes on this Rosedale, Queens, house, bottom, are more than double those at 720 Park Avenue, top, when true market values are considered
By JOSH BARBANEL Published: December 11, 2005
IF you can afford the many millions you need to live at 720 Park Avenue - and you squeak past the co-op board - you will find yourself in a building with all the advantages New York has to offer. It is one of the great old Park Avenue luxury apartment buildings, with tasteful 12-room apartments and neighbors who grace the social pages, the business pages and the lists of the world's richest people.
But 720 Park Avenue and its neighboring prewar dowagers, up and down the great streets of the city, enjoy another advantage: they pay uncommonly low property taxes, when compared with the market value of their apartments.
While the owners at 720 Park, which sits on the corner of 70th Street, pay about $40,000 per apartment in taxes each year, an analysis by The New York Times estimated that they would pay two to three times that if they were taxed at their true market values, under the system used for calculating taxes for single-family homes.
The analysis of 68,000 sales by The Times found that this advantage is woven into the tax base of most older co-ops and to a lesser extent many condominiums and postwar co-ops across Manhattan as market values have risen sharply. State law bars assessors from basing taxes for condos and co-ops at their true market value.
Average taxes on Manhattan co-ops and condos are lower than they would be if they were taxed the way some of the most heavily taxed houses are. But it is prewar co-ops that have the greatest tax advantage. On average, they pay significantly lower taxes as a percentage of market value than the taxes paid by even typical one- to three-family homes across the city. And buildings with unusually high recent market values, like 720 Park Avenue, pay unusually low taxes, even when compared to newer condominiums.
The owners of 720 Park Avenue pay about $3.20 for each $1,000 in value, based on estimates of the market value made by The Times from recent sales data.
On 148th Road in Rosedale, Queens, the mostly middle-class owners of boxy two-family homes - nurses, cabdrivers, mechanics and the like - pay more than $9 for each $1,000 in market value. They are among about 44,000 homeowners who pay at or close to the city's top tax rate. "I assumed that they pay more on Park Avenue," said Allyson Davilar, a nurse at North Shore University Hospital who has lived on 148th Road for 11 years. She pays $4,390 in taxes on a two-family house valued at $478,000 last year.
Jacqueline Stewart, a private duty nurse who lives next door, paid $435,000 for her house two years ago. Two weeks ago, Ms. Stewart received a notice raising her taxes by $181, to $4,390. Her husband, Godfrey, who maintains equipment for White Castle restaurants, said he didn't mind paying the taxes if Rosedale received good services, but he had complaints about the schools and what he said was the limited police presence in the neighborhood.
.........Very long article, tells the ins and outs and the differences between, co ops ..and the pre war 1931 properties
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/realestate/11cov.html?sq=park%20avenue%20tax&st=cse&scp=3&pagewanted=all
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
