NYC Real Estate - All You Need to Know

In recent years, Brooklyn has reportedly become the hottest place to be in New York City, and it has grown and flourished at a much faster pace than any other borough. Many would argue that the borough is now even hotter than Manhattan, although that's up for debate. Read on to discover which borough wins in our Manhattan vs Brooklyn comparison.

A Certificate of Occupancy, also abbreviated to C of O or CO, is a real estate document used by the Department of Buildings to indicate a building’s legal use as well as the type of permitted occupancy. For example, a CO will state whether a building is a residential, commercial, or mixed-use property. A certificate of occupancy will also indicate the number of residences or units that are allowed in the building.

Environmentally friendly building techniques have been around for decades, in some form or another, but they’ve only recently gone mainstream. The development of green building standards like BREEAM and LEED certified has created incentives for developers and has raised awareness of the importance of constructing sustainable buildings.

Building a temporary wall can be a great way to partition your apartment, but changes to NYC laws have made it challenging to build full, pressurized walls. Nowadays, most landlords will only approve partial or bookshelf walls.

One of the biggest decisions many New Yorkers have to make is if renting or buying is right for them. While buying a NYC apartment is a dream for many, there are times when renting is simply more convenient or even more economical.

A pied-à-terre is a small residence or apartment used as a secondary residence. Typically a pied-à-terre will be located in a city and used for occasional use, much like a vacation home.

If you've ever tried to rent or buy a NYC apartment in a building surrounded by scaffolding you might have come across the term Local Law 11 when inquiring about the scaffolding and when it might come down. As a matter of fact, if the building is underground local law 11 inspections, the scaffolding is there as a safety precaution, intended to protect us all from any potential rogue bricks or air conditions coming loose from a building's facade and falling out of the sky.

The New York City skyline is the ultimate embodiment of ‘starchitecture,’ and for many industry professionals, designing a skyscraper in Manhattan is a significant and coveted milestone. Some of the world’s most influential architects have left their mark on NYC, by designing office towers, museums and event centers, fabulous hotels or supertall residential skyscrapers.

New York City is reaching higher and higher towards the sky, with numerous supertall projects planned or already in the works, and not just in Manhattan. The tallest building in Brooklyn was completed earlier this year, and soon it will be surpassed by another skyscraper that will be the highest structure outside Manhattan. In Queens, rezoning plans and the high demand for luxury condominiums has resulted in various residential skyscrapers popping up on the borough’s skyline, and the tallest one of them is already underway.