BROOKLYN

"A balanced budget" is the key phrase all condo and co-op boards must embrace when putting their fiscal house in order. "You should always have a balanced budget," notes David Goodman, director of management at Tudor Realty, "and if that means setting up extra storage lockers, charging for bike storage, or increasing maintenance, you have to do it."

As a native Californian, Scott Miller says recycling is in his blood. So, it made his blood boil whenever he would see plastic laundry detergent jugs tossed into the trash bins in the laundry room at his Lower East Side co-op.

"The recycling area was just around the corner, but without signage and without an opportunity to make it easy to recycle in that area, it was all just going into a landfill," says Miller, who lives at the 1,728-unit Seward Park Cooperative.

It was one of the things that led him to volunteer last summer to take part in the Apartment Building Recycling Initiative, a two-hour program offered monthly by the city's Department of Sanitation (DSNY). There he learned about quick and often free fixes that can increase the amount of recycling and ensure that the proper things are going into recycling bins.

... how door staff can help or hinder your co-op / condo sale, a new condo with amenities aimed at Orthodox Jews, and Seward Park becomes "Sewer Park," according to a lawsuit. For condo and co-op boards, we've news on rising water bills and advice on co-op subtenants and condo arrears.

... a new condo-hotel might go up in Brooklyn Bridge Park. And are you living next to the guy who wrote Ocean's Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum?

... tips on how to buy your child a co-op or condo. Say, George and Ira Gershwin's old place is for sale!

... co-op maintenance fees and condo common charges may soon spike, a co-op to avoid in the hot Harlem market and, of particular interest for board, the latest in kid-friendly amenities and what are multi-condominiums and can their funds be mingled?

... they're buying Brooklyn, some co-ops dig dogs, a building thinks a name will bring cachet, and 2 East 67th Street says, "Name? Who needs a name when our co-ops sell for $30 million?!"

... it's deja vu all over in Queens as co-opers prepare for another year's tax revolt. A new state law allows digital offering plans, condo prices are up in the outer boroughs, and why is New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez no longer safe at home at The Rushmore?

... co-op residents on Park Avenue win a victory over liquor sales, a new high-end condo is offering income-restricted apartments via lottery, co-op boards may be becoming more open to hardship sublets, and is Susan Sarandon your new neighbor in Brooklyn?

... a Brooklyn co-op ponders the cost of repairs now that its building has been landmarked and a buyer gets blindsided by a seller not honoring a deal — wait till you read why. And a real-estate attorney explains how co-op boards may just have saved New York City real estate.