AMALGAMATED WARBASSE HOUSES

When you're one of the earliest residential cooperatives in New York City and you've managed to reach your golden anniversary while remaining a bastion of affordable housing, you've got reason to celebrate. Coney Island's historic Amalgamated Warbasse Houses did just that this month with a blowout for its roughly 8,000 people in 2,584 apartments across five buildings. And as the Brooklyn Daily reports, citing co-op board president Michael Silverman, it didn't cost the shareholders a single cent. 

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a Chelsea condo board has won its battle with a downstairs gym, New York City investigates possible fraud by Lower East Side co-op board members and a Queens co-op says it's not soulless. The Comptroller says the City goes too easy on water-bill deadbeats, raising rates for the rest of us. An expert answers: Are condo boards as powerful as co-op boards? And Law & Order's Richard Belzer sells his co-op. Dun dun!

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, sponsor abuses stir up the latest call for a co-op ombudsman in the Attorney General's office, a Queens condo board changes apartments' locks to keep owners out during Sandy repair — commandeering one home for a construction office — and West Village co-opers sue to keep away bicycle clutter. For condo and co-op boards, we've the latest hoteling lawsuit. Plus: Condopedia! Which we're sure is as accurate as regular Wikipedia.

March 22, 2010 — A New York City sales-tax break that helped to make electricity more affordable is going away August 1. That's when customers of independent ESCOs — energy service companies — will have to pay the same 4.5 percent sales tax on the delivery side of your utility bill that Con Ed customers already pay. That's on top of the 4.5 percent city we currently pay on the supply side of both ESCO and Con Ed bills.

How much will it cost co-ops and condos? For one large co-op — Amalgamated Warbasse Houses in Brooklyn, a five-building, 2,585-unit co-op that went with an ESCO in 2007 — the additional taxes total an estimated $320,000 a year. If you want to do the math for your own building, that's an average of an additional $124 an apartment.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, we pick up the pieces from Hurricane Sandy, with timely advice from insurers, property mangers and others, along with a sneak peek at an e-mail exchange among some condo owners in Lower Manhattan. Plus, a former doorman tells how incredibly cheap the billionaires are at 740 Park Avenue, and a free-speech case goes to court.