The Atelier rents out its roof deck for $5,000 to $10,000. The extra income has helped it reduce common charges.

From the March issue: It might be the real estate equivalent of coupon clipping or small-time political fundraising: Many condo and co-op boards in New York are keeping a sharp eye out for creative ways to trim their common charges and bring in extra revenue for their buildings.

The strategies run the gamut from hosting photo shoots to scaling back on electrical usage, but the goal of improving the building’s finances is always the same.

For example, the Atelier, a 478-unit condo at 635 West 42nd Street, is renting out its Sky Lounge roof deck year-round for private parties. Hillary Clinton and Lindsay Lohan have each already rented out the space, according to Dan Neiditch, the president of the building’s condo board.

The building makes the space available once a week at rates of $5,000 to $10,000 and rents the space out a few times a month, Neiditch said. The revenue has helped the building lower its common charges by 10 percent, said Neiditch, who is also the president of River 2 River Realty. [more]

From the February issue: During the real estate boom, it was common and even encouraged for brokers to buy units in the new development buildings they were marketing. After all, what endorsement could be better than a six-figure down payment? But now that buyers are scarce, a number of problems with brokers purchasing units have surfaced, from unethical dilemmas with flipping to price inflation to whether brokers can be considered “bona fide” purchasers. These issues often went unnoticed when prices were roaring upward, but can threaten a condo development’s very existence in today’s litigious environment. “In the past, there was absolutely no issue because these buildings were sold out, and who cares what the broker did?” said Anne Salisbury, an attorney in the real estate litigation group at Guzov Ofsink. “Now that you’ve got empty units, it can become an issue.” For years, marketing firms urged their brokers to buy units in the new development buildings they were tasked with selling. “It’s a sort of stamp of approval for the building,” said Jennifer Lee, the director of new business development at aptsandlofts?.com, who noted that the brokerage encourages its agents to purchase property. [more]

Juny Francois, an attorney and developer, bought a Bed-Stuy brownstone in 2003 for $350,000; today it’s worth more than twice that.

From the February issue: Imagine you host a party and no one comes. That was broker David Behin when he unveiled the 29-unit condo project 111 Monroe last year in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He put the building, with its slick glass-and-stone façade, large, clean apartments and huge windows, on the market last January and didn’t get a single bite. “It was a project where anyone who walked into the building said, ‘Wow.’ But it was tough as nails to try to get anyone to buy,” said Behin, executive vice president of the Real Estate Group New York, a residential brokerage. “And we probably went out with prices that, even though we reduced them, were still too high.” The developers lowered the price of the units, twice. Two-bedrooms, for instance, fell from $495,000 to $450,000. The developers also offered to pay buyers’ closing costs and got the building approved for FHA loans, meaning qualified buyers could purchase units with as little as 3.5 percent down. And they could pluck down just $2,000 to sign the contract and make the rest of the down payment over time. The result? The units started moving. By December, he had contracts on half of them, he said.  [more]