The secrets are laid bare. A state law enacted last month made cooperative apartment sales prices public for the first time, freeing for wide consumption data that had once been the purview of well-connected brokers and of media speculation.
The Real Deal, along with Web research site PropertyShark.com, compiled the top 25 priciest co-op deals over the last two years using new data from the city’s Department of Finance.
The Upper East Side, not surprisingly, dominated the list, which covered from July 2004 through August 2006. About 70 percent of the top co-op deals closed in that neighborhood. More than one-third of the deals closed in buildings on Fifth Avenue.
Another seven closed in buildings on the other side of Central Park, including three in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West, which notched in the last two years more top co-op deals than any other address.
None of the 25 priciest co-op sales, ranging from $12.5 million to $44 million, closed outside of Manhattan. None were above 96th Street; only one happened below 61st Street.
That Downtown deal was Rupert Murdoch’s sale of his co-op at 137 Prince Street in Soho for nearly $24.68 million, which closed in April. Murdoch also holds the all-time coop sale record, paying $44 million to the estate of Laurance Rockefeller for a 20-room triplex at 834 Fifth Avenue that closed in the spring of 2005.
Brokers shrug at co-op price disclosure law