NYC housing Twitter – help me out with something. I'm looking a 6-fam building in Ridgewood for sale. It's 1853 Madison St. It's a great location – gentrifying neighborhood, beautiful street. Nice brick building, 5,600 sq. ft. It's asking $1.1 million.

Good price, right? Except it's fully rent stabilized. NOI is $35,242, because average rent in the building is just over $900. And that's the broker's underwriting – no allowance for court costs to collect rent, and other expenses are probably understated too. Plus closing costs

But whatever, let's take the broker at their word. Let's assume your wife is a lawyer and your brother is a title agent, so closing is free. Yay! So at a 6% cap rate, the building is actually worth...a little under $600,000. Yikes. Not great, but at least it's a positive number!

Except...wait. It's actually an original Gustav X. Mathews building, quite a pedigree! But it was built in 1913, so it's 107 years old. And oh yeah, did I mention that it's in a historic district? And the owner has never pulled a permit except to change from oil to gas?

So, first of all: Does the property actually have any value? And secondly: How can this possibly end in anything other than the DOB issuing a vacate order?