Townhouses
Whole buildings — from Brooklyn Heights brownstones to West Village rows.
A townhouse is the whole building: the facade, the stoop, the garden, the roof, and every system inside. No board, no shared lease — and no one else to share the responsibility. These are among the most personal transactions in New York, and among the most technical.
Brooklyn — Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope — turns on townhouse stock, as do pockets of the West Village and the Upper East and West Sides. Condition is everything: landmark status, certificate of occupancy, prior renovation history, party walls. A townhouse that looks turnkey can hide a structural project; one that looks tired can be the better buy.
Tracie has sold these buildings for decades and knows which block had the roof problem and which renovation held its value. That block-level memory is the difference between a fair price and a costly one.