Frequently Asked Questions

It's a connector. Once you add it, ChatGPT or Claude can read our data directly while you chat, through MCP (Model Context Protocol), the standard way AI assistants connect to outside data. Ask about a NYC condo in plain English, and the answer comes from the offering plans and recorded sales we've read, with the page each figure comes from.

In Claude (about 2 minutes, on claude.ai on a computer): open The Condo Book Project in Claude's connector directory and click Connect to Claude. Sign in to your Condo Book account, by email link or Google, then click Allow. In a new chat, check it's on under + › Connectors, then ask.

In ChatGPT (about 3 minutes, on chatgpt.com on a computer; needs ChatGPT Plus or Pro): click Plugins in the left sidebar, then Add › Add custom MCP server. Name: Condo Book. Server URL: https://www.condobooknyc.com/api/mcp. Authentication: OAuth. Check I understand, then Create as a plugin. Click Connect Condo Book, sign in, then click Allow. In a new chat, type @ and pick Condo Book, then ask.

Finish signing in in the same browser, within 15 minutes. Step by step, with screenshots.

A free account can use everything in Claude and ChatGPT (building details, comparisons, recorded sales and plan excerpts) up to 60 lookups a month. A question often takes a few lookups, so that's about 10 questions. Pro has no monthly limit. If you subscribe after connecting, reconnect in Claude or ChatGPT. See Plans.

Anything you'd look up in an offering plan or a sales record. Your assistant can:

• Find buildings by name, address or what their plans say, filtered by borough, neighborhood, year, amenities or common charges.
• Pull up one building: common charges and taxes against similar plans, offering prices and price per square foot, unit mix, the first-year budget, the team behind it, amenities, staffing, systems and finishes.
• Compare a building with its closest comps, or with up to four buildings you name.
• List recorded first sales from ACRIS, newest first.
• Quote the plan itself: short excerpts with the document, the page and a link to it.

Because it's your assistant, you can follow up, combine answers and ask it to write things up, like a comparison for a client or an email.

From the same data as this site: offering plans filed with the New York State Attorney General, and sales recorded in ACRIS, the city's property records. Each figure comes with its source and page, such as "Schedule A, pp. 59–61", so you can check it. Sales don't include buyer names. When we don't have something, like a building's flood zone, the answer says so.

No. The connector is read-only: nothing it does can write, update or delete. It only works with Claude's and ChatGPT's official connections, and only after you sign in and approve it. We keep a record of each lookup (which tool and which building) to run usage limits.

A free account gets 60 lookups a month (and up to 20 an hour). Pro has no monthly limit. To keep the data from being copied wholesale, a Pro account can open up to 300 different buildings in 24 hours (searches across buildings, and buildings already opened, are not limited) and make up to 120 lookups a minute.

You stay connected as a free account, with 60 lookups a month, starting within the hour.

If it doesn't save you an hour in your first month, you get a full refund. Write to hello@halfave.co within 30 days of your first payment. See the Terms.

Remove The Condo Book Project from your connectors in Claude or ChatGPT. If you don't use it for 30 days, you'll be asked to sign in again.

It is the disclosure document a sponsor files with the New York State Attorney General before selling condominium units. It describes the building, the units offered, the prices, the budget, the declaration and bylaws, and the sponsor's obligations. Read the full explainer →

It reads NYC condo offering plans and matches them to the city's recorded sales, then makes all of it available in ChatGPT or Claude, and on this site. Ask a question and you get the answer with the document and page it came from. Every building links back to the Attorney General's record so you can check the original.

Searching, firm rankings and profiles, building lookups and filters are free. A free account, with no credit card, adds saved buildings, search history and alerts.

Pro adds The Condo Book Project in ChatGPT and Claude, Deep Search, The Chart, Sales & Sellout with recorded ACRIS sale prices, and advanced analyses. Deep Search reads the plan pages to answer your question, quoting what each building's plan says and citing the page, where regular search only finds which plans mention a term. Pro is $49/month or $499/year. Under the launch offer, the first 10 subscribers pay $199/year for as long as they stay subscribed. See Plans.

No. The Condo Book Project is an independent research tool run by Half Ave Company LLC. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for the Attorney General's office or any government agency.

Write it the way you would ask a person, for example Queens condos under 20 units with parking spaces. The Condo Book Project pulls out the borough or neighborhood, the unit count and the parking count as filters, and searches the plan text for the rest. The line under the search box shows how your question was read.

Yes. Put an exact phrase in double quotes, like "roof rights". Use OR between words to match either one, like doorman OR concierge.

When you search for words, plans with the most matching pages come first. When you only filter (for example by borough and unit count), the newest accepted plans come first. Up to 60 plans are shown.

The counts load from the live database.

The original offering plan a sponsor filed with the New York State Attorney General. Later filings can change prices, unit counts, amenities, budgets and dates, and they are not read here. Check the Attorney General's record before relying on anything you find.

Full text searchable plans have their offering plan read page by page. They show as filled dots on the map, and their building pages have a search box. Plan record only plans have the Attorney General's summary (name, address, unit and parking counts, dates, sponsor and counsel) but no text yet. The Attorney General has not posted documents for every filing, and some posted plans are scans that haven't been read yet.

The Condo Book Project searches the original offering plans currently indexed here. The Attorney General has not posted documents for every filing, and some posted documents are not yet indexed. A missing result does not mean a feature or project does not exist.

For full-text plans, software reads the plan and pulls out the Schedule B budget and details such as the selling and managing agents, architect, working capital, reserve fund, parking arrangement, tax program and affordable housing. Each one shows the page it came from. They have not been checked by a person, so open the cited page before relying on one. Sponsor's counsel comes from the Attorney General's plan record.

No. Plans describe what was offered at the time of filing. They do not establish what is currently available for sale. Check the original filing, any later filings, and current project information.

From the Attorney General's plan data. They reflect what the plan record says and may not match the building today.

Many plans are scanned PDFs, and the text is read from the page image. Tables, stamps and handwriting can come through imperfectly. The page reference lets you check the original.

3D massing drawings made from NYC Building Footprints, with the plan's building in green. They show shape and height, not what the building looks like.

Offering plans and plan data: New York State Attorney General, Real Estate Finance Bureau offering plan database. Building footprints used for the 3D massing images: NYC Building Footprints, NYC Open Data. Building locations: NYC Department of City Planning GeoSearch.

The offering plan is the developer's disclosure, filed with the Attorney General. The AG checks that it discloses, not that the deal is good. What's inside, and where to find one. Read the full explainer →

Every NYC condo offering plan gets a State Attorney General ID starting with CD. Its year and serial number are the best clue to when the plan was first submitted. Read the full explainer →

In most condops you buy a co-op apartment: the homes are one condo unit owned by a co-op, the stores another. How the plans set it up, and what it means for buyers. Read the full explainer →

Every NYC condo and co-op offering plan is filed with the New York Attorney General. How to find one in the AG's free database, and which fields on the record are worth reading. Read the full explainer →

Amendments are how a condo plan changes after filing. Where to find every one, what the Attorney General's rules make the developer disclose, and how often prices go up or down. Read the full explainer →

Schedule A is the unit-by-unit price list; Schedule B is the first-year budget. State rules set what each must show, and they show you which numbers are soft. Read the full explainer →

An amendment updates an offering plan after it is filed. We sorted thousands of NYC amendments by what they change: prices most often, then budgets, closing dates and sales. Read the full explainer →

The Attorney General's fee to file a condo offering plan is 0.4% of the total offering price, with a minimum and a cap, plus a flat fee per amendment. The calculator works it out. Read the full explainer →

A no-action letter lets a condo or co-op be created or sold without a full offering plan. Thousands of NYC filings go this route. When it's allowed, and what buyers get instead. Read the full explainer →

A private terrace is often shared property only you can use. NYC condo offering plans, quoted, show who pays for upkeep, structural repairs, waterproofing and leaks. Read the full explainer →

In a few NYC condos, the building leases its land. From the plans in Battery Park City, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Queens West: how the rent rises, how leases end, and what it means at resale. Read the full explainer →

In many new NYC condos, buyers pay a share of the super's apartment at closing. What that costs in real plans, the loans some buildings take out, and what it adds to common charges. Read the full explainer →

What the developer must fix depends on the building's height and on what the offering plan promises. Here are the warranty deadlines and punch-list rules from real NYC plans. Read the full explainer →

The board fixes the shared building; you fix almost everything inside your unit, usually including your heating and cooling. NYC offering plans show where the line falls. Read the full explainer →

What offering plans call "normal" (nail pops, floor gaps, stone variation), what's fair to put on the punch list, and when a credit or escrow makes sense in a resale. Read the full explainer →

A new condo costs more to close than a resale, mostly because the plan usually makes you pay the seller's transfer taxes. Every line, and a worked $2 million example. Read the full explainer →

A condo board sets the budget, hires the manager, keeps up the building and enforces the rules, but can't reject buyers like a co-op board. In new buildings the developer often runs it for years. Read the full explainer →

Some big NYC condos share one condominium with hundreds of rentals. From the plans for One Manhattan Square, One West End Avenue and Front and York: who runs what, what's shared and who pays. Read the full explainer →

HDFC co-ops are among the cheapest NYC apartments for sale, but they come with income limits, resale caps and a board that enforces both. How they work, from their offering plans. Read the full explainer →

A condo is real estate; a co-op is shares in a corporation. In the offering plans, new condos far outnumber co-ops, and co-op maintenance carries the building's taxes and debt. Read the full explainer →

By law, a new NYC condo deposit sits in escrow and stays your money until closing. What offering plans promise if the developer goes bankrupt, abandons the plan, runs late or loses the building. Read the full explainer →

Usually yes, without board approval. But the by-laws set a minimum lease term, ban hotel and Airbnb use, and often give the board first refusal. The actual plan wording. Read the full explainer →

Whether a condo has a live-in super comes down mostly to size. From NYC condo offering plans: where live-in supers are the norm, when a part-time or off-site super is typical, and what each costs. Read the full explainer →

Who pays for a condo leak depends on where the water came from, who was careless and whose insurance covers what. NYC offering plans show the usual rules. Read the full explainer →

We matched homes in NYC condo plans to the city's tax records: few get the co-op/condo abatement for owners who live there, and almost none get senior, veteran or disability breaks. Read the full explainer →

The co-op/condo abatement cuts 17.5% to 28.1% off the tax on owner-occupied homes. Buildings above a value line must pay staff prevailing wage to keep it. For most union buildings that costs nothing; for non-union buildings it depends on how many owners live there. Read the full explainer →

Board meetings run on opinions. The Condo Book Project has the offering plans, amendments and budgets of thousands of NYC condos and co-ops, so your board can check its fees, reserves, staffing and rules against real buildings, and find your own building's documents in seconds. Read the full explainer →

Press Download plan. It opens the plan's Documents tab on the Attorney General's site, where you tick the files you want and choose Download. The Condo Book Project does not host the PDFs.

Copies can be requested from the Attorney General's office through a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request.

Email hello@halfave.co with any errors or suggestions, and send a screenshot. Include the plan ID (for example CD260081, shown on each result) and what looks wrong. See Report an Error.

Write to hello@halfave.co. The Condo Book Project shows public filings as the Attorney General posted them, so we can fix how we read or display a document, but the filing itself can only be changed through the Attorney General.