Condo vs. Co-op in NYC: What the Offering Plans Show

Updated Oct 27, 2026 · 11 min readShare

New buildings are almost all condos. Since 2000, our records hold 8,017 condo offering plans and 174 co-op plans, about 46 condos for every co-op. The co-op budget sample is small, so read the co-op numbers below as a first look, not a benchmark.

Condo vs. Co-op at a Glance

Figures are from NYC offering plans in our records. Filing, size and borough figures are for plans filed since 2000; budget figures are first-year budgets (Schedule B). Rows without a figure describe how the two usually work in New York; your building's documents decide the details.

How Many of Each Get Filed

Every new condo or co-op in New York is sold under an offering plan filed with the Attorney General. Here are the plans in our records by the year they were first filed.

Co-ops were how most New Yorkers bought apartments for decades, and most co-op apartments for sale today are in older buildings. But almost no one builds a new market-rate co-op anymore. Many of the ones still filed are affordable HDFC co-ops, buildings on leased land, and conversions of occupied rental buildings. We cover the reasons in why developers still file new co-ops. Some buildings mix the two: a condop is a co-op that owns the residential unit of a condominium.

Building Size, Borough and Age

• Co-ops are bigger. The median co-op plan since 2000 is for 40 apartments; the median condo plan, 8. Small Brooklyn and Queens condo buildings make up much of the condo count.
• Co-ops are mostly in Manhattan. 63% of co-op plans are, against 24% of condo plans.
• Co-ops are often conversions. 43% of co-op plans are new construction, against 83% of condo plans. The rest convert or rehab an existing building, often with tenants still living there.

Monthly Cost: Maintenance vs. Common Charges

This is where condos and co-ops are easiest to compare wrongly. A co-op's maintenance and a condo's common charges are not the same bill.

• Condo: common charges pay to run the building: staff, utilities for the common areas, insurance, repairs, management and reserves. Your apartment is its own tax lot, so the city sends you a property tax bill. If you have a mortgage, that's yours too. See how much condo common charges should be.
• Co-op: the corporation owns the building, so it pays the property taxes, any mortgage on the building and, on leased land, the ground rent. All of it is in your maintenance, on top of running the building.

So a co-op's maintenance should be compared with a condo's common charges plus its property taxes. To compare running costs alone, we took taxes and debt out of each first-year budget. In the 26 market-rate co-op budgets we could read, those lines are a median 43% of the budget, and 50% for the 10 filed since 2015. In condo budgets they're a median 0%.

What's left, per apartment per month:

• Condos (1,945 budgets): a median $545.
• Market-rate co-ops (26 budgets): a median $717, or $1,243 with taxes and debt left in.

Those two medians aren't a fair match. The median co-op budget is for a building of 125 apartments, the median condo budget 10. Bigger buildings have doormen, supers and central boilers. So we also compared each co-op with condos like it.

Size for size

For each co-op, we found the condo budgets in the same borough with roughly as many apartments (0.6 to 1.6 times) filed within five years of it, and compared the co-op's operating cost with their median. 22 co-ops had such peers. Their median is 0.94× the condo peers: 6% below.

• New-construction co-ops run a little higher. The 11 built as co-ops run a median 9% above their condo peers, and 8 of them cost more. Several are full-service Manhattan buildings; the most expensive, 25 East 77th St (The Mark), budgets 3.5× what similar condos do.
• Conversions run lower. The 11 conversions run a median 23% below their peers, and 9 cost less. Many were rental or Mitchell-Lama buildings, and their budgets start from what the building already spends.

Where the money goes

Each category's median share of operating cost (taxes and debt left out), and its median per apartment per month. This isn't size-matched, so part of the gap is building size.

• Staff and energy are bigger shares in co-ops. Co-ops are bigger buildings with full-time staff, and many have a central boiler, so heat is in the maintenance. In many new condos each apartment has its own heating and cooling on its own electric meter. See why condo operating costs differ.
• Water and insurance take bigger shares in condos, and in these budgets condos spend more per apartment on both.
• Reserves. 69% of condo budgets have a reserve line, against 46% of co-op budgets (12 of 26); the median co-op reserve share is 0%. Several co-op conversion plans instead describe a reserve fund the sponsor puts in at conversion. More on condo reserves in NYC condo reserve funds.

Working Capital, Flip Taxes and Closing Costs

• Working capital. Both ask new buyers to seed the building's operating account at closing. Condo plans ask for two months' common charges in 73% of the 1,867 plans we could read. Co-op plans ask for two months' maintenance in 19 of 25, and one month in 5. See the working capital contribution.
• Flip tax. A flip tax is a transfer fee the seller pays to the building when an apartment sells. 27 of the 39 co-op plans we can search (69%) use the words "flip tax", against 6% of condo plans. A mention isn't always a fee: many co-op plans give the board power to set one later, or exempt the sponsor from it. HDFC plans usually make one mandatory, often as a share of the seller's profit.
• Closing costs. Both pay the New York State "mansion tax" on purchases of $1 million or more, and both have attorney and lender fees. Condo buyers with a mortgage also pay the mortgage recording tax and usually buy title insurance; co-op share loans aren't recorded mortgages, so co-op buyers don't pay that tax and usually get a lien search instead. In a new condo, plans often have the buyer pay the transfer taxes the seller would normally pay. See closing costs on a new NYC condo.

Board Approval, Subletting and Financing

• Board approval. A co-op board approves every buyer, usually after a full financial package and an interview, and doesn't have to say why it says no. A condo board usually has only a right of first refusal: it can buy the apartment on the same terms, and in practice rarely does. The sponsor's own sales usually don't need board approval; resales do.
• Subletting. Renting out a co-op apartment needs the board's consent under the proprietary lease, and many boards limit how often or how long. Condos are usually more open, within the building's rules. Check the plan's proprietary lease or condo bylaws for the exact terms.
• Financing. A condo buyer takes a mortgage on the apartment. A co-op buyer takes a share loan backed by the shares and lease, and many co-op boards set a minimum down payment or post-closing cash requirement. A co-op also carries its own building mortgage, which is part of everyone's maintenance.
• Taxes. Co-op shareholders can generally deduct their share of the building's real estate taxes and mortgage interest; condo owners deduct their own. Ask a tax adviser.

How This Is Counted

Plans are NYC offering plans in the Attorney General's records on The Condo Book Project: plan type condominium, or cooperative and cooperative/condominium for co-ops. The year is when a plan was first submitted. Filing counts, building size (residential units), borough and construction type are for plans filed since 2000, because the records hold only a few older plans of either kind. HDFC co-ops are those named so in the AG record.

Budgets are first-year budgets (Schedule B) of plans with three or more apartments, counted when their expense lines add up to the stated total within 5%. The co-op budgets are plan type cooperative only, with HDFC co-ops (7 budgets) left out. Taxes and debt are lines naming real estate or property tax, a mortgage, interest, debt service, amortization, principal, ground or land rent or lease, or depreciation. Everything else is operating cost, sorted into categories as on the operating expenses page and divided by residential units and 12 months. These are the sponsor's estimates for the first year, not what the building spends today.

Flip tax counts are of plans whose text we can search, with "flip tax" on at least one page. Working capital is read from each plan's working capital terms; plans where the sponsor pays it are left out. Board approval, subletting, financing and closing costs describe how condos and co-ops usually work in New York, not a count.

Tips for Buyers

• Compare the right numbers. Co-op maintenance against condo common charges plus property taxes. Ask how much of the maintenance is taxes and the building's mortgage.
• Read the building's mortgage. When it matures, whether it has a balloon payment, and what refinancing would do to maintenance.
• For a co-op on leased land, check the ground rent and the lease end date first. See ground leases.
• Ask about the board's rules before you bid: down payment, post-closing cash, subletting, pied-à-terre use and any flip tax.
• Check the reserves. Without a reserve, big repairs may be paid for with assessments or borrowing.
• Look up the plan. Condo or co-op, search the building on The Condo Book Project or in the Attorney General's database to read its first-year budget and plan terms.

Related: An Advisor for Your Condo or Co-op Board That Knows How Every Other NYC Building Is Run · Getting a Loan for a Condo vs. a Co-op in NYC