From the practice
Observations on New York City real estate, regulatory changes, and the documentation layer most owners never build.
Previously capped at $80,000, the exemption now covers significantly more of what owners have spent. The requirement for verified documentation has not changed.
In a post NAR settlement market, buyers who arrive with verified permit history and condition documentation have information the seller does not expect them to have.
The custom millwork. The commissioned drapery. The lighting specified over eighteen months. Without a verified record of what it is and who made it, none of it commands the price it deserves.
Off market transactions now represent a meaningful share of Manhattan volume. In a sale that never reaches a public listing, provenance does the work a broker once did.
$124 trillion transfers between generations over the next twenty years. The residential properties in that transfer are almost entirely undocumented at the interior level.
The physical showroom model is collapsing for exactly the masters who belong in the index. Their craft did not disappear. It just became harder to find.
The largest driver of contents insurance disputes is not fraud, it is the absence of documentation at the time of the original purchase or installation.
Once LPC review is required for alteration applications, the documentation of existing conditions becomes the baseline for everything that follows.
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Borough, Block, and Lot. Every permit, every recorded document, every transaction in New York City traces back to this number. Your dossier is anchored to it.
The existing conditions are the most valuable part of the record. Once the walls open, the original provenance of what was there is gone. Document before you build.