These NYC apartments near Billionaires Row cost $99K but theres a catch

For the residents of Carnegie House, a once-sought-after co-op located across from Billionaires’ Row on 57th Street, life is about to get a lot more expensive — and a lot more uncertain.Despite units in the building sometimes going for as low as $99,000, the homeowners could soon be forced out as a looming ground lease renewal threatens to send their monthly costs skyrocketing, Crain’s reported.Barbara and Lou Grumet, both 80 and longtime residents of the building, left their Riverdale home in 2011 for a two-bedroom co-op, drawn to the building’s location near Broadway and top-tier hospitals.But now, they fear being priced out of the place they’ve called home for over a decade.

“We use all three hospitals,” Barbara told the outlet, referring to Mount Sinai West, Weill Cornell, and NYU Langone.Lou added, “We also like going to Broadway shows.” The Grumets and their neighbors aren’t just dealing with the rising cost of living plaguing all Big Apple citizens — they’re also caught in a battle over the dirt their building sits on.

Carnegie House is one of just about 100 co-ops with the rare arrangement in which the land beneath them has a different owner.Billionaire real estate investors Rubin Schron and David Werner, the owners of Carnegie House’s ground lease, are demanding to raise the building’s annual rent from $4 million to a staggering $25 million.The current lease resets in March, and without a deal, the co-op could be bankrupt.

Richard Hirsch, president of the building’s co-op board, put it bluntly to Crains: “We’re not billionaires, we’re thousand-aires.” And if the residents can’t strike a deal, they’ll lose their equity and potentially face unaffordable rents as tenants rather than owners.While the ground-lease owners are willing to negotiate, their offers — like a 10% discount for tenants if the rent exceeds $25 million and a fund for lower-income residents — feel like a slap in the face to the people living ...