Featuring real estate articles and information to help real estate buyers and sellers. The Nest features writings from Georges Benoliel and other real estate professionals. Georges is the Co-Founder of NestApple and has been working as an active real estate investor for over a decade.
Nicole Fishman Benoliel co-founded NestApple in 2017. She's a lawyer admitted to the New York bar - her law degree is from La Escuela Libre de Derecho in Costa Rica, with further study at IE Business School in Madrid and an LLM from Fordham in New York. She does not act in a legal capacity at NestApple; every client is referred to an attorney who handles real estate deals full time.
The world of real estate is tumultuous, even when everything appears to be going well. Professionals invent terms to help people get the general gist of a property’s situation. What does “BOM” mean in real estate? In New York City,… Read More
You can buy a house with no money down nationally, using a VA loan (for veterans) or a USDA loan (in eligible rural areas). Neither works well in New York City: USDA excludes the city entirely, and co-op boards resist… Read More
Buying a second home is mostly a financing and tax question. Expect about 10% down and a rate higher than your primary mortgage rate. If you rent it out and use it yourself for fewer than 14 days a year,… Read More
You’ve just become a property owner. Now the real challenge begins; property maintenance company and services. Maintaining your property requires constant vigilance, from the foundations and plumbing to the windows and roofing. The larger your property, the more likely things will go… Read More
Hire a real estate attorney the moment your offer is accepted, before the deal sheet turns into a contract. New York doesn’t require one by law, but attorneys, not agents, draft and negotiate the purchase contract here. The flat fee… Read More
The difference between an agent and a broker in New York is the license. An agent, officially a salesperson, passes a state exam after roughly 77 hours of coursework and must work under a sponsoring broker. A broker completes 152… Read More
Yes. It’s legal to buy a house without a realtor in every US state, and about 12% of buyers do. But you take on pricing, negotiation, and the paperwork yourself. In New York, you still need a real estate attorney,… Read More
Title insurance protects against covered ownership defects that already existed when you bought the property. New York buyers may see 2 policies: the lender’s policy protects the mortgage lender, while the owner’s policy protects the buyer. Premiums follow filed rate… Read More
The main first-time homebuyer programs in NYC are HPD’s HomeFirst, which offers up to $100,000 in forgivable down payment and closing cost assistance, and SONYMA, the state’s below-market mortgage. Both need a homebuyer education certificate, income below a set limit,… Read More
Buying a historic home in New York means you can’t freely change the exterior. An individual landmark or a house in a historic district needs approval for outside work. In return, a 20% New York State tax credit can offset… Read More
These are the real estate terms a New York City buyer runs into, in plain English. About 50 of them, grouped by where they come up: the people, the money, the contract, the co-op or condo, the taxes at closing,… Read More
A good real estate agent represents one side of your deal, answers the phone, tells you when a building looks weak, and puts any rebate in writing. In New York, they also carry a clean license that you can check… Read More
Briarcliff Manor is a village of 7,569 people that sits inside two towns at once, Mount Pleasant and Ossining. It has its own Metro-North stop at Scarborough, a school district that does most of the work on price, and a… Read More
Armonk is a hamlet of 4,495 people in the Town of North Castle, Westchester. It has IBM’s world headquarters and no Metro-North station, and those facts explain most of what it costs a buyer to own a house there today.… Read More
Ardsley is a village of 5,079 people in the Town of Greenburgh, 1.32 square miles of it. It has no Metro-North station of its own and five within reach, and its tax rate fell over three years while the bills… Read More
