# New York state law restricts condo conversions

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2019-07-10

co-op-housing, condo-conversion, condo-conversions, condo-pricing, development, economics, housing, manhattan, manhattan-condo-prices, median-condo-prices, new-york-city, new-york-state, new-york-state-law, wall-street-journal

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The State of New York just [enacted a new law](https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-condo-conversions-near-the-end-a-casualty-of-rent-reform-11562583612) (on June 14, 2019) requiring that 51% of existing tenants agree to buy their apartments before a building can be converted into a condominium or a cooperative. There was previously no requirement for anyone to buy in order for a conversion to take place. Tenants who chose not to buy, could simply remain in the building as a renter.

[Supposedly](https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-condo-conversions-near-the-end-a-casualty-of-rent-reform-11562583612), the real estate industry believes this new requirement will be a largely impossible threshold to meet, meaning that condo/co-op conversions could now be dead in NYC. There's also an argument that conversions have historically helped many middle class New Yorkers buy a home since they sometimes (usually?) had the chance to buy their apartment below market at the time of a conversion.

I'm not familiar enough with this space to be able to opine on the merits of these arguments, so I won't. Perhaps some of you will in the comment section below. Instead, I will leave you all with a chart showing the median condo sale price in Manhattan over the last ~30 years (taken from [the same WSJ article](https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-condo-conversions-near-the-end-a-casualty-of-rent-reform-11562583612)). I like seeing long(er) term charts. Maybe you do too.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/7a29d1675e1765e5fc33d5229eb60911.png)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/new-york-state-law-restricts-condo-conversions)*