The 234 Apartment

Another program, run by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board , works with the city on co-op conversions of buildings taken over from delinquent landlords. Tenants help with renovations and can eventually buy the units for low prices. About 30,000 apartments are in the program, which is administered by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Since 2003 the city’s Housing Development Corporation has also been partnering with both for-profit and nonprofit developers to create new affordable apartments — 1,767 units in 21 buildings. The benefits of promoting homeownership in this way extend far beyond the individual owners, said Andrew Reicher, the executive director of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board . “In the Lower East Side , in Harlem, in Bed-Stuy,” he said, “these owners stuck it out and struggled to improve their block, and improvements spread from their work. And they are not displaced when the neighborhood turns around.” Of course, the question fo...

WITH the median price of an apartment in Manhattan topping $1,000 a square foot, homeownership is often far out of reach. But there are options for those who cannot afford the market rate, including co-op apartments for buyers who earn a certain percentage of the area median income , or A.M.I. These buildings are scattered all over the city. Some date to the 1950s; others are brand-new and still looking for buyers. Some are limited to those who earn less than the median income -- 60 or 80 percent, for example (the median for a family of four in New York City is $83,000). Others have apartments for those earning a bit more than that sum. Many new developments try to bring in owners from different economic backgrounds, and are likely to include market-rate units as well. At one recent development, Atlantic Terrace, near the new Nets arena in Brooklyn, similar one-bedroom apartments were priced at $85,000, $113,000 and $232,000, depending on the buyer's income. A market-rate one-be...