---
title: "2 East 70th Street: What the $22.5M Maisonette Really Costs"
description: "What the $22.5M maisonette at 2 East 70th Street actually costs: mansion tax, a 3% purchaser-paid flip tax, a 50% financing cap and the monthly carry."
url: "https://realestaterebatesnewyork.com/guides/2-east-70th-street-maisonette-buyer-analysis"
source: "Real Estate Rebate Team"
datePublished: "2026-08-08"
dateModified: "2026-09-11T16:25:04.659Z"
---

# The $22.5 Million Maisonette at 2 East 70th Street Comes With $1.5 Million of Costs Nobody Advertises

Luxury Co-ops · By Régis Roumila · August 8, 2026

A duplex on Fifth Avenue with its own street door, renovated by Peter Pennoyer, in a 1927 Rosario Candela co-op. The asking price is the part of this purchase that is easiest to understand.

![The duplex maisonette at 2 East 70th Street. Listing photo courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens.](https://realestaterebatesnewyork-bucket.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/1601b17d-31d6-46e5-a9f5-32a833ed2e5c.jpg)

*The duplex maisonette at 2 East 70th Street. Listing photo courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens.*

## A townhouse on Fifth Avenue, wrapped in a co-op's rules

The maisonette at 2 East 70th Street is a duplex with two ways in: a dedicated street entrance on Fifth Avenue and a discreet door through the lobby of one of the more selective co-ops on the Upper East Side. Peter Pennoyer Architects gutted and reconfigured roughly 5,000 square feet of it. Eleven-foot ceilings on the ground floor, a kitchen wrapped in Fiddleback Sycamore, a dining room in sage Gracie chinoiserie under a domed ceiling, and the Frick's garden out the window. It asks $22,500,000.

All of that is accurate and all of it is in the listing. Here is what is not.

A buyer at this price pays $843,750 in mansion tax and, because this building charges a 3 percent flip tax to the purchaser rather than the seller, another $675,000 on top. That is $1,518,750 before a lawyer or a title bill. The building caps financing at 50 percent, so at least $11,250,000 has to be cash. Maintenance runs $18,298 a month, which is $219,576 a year, every year, forever.

None of that makes it a bad apartment. It makes it a purchase where the asking price is the simplest number involved, and where the things that decide whether the deal works sit in the offering plan rather than the listing photos.

## The listing

- [2 East 70TH Street #MAISONETTE, New York, NY 10021 — $22,500,000, 4 bed, 4.5 bath](https://realestaterebatesnewyork.com/buy/newyorkcity/manhattan/10021/2-east-70th-street-maisonette-MAISONETTE-ny-10021)

## What a Pennoyer renovation removes from the buyer's job list

![Kitchen wrapped in Fiddleback Sycamore with Calacatta marble counters at the 2 East 70th Street maisonette](https://realestaterebatesnewyork-bucket.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/e4125449-6016-4adc-9ef9-159c34226564.jpg)

*The kitchen is wrapped in Fiddleback Sycamore with Calacatta marble. Listing image courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens through REBNY RLS.*

This matters more than it photographs. A gut renovation of 5,000 square feet in a pre-war co-op is a two-year project that needs board approval at every stage, and in a building of this kind the board sets the working hours, the summer moratoria and the protection of the common elements.

Buying the work already done is worth real money. The open question is how much of the gap between this asking price and what the building trades at that premium is entitled to close.

## The floor plan is where the townhouse claim is either true or marketing

![Two-level floor plan of the 2 East 70th Street maisonette showing the great room, gallery, kitchen and four bedrooms across upper and lower levels](https://realestaterebatesnewyork-bucket.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/8e208613-35bf-4aa7-af37-e706700d4291.jpg)

*The current two-level plan, with the great room at 17 by 30 feet and a private elevator between floors. Floor plan courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens through REBNY RLS.*

Two floors, a separate street entrance, and a 17-by-30-foot great room at one end. The lower level holds the entry foyer, gallery, living room, dining room and a 27-foot kitchen. The upper level holds the primary suite, two further bedrooms, a library and an office, with the laundry and two storage rooms off to one side. An elevator connects them.

That is a house plan rather than an apartment plan, and it is what the price is really arguing for. It also shows the compromise: the rooms a townhouse would spread over four narrow floors are here stretched along two wide ones, so the great room and the bedrooms sit further apart than they would in a conventional layout.

Worth knowing that the plan is one of the most-searched things about this building. If you are comparing it against the townhouses trading nearby, this is the document to put beside them.

### What you write cheques for on closing day

The mansion tax is a buyer expense calculated on the entire purchase price rather than the amount above the threshold. The flip tax at this building is payable by the purchaser, which is the less common arrangement and roughly doubles the tax bill on a trade of this size.

| Residence | Asking price | Mansion tax rate | Mansion tax | Flip tax (3%, buyer pays) | Both combined | Buyer Advantage (up to 1.5%) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Maisonette | $22,500,000 | 3.75% | $843,750 | $675,000 | $1,518,750 | $337,500 |
| 10A (in contract) | $10,500,000 | 3.25% | $341,250 | $315,000 | $656,250 | $157,500 |
| 91011B | $8,950,000 | 2.25% | $201,375 | $268,500 | $469,875 | $134,250 |

**On the maisonette the two taxes come to $1,518,750, and the Buyer Advantage covers about 22 percent of them. The flip tax alone is larger than the entire mansion tax bill on 91011B.**

*Source: New York State mansion tax schedule; RLS listing terms; Real Estate Rebates New York — Mansion tax at the 2026 rates for each band, applied to the full purchase price. The 3 percent purchaser-paid flip tax is stated in the RLS remarks for the listings at this building and is corroborated by the Compass, Zillow and Realtor.com records for units 4A, 10A and 91011B. Confirm the current flip tax and its basis with the managing agent before making an offer, since some buildings calculate it on gross price and others on profit or shares. The Buyer Advantage is a resale rate shown as a ceiling.*

## Two clauses that move the number more than any negotiation will

![Wood-panelled living room with arched windows and built-in bookshelves at the 2 East 70th Street maisonette](https://realestaterebatesnewyork-bucket.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/71ae0fc1-94f4-4f3d-98b9-8b9d490ca173.jpg)

*The panelled living room, with the arched shuttered windows that face the Frick garden. Listing image courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens through REBNY RLS.*

The first is the flip tax. Most New York co-ops that charge one put it on the seller, where it quietly reduces the proceeds and never appears in the buyer's budget. This building puts it on the purchaser. At $22,500,000 that is $675,000 of additional cash, and it is not a line most buyers have modelled when they decide what they can pay.

The second is the financing cap. The building permits 50 percent financing, so a buyer needs $11,250,000 in cash for the down payment alone, before the $1.5 million of taxes and before whatever liquidity the board expects to see left over afterwards. Co-op boards at this level routinely want to see substantial post-closing liquidity, and that requirement is not published anywhere. It comes out during the board package.

Neither clause is unusual for a Candela co-op. Both are the reason a $22.5 million co-op and a $22.5 million condominium are different products with different buyer pools, and it is worth understanding that before falling in love with the dining room.

### Which number tells you what this apartment requires

The asking price is what the seller wants. It is not what a buyer needs to have.

- **The asking price — $22,500,000** (Do not use this value): What the listing advertises and what the mansion tax and flip tax are both calculated on. On its own it tells a buyer nothing about whether they qualify here.
  It is the input to the cost, not the cost.
- **Minimum cash at closing — $12,768,750** (Use this value): An $11,250,000 down payment at the building's 50 percent financing cap, plus $843,750 of mansion tax and $675,000 of purchaser-paid flip tax. Legal, title and the board's post-closing liquidity expectations sit on top.
  This is the number that decides whether the purchase is possible.
- **Buyer Advantage at closing — Up to $337,500** (Result): The share of the commission we return to the buyer on a resale, credited at closing against the cash they bring.
  A ceiling, not a guarantee. Depends on the commission offered and the buyer agreement.

**Between the down payment floor and the two transaction taxes, a buyer at the asking price needs roughly $12.77 million liquid on day one, before legal, title and the board's liquidity expectations.**

*Source: RLS listing terms; New York State mansion tax schedule — Assumes a purchase at the full asking price with financing at the building's 50 percent maximum. A buyer paying all cash needs the entire amount.*

### Maintenance barely moves across a $13.5 million spread in price

Co-op maintenance is charged against the shares attached to an apartment, and the share allocations at this building were set long before current pricing. The result is that three apartments asking wildly different sums cost almost the same to run.

| Residence | Asking price | Maintenance / mo. | Maintenance / yr. | As a share of the ask |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Maisonette | $22,500,000 | $18,298 | $219,576 | 0.98% |
| 10A (in contract) | $10,500,000 | $18,081 | $216,972 | 2.07% |
| 91011B | $8,950,000 | $17,651 | $211,812 | 2.37% |

**The most expensive apartment in the building is the cheapest to carry per dollar of price. 91011B costs 2.4 times as much to run, measured against what a buyer pays for it.**

*Source: REBNY RLS current listings — Maintenance figures as published in the RLS records reviewed August 8, 2026. Co-op maintenance includes the apartment's share of the building's property tax and operating costs, and is revised by the board rather than fixed.*

## The city thinks the whole building is worth one apartment

Here is the number that puts co-op economics in perspective. For the 2026 fiscal year the Department of Finance assigns 2 East 70th Street a market value of $22,468,000 for the entire building. The maisonette alone asks $22,500,000.

That is not an error. Co-ops are valued for tax purposes as though the building were a rental property, using the income a comparable rental would generate, which has almost nothing to do with what shares in a Candela building trade for. The whole property carries $1,179,068 of property tax across the 19 apartments the city counts, an average of $62,056 each, or about $5,171 a month. That is roughly 28 percent of the maisonette's maintenance, which is where a good part of that $18,298 actually goes.

It also determines the new non-primary residence surcharge, which reads the Department of Finance value rather than the price paid. Spread evenly, the average apartment here imputes to about $1,182,526, which sits in the 4 percent band and produces roughly $47,301 a year for an owner who does not make this their primary home. The word doing the work in that sentence is average. The surcharge follows each apartment's own share allocation, and a maisonette of this size almost certainly carries more shares than the mean. We are not going to invent the figure. Ask the managing agent for the apartment's share count and its allocated assessment before you assume anything.

### Recorded sales at 2 East 70th Street

Checked line by line against the transfer records the City actually holds rather than against marketing material. Sales in a building of this size are rare, which is why the record runs back two decades to catch ten of them.

| Apartment | Closed | Recorded price | Against the ask |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 5A | April 2026 | $13,750,000 | No published ask |
| 4A | July 2025 | $14,900,000 | Closed at the full $14,900,000 ask |
| 8B | July 2024 | $3,500,000 | Above ask: listed at $3,250,000 |
| 9A | April 2022 | $11,000,000 | No published ask |
| 4/5B | July 2013 | $9,100,000 | Listed at $9,750,000 |
| 4A | March 2013 | $13,250,000 | No published ask |
| PH13A | June 2012 | $40,064,000 | No published ask |
| 9-11B (now 91011B) | November 2010 | $11,750,000 | Estate sale. Asking $8,950,000 today |
| 1A | September 2010 | $13,500,000 | Estate sale. Very likely this maisonette |
| 6-7B | June 2005 | $5,995,000 | No published ask |

**Unit 4A went from $13,250,000 in 2013 to $14,900,000 in 2025, up 12.5 percent over twelve years. The triplex 91011B is the other side of the same coin. Its owner paid $11,750,000 in November 2010 and is asking $8,950,000 today, roughly 24 percent below their own purchase price sixteen years on.**

*Source: ACRIS transfer tax filings, NYC Department of Finance — Reviewed August 8, 2026, then checked apartment by apartment against ACRIS on August 9, 2026. These are cooperative apartments, so nothing is deeded when one changes hands. What the City holds is the real property transfer tax return, and every price and date above matches the filing for that apartment at a 100 percent transfer of interest. One further transfer, apartment 10F in July 2015, is recorded at $0 and is not a market sale, so it is left out. Maids rooms and storage rooms trade separately here and are also excluded. Square footage is not recorded on transfer filings, so no per-square-foot comparison can be run across this table. The per-foot figures used later in this article come from the square footage each current listing declares rather than from any City record, so they compare asking prices and not closings, and the declared figures move: the maisonette is marketed at roughly 5,000 square feet today, while its 2016 listing stated 4,564. At $22,500,000 those two figures give $4,500 and $4,930 a foot. Apartment 1A is included above because it is a recorded arm's-length sale in this building. Whether 1A is this maisonette is not something public records settle, and the case for it is set out in the article.*

## This is the second time the apartment has been offered

The listing history does not begin in May 2026. Corcoran brought the same maisonette to market on February 1, 2016 at $29,000,000. It sat for 166 days and came off in July without selling.

What makes that worth knowing is when the renovation happened. The 2016 listing described the apartment as having gone through a complete renovation in 2012, in collaboration with Peter Pennoyer Architects. So the earlier campaign was not selling a plan or a promise. It was selling the finished apartment, the same one on the market today, and at $29,000,000 nobody took it.

Today's $22,500,000 is 22.4 percent below that attempt, ten years on. Two other numbers moved in the meantime, in opposite directions. Maintenance went from $14,578 a month to $18,298, up 25.5 percent. The stated size went the other way: the 2016 listing put the apartment at 4,564 square feet, while today's marketing says approximately 5,000. On the same asking price those two measurements give $4,930 and $4,500 per square foot, and the friendlier of the two is the one being quoted now.

The question left open earlier in this piece was how much of the gap between this asking price and what the building actually trades at a Pennoyer renovation is entitled to close. The 2016 campaign is the closest thing to a market answer available. At $29,000,000, over 166 days, on a finished apartment, it was none.

Source: StreetEasy price history and the archived Corcoran listing for 888 Fifth Avenue MAISONETTE, listing 1209150, read August 9, 2026. The $29,000,000 asking price, the February 1 and July 16 dates, the 166 days, the 4,564 square feet, the $14,578 maintenance and the 2012 renovation date all come from that archived listing. Current figures are from the REBNY RLS record for listing RLS20090584. StreetEasy carries no recorded sale for this apartment at all, so the purchase history in the table above rests on ACRIS rather than on any portal.

## The bigger the apartment, the longer it waits

Two things are happening in this building at once, and they point in opposite directions.

Unit 10A came to market on July 13, 2026 at $10,500,000 and went into contract on August 5, twenty-three days later. Unit 8B sold above its asking price in 2024. Unit 4A got its full $14,900,000 in 2025. When an apartment here is priced correctly, it goes.

Then there is 91011B. A 4,300-square-foot triplex with Central Park and Frick garden views, listed in February 2024 at $12,000,000. It is now asking $8,950,000, having taken a cut to $9,450,000 and then another on June 11 of this year. That is 25.4 percent below where it started, after 915 days on the market, and at $2,081 per square foot it is the cheapest thing in the building by a distance.

The number that says the most about it is not on the listing. The City's records show the same apartment, then designated 9-11B, changing hands in November 2010 for $11,750,000 in a sale out of an estate. The current ask is 23.8 percent below what its owner paid. Sixteen years of holding one of the best addresses in New York, and the exit is being priced at a nominal loss before anyone counts the maintenance, the renovation the apartment has not had, or the flip tax the seller's buyer will pay.

The wider Lenox Hill co-op market says the same thing in numbers. Four-bedroom co-ops there have been closing at a median 97.6 percent of ask after 71 days across 43 sales. Five-bedrooms take 137 days and 93.0 percent across 16. Six-bedrooms took a median 620 days and closed at 90.0 percent of ask, across only four sales. Size is not a premium in this market. It is a discount and a wait.

Source: Real Estate Rebates New York cohort statistics, built from recorded Lenox Hill co-op sales between September 2024 and June 2026 and reviewed August 8, 2026. The six-bedroom figures are an indication rather than a market rate. That cohort holds four sales, and only three of them carry both a published asking price and a days-on-market record, so a single transaction moves the median a long way. The four-bedroom and five-bedroom percentages of ask rest on 41 and 15 published asking prices respectively. The 2010 purchase price for 9-11B is from the ACRIS transfer filing recorded November 16, 2010, checked August 9, 2026.

The maisonette has been listed 88 days. On this evidence that is early, and the price is the thing being tested.

## The comparison worth making: the triplex in the same building

- [2 East 70TH Street #91011B, New York, NY 10021 — $8,950,000, 5 bed, 5.5 bath](https://realestaterebatesnewyork.com/buy/newyorkcity/manhattan/10021/2-east-70th-street-b-91011B-ny-10021)

### What 915 days on the market looks like

Unit 91011B's history is the clearest available evidence of what this building's larger apartments meet when they come to market, and it starts well before the current campaign.

1. Purchase: **Bought for $11,750,000** (November 16, 2010) [Important]
   An estate sale, recorded with the City at a full transfer of interest. The apartment was designated 9-11B at the time. Nothing that follows makes sense without this number.
2. Launch: **Listed at $12,000,000** (February 5, 2024)
   A 4,300-square-foot triplex, nine rooms, four to five bedrooms, with views over Central Park and the Frick gardens. That opening ask worked out to $2,791 per square foot, and to about 2 percent above what the owner had paid fourteen years earlier.
3. First reduction: **Down to $9,450,000** (Date not recorded)
   The feed carries the reduced figure without an individual timestamp for the change, so the exact date is not something we can state. This is the point at which the ask fell below the 2010 purchase price.
4. Second reduction: **Down to $8,950,000** (June 11, 2026) [Important]
   A further 5.3 percent, bringing the total decline to 25.4 percent from the original asking price and the per-foot ask to $2,081.
5. Now: **915 days, and 23.8 percent below the 2010 price** (August 8, 2026) [Important]
   Still available. For scale, the median six-bedroom co-op sale in Lenox Hill over the past two years took 620 days and closed at 90 percent of ask, on a cohort of only four sales.

**A 4,300-square-foot triplex in the same building has given up a quarter of its asking price, is still available, and is now priced 23.8 percent below what its owner paid for it in 2010. That is the backdrop against which the maisonette is being priced.**

*Source: ACRIS transfer tax filings; REBNY RLS listing history — The 2010 purchase is from the ACRIS transfer filing recorded November 16, 2010, at a 100 percent transfer of interest, checked August 9, 2026. Listing events come from the RLS record for listing RLS10980797. One intermediate reduction, from $12,000,000 to $9,450,000, is not individually timestamped in the feed.*

## My assessment

I like this apartment more than the numbers around it. A maisonette with its own Fifth Avenue door in a Candela building is close to unrepeatable, and a full Pennoyer renovation removes years of work and risk that a buyer would otherwise take on themselves. If what you want is a townhouse without owning a townhouse, there is a very short list and this is on it.

What I would test hard is the price. At roughly $4,500 per square foot on the listing's own 5,000-square-foot figure, or $4,930 on the 4,564 feet the same apartment was advertised at in 2016, it asks more than twice what the triplex upstairs is asking after two cuts and 915 days. Some of that gap is real: the maisonette is renovated, the triplex is not, and the private entrance is genuinely scarce. But this is the second time the apartment has been offered since that renovation was finished, the first attempt asked $29,000,000 and found nobody in 166 days, the building's own record shows 4A moving 12.5 percent in twelve years, and the Lenox Hill evidence shows large co-ops taking the longest and closing the furthest below ask. Nothing in that supports paying a full asking price at eighty-eight days on market.

The sequence I would follow is not complicated. Ask the listing agent what the 2016 campaign produced, because a renovated apartment that went 166 days without a taker generated feedback, and that feedback is worth more to a buyer than anything in the brochure. Get the share allocation and the allocated assessment from the managing agent, because that decides the surcharge exposure and nobody can compute it from the outside. Confirm the flip tax basis in writing, since 3 percent of $22,500,000 is not a rounding error. Establish what the board expects in post-closing liquidity before you fall in love, because the 50 percent financing cap is only half the requirement. Read the building's financials and reserve position, as a nineteen-apartment prewar building spreads every capital project across very few shoulders. Then make an offer that reflects what this building trades at rather than what it asks.

Happy to run that analysis with you, and to confirm what the Buyer Advantage would return against the cash you need on day one.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How much cash does a buyer actually need for the 2 East 70th Street maisonette?

At the $22,500,000 asking price, roughly $12,768,750 before legal and title costs. The building caps financing at 50 percent, so the down payment alone is $11,250,000, and the mansion tax of $843,750 plus the 3 percent purchaser-paid flip tax of $675,000 add $1,518,750 on top. Co-op boards at this level also expect meaningful post-closing liquidity, which is assessed during the board package rather than published in advance.

### Who pays the flip tax at 2 East 70th Street?

The purchaser. The RLS listing remarks for apartments at this building state a 3 percent flip tax payable by the buyer, and the Compass, Zillow and Realtor.com records for units 4A, 10A and 91011B all carry the same term. That is the less common arrangement, since most co-ops charge the seller. On a $22,500,000 purchase it comes to $675,000. Confirm the current rate and whether it is calculated on gross price, profit or shares with the managing agent before making an offer.

### Why is the maintenance almost the same on a $22.5M apartment and an $8.95M one?

Because co-op maintenance is charged against the shares allocated to an apartment, not against its market value, and the share allocations here were set long before current pricing. The maisonette pays $18,298 a month, 10A pays $18,081 and 91011B pays $17,651. Measured against the asking prices that is 0.98 percent a year for the maisonette and 2.37 percent for 91011B, so the most expensive apartment in the building is the cheapest to carry per dollar of price.

### Will the new second-home surcharge apply to this apartment?

It depends on the apartment's share allocation, and we will not guess at it. The surcharge is calculated on the Department of Finance's valuation rather than the purchase price, and DOF values the entire building at $22,468,000 for fiscal 2026. Spread evenly across the 19 apartments the city counts, the average imputes to about $1,182,526, which falls in the 4 percent Phase 1 band and produces roughly $47,301 a year for a non-primary residence. A maisonette of this size very likely carries more shares than the average, so the actual figure needs the allocated assessment from the managing agent.

### How long do apartments take to sell at 2 East 70th Street?

It depends entirely on the price. Unit 10A went into contract 23 days after listing at $10,500,000 in July 2026, unit 8B sold above its asking price in 2024, and unit 4A achieved its full $14,900,000 ask in 2025. Meanwhile 91011B has been on the market 915 days and has come down 25.4 percent from its original $12,000,000. Across Lenox Hill, the larger the co-op the longer it waits: four-bedroom sales have taken a median 71 days at 97.6 percent of ask, while the six-bedroom sales took a median 620 days at 90.0 percent.

### How many apartments are in the building?

Sources disagree, which is worth knowing before you rely on any single one. StreetEasy says 16 apartments across 14 stories, CityRealty says 17 units across 14 stories, Corcoran says 18 units across 11 stories, and the Department of Finance counts 19 apartments for tax purposes. We use the Department of Finance count for the tax arithmetic in this piece because that is the basis the city actually bills against. The building was completed in 1927 to a Rosario Candela design, though some listings date it to 1928.

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