What are CityRealty.com's Building Ratings?
Pinning the tail on the real estate donkey is not as simple as it used to be in Manhattan. So CityRealty.com created a scorecard for rating apartment buildings to help navigate the every-changing real estate landscape. The ratings may not help you find your dream building, but will help demonstrate some of the complexities of real estate.

CityRealty.com’s rating system has a total of 58 categories in three areas: architecture, location and amenities. The three general areas are roughly weighted the same. There are other highly regarded criteria such as being near a park, water, public transportation or local shopping, and the ratings try to fine tune that to people’s walking tolerances: less than three blocks, three to six blocks, etc. CityRealty.com's “perfect” score, which is just about impossible, would be about 120.

The highest score, to date, was achieved by River House at 435 East 52nd Street: 94.

To view a CityRealty.com Building Rating select any building/your recommended buildings from CityRealty.com, then select Building Ratings under Options.

Location is Everything
One of the many factors buyers consider in purchasing an apartment is location, but there is not a single perfect location in the real world of New York City. CityRealty.com has devised a checklist/scorecard for apartment ratings on about a third of the possible ratings that relate to location.

Location is important because many of us care about convenience and some of us are just a little lazy. Some urban planners have suggested that many apartment dwellers want good local shopping—supermarkets, pharmacies, stationery stores, cleaners and the like—nearby, usually within a just a few blocks.

Public transportation is also very important. For people who live near CarlSchurzPark on the Upper East Side, it is a very long walk to the Lexington Avenue subway. These people, on the other hand, may have chosen that location because of the attractive waterfront park.

Being close to the heart of things is desirable for most people, but where is the “heart” of New York? CityRealty.com bit the proverbial bullet and decided that it is RockefellerCenter and has adjusted our ratings based on proximity to that central location as well as other factors.