A Fifth Avenue co-op could become the biggest loser in New York City real estate history — and it’s in a building already flooded with discounted home sales. But perhaps that’s why members of Manhattan’s high society are now looking to live there.
A full-floor residence in the Sherry-Netherland where an alleged Chinese spy once lived is in contract — its last asking price was $12 million. In 2015, its owner paid $67.5 million cash for it.
That’s a staggering $55.5 million loss on the unit if the deal closes for that sum.
Another apartment that last sold for $11.1 million in 2011 is listed for $1.6 million, marking an 85.6% drop, according to StreetEasy.
“At these prices, the apartments are being given away,” quipped one broker with listings in the building, a skip away from the posh Plaza Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street.
Another broker who has traded there for 20 years added: “It’s getting to the point where owners are asking if they can just leave their keys at the front desk and walk away.”
The nearly century-old building’s sales prices are in freefall as its monthly maintenance fees soar to some of the highest that the city has ever seen.
In context, that in-contract $12 million unit comes with an extraordinary $85,654 a month in maintenance fees for the regular operation of the building. And that’s on top of additional one-time “assessment” fees for things like fixing the building’s brick exterior, or fixing the old wood-paneled elevators, brokers said.
Experts told Gimme Shelter that those ever-rising monthlies are having a direct impact on pricing inside the famed building, which has been home to Diana Ross, Francis Ford Coppola and Judge Judy Sheindlin.
Those fees have almost doubled in the past 10 years, from $6.67 per square foot in 2016 to $12.15 in 2026, according to data compiled by appraiser Jonathan Miller, of StreetMatrix.
The fees also pay for hotel-style services, including daily housekeeping and evening turn-down service.
That’s a rare perk in New York, and people really love having it.
Prince Lorenzo Borghese who lived at the Sherry-Netherland for 10 years in a one-bedroom owned by his family, calls it “the most beautiful building in New York City.”
“It’s my absolute favorite building,” the reality star and entrepreneur told Gimme Shelter. “The staff is the nicest and most professional. It’s not a regular apartment. They really take care of you.”
“There are fresh new sheets every day and fresh towels. They take care of everything, even the toilet paper. I never had to buy a roll of toilet paper or towels the entire time I lived there,” Borghese said.
Still, it all comes at a price.
Miller puts the Sherry-Netherland in an elite class of co-op buildings with hotel-like services that includes the Pierre at 795 Fifth Ave. and the Carlyle, at 35 E. 76th St. Miller found that The Carlyle has the highest monthly maintenance fees, at $18.53 per square foot, followed by the Sherry-Netherland.
And soon, the latter will get its newest resident.
The $12 million unit belongs to jailed Chinese national Guo Wengui, who is also known by names including Ho Wan Kwok and Miles Kwok.
His unit is held through shell companies and is now being sold by a bankruptcy trustee to pay some of the roughly $374 million in debts Guo listed when he filed for bankruptcy in 2022.
Guo, a onetime ally and business associate of Steve Bannon, was charged in 2023 with defrauding investors of more than $1.3 billion for varying media and crypto scams. In June, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being convicted in July 2024 on nine of 12 counts, including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. Guo, currently held at a low-security prison in Danbury, Conn., maintains his innocence and appealed his conviction and sentence in July. His lawyer, Melinda Sarafa, declined to comment.
In 2018, Guo gave Gimme Shelter a tour of the sprawling property. The 7,000-square-foot apartment was impressive, with lots of wood paneling, terraces with extraordinary views of Central Park, and a chef’s kitchen where Guo enjoyed cooking up noodle dishes for his American guests. Sources said it’s the second largest unit in the building.
Miller told Gimme Shelter the Guo apartment sale, if it closes, “will be the largest loss on an individual residential sale on record in New York City. Nothing comes close to $50 million.”
The apartment’s listing broker, Douglas Elliman’s Sabrina Saltiel, declined to comment.
Broker Jenny Lenz, of Dolly Lenz Real Estate, who has many clients in the building, and whose mother Dolly once had Guo as a client, said that the apartment “has been gutted to its shell, and restoring it will require an extraordinary investment on top of maintenance approaching $100,000 a month.”
And yet, the low prices and a billionaires’ war over the fate of the nearby Pierre, as Gimme Shelter exclusively reported, may have finally kickstarted renewed interest in the building, and buyers are slowly returning.
The latest is former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who paid $10 million off-market for a unit sold by a trust tied to the late billionaire Eli Broad.
Actress Marlo Thomas also recently bought a unit for $2.75 million at the Sherry in August, Gimme can reveal. The three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath unit had last been purchased for $8.5 million in 2012, according to records, and extravagantly decorated by famed designer Geoffrey Bradfield. It features domed, coffered and tray ceilings, marble floors, custom moldings and millwork and stunning Central Park views. Its latest reported maintenance fees were $26,432 a month, plus $1,362 for a storage/staff room; there is also a $2,679 additional monthly assessment fee through September 2027, according to a past listing.
The building’s management did not respond at press time.