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A few years ago, state and city officials accused an operator of turning every apartment in one seven-story Upper West Side building into short-term rentals, hosting thousands of guests over a four-year stretch before an $845,000 settlement shut it down. This afternoon, that same building is being sold to the highest bidder.
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The building is 207 West 75th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, which we first wrote about last August when its lender filed to foreclose. The auction is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. at the courthouse at 60 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan, Crain’s New York Business reports.The Airbnb case centered on a firm called Mega Home, which officials accused of renting out all six apartments at 207 West 75th Street, plus four at 311 East 51st Street, to more than 2,000 guests on a short-term basis over four years. Mega Home paid $845,000 to settle in 2024.
The foreclosure is a separate matter involving the building’s owner. Developer Shaya Prager of Opal Holdings bought the site in 2015 for $13.3 million, when it was a one-story building with a tanning salon. Prager put up the current seven-story building in 2018 and originally planned to sell the apartments as condos. State officials approved a $38 million condo offering plan that year, but sales never launched and the building was run as rentals instead. Crain’s notes the reason for the switch is unknown.
The loan at the center of the case was a 2019 refinancing from Bethpage Federal Credit Union, which rebranded as FourLeaf last year. FourLeaf accused Prager of defaulting on the $16.9 million mortgage, and Prager argued in court that the lender had overstated what was owed. In July, a state Supreme Court judge sided with the lender and approved a $19.1 million judgment, a figure that includes the unpaid principal plus interest, late fees, and other charges. Tuesday’s auction is meant to satisfy that judgment.
Separately, the city sold a $22,000 tax lien on the property to the Bank of New York Mellon in September 2025, and the bank sued Prager in May to collect on it, according to court filings cited by Crain’s.
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Whoever wins the auction is getting a building that was doing well on paper. According to documents filed in the foreclosure case, the 14,100-square-foot property was bringing in roughly $106,000 a month as of November 2025. A three-bedroom, three-bath unit rented in May for $14,000 a month, according to StreetEasy data cited in the report.About $21,000 of that monthly total comes from the ground floor, where Sugarfish opened in August 2024 after the retail space had sat empty since the building went up. What the sale means for the restaurant is unclear. Sugarfish has a 10-year lease that runs through 2033, and a representative didn’t respond to Crain’s request for comment. Neither Prager nor FourLeaf returned calls either.
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