Best 'no board' buildings on the UES

just curious, why doesn't a condop bother you? Check out the condop landlease at "301 east 63rd".

Imagine being the last fool at that party!

http://www.urbandigs.com/2008/12/landleases_when_worse_than_the.html

Isn't there a risk that a lax coop could really run into trouble if the economy drops another leg down?

207 East 74th is controlled by a single broker/resident who tries to filter applicants (social/profession level) for the board. Onerous post close liquidity requirements used on applicants not favored; hence, long time to sell

Landlease is a different story of course, I am talking about a normal situation. I am really leaning towards condos anyway, as they dont have most of the issues that coops do. However, some condos processes are almost as bad (if not worse) than many coops.

"207 East 74th is controlled by a single broker/resident who tries to filter applicants (social/profession level) for the board. Onerous post close liquidity requirements used on applicants not favored; hence, long time to sell "

Thats a PERFECT example of a place I will NOT be looking, thanks for the heads up! Now that I think about it, mentioning examples such as that is equally helpful.

The ideal board is lax when *I* want to buy or sell. Rigorous is good, otherwise.

wow. 207 east 74. 9 of last 10 listings with the same broker and the one which wasn't was taken off market

NWT: you took the words out of my mouth

We haven't seen this, just like we haven't seen a lot of things because the market has been on an upward swing for the last 16 years, but historically "Best" and 'no board' wouldn't be used in the same sentence. Typically, the very lax Coops tended to be the problem buildings which were lax because they NEEDED to be (like the Land Lease buildings).

One thing I would be VERY wary about if you are buying into this market: in the lax buildings, people who cant sell will rent. The percentage of owner occupants in the building will decline. At some point 9probably very soon), the banks will make percentage of owner occupants a major lending criteria. Then you won't be able to get a loan in the buildings which are lax and allow unlimited subletting.

Can I say this will happen for sure? No. But it certainly is exactly what happened last down cycle.

The other thing which i will point out is that over the past 5 years or so i have been shocked to see what has happened with Condo Purchase Applications. A lot of them look like Coop Applications. I told someone in my office after seeing one of those about 2 years ago "If it were me I'd put down "Occupation: drug dealer - you don't want me in the building? Go exorcise your Right of First Refusal or get you fingers out of my butt".

30yrs, this may sound naive, but do banks consider % owners who rent their places out when providing mortgages? As opposed to buildings where a sponsor or landlord/mgt company rents out a large # of units.

Different banks have different criteria, and those criteria change over time. I can tell you that last go around when lenders tightened up, it was a HUGE issue and some buildings all of a sudden made huge changes to their subletting policies because people couldn't sell because too many owners had sublet their units. I thnk we are already seeing the start of added lending limitations and they will continue to be added on by banks as the market worsens.

But to answer the question, there are banks who's Coop Questionnaire asks for "percentage of owner occupied units". So that includes not only Sponsor units, but sublets as well. It's a stability issue: Coops with owners who don't live there are less likely to spend money on maintaining the building and are also more likely to have owners who "walk away" from units and stop paying their monthly maintenance.