When will they start giving apts away?

please, there are not going to be free apartments. Don't waste our time with such nonsense. If you want a free apartment, then go to Detroit.

nyc10023, i think there is a medium-sized but meaningful group of people also who bought some time ago when they could afford their apartments who no longer can due to maintenance or cc+taxes, particularly if you factor in additional expenses that may now apply, such as health care, or for people in their 40s-50s the cost of education for children, both for k-12 and college. sadly, people now on fixed incomes can't make a cent without the stock market, and who'd want that (actually, many have lost a ton of their money). teachers, chefs, artists etc. used to be able to buy, but for many those monthly charges may now be a burden.

aboutready...completely agree with you...there will be buyers that don't need to sell and it will take them years to realize it's over...but there are those you posted about who bought in the 80's and 90's and thought the boom would go on forever...they probably paid $200k for a one bedroom and $300k for a two bedroom..they'll sell at a lower price and still make a lot of money.

These people who cant afford to live in NYC need to move out to more affordable areas. Its nobody's birth right to be able to live here. Plus they are sitting on huge gains on real estate, so dont feel sorry for them.

I beg to differ with you on living in NYC being "nobody's birthright". I was born in Manhattan as was my father. Most of my childhood friends, especially those with kids, have had to leave and it really ticks me off to see my old neighborhood turned into such a playground for the very rich and fabulous that it attracts tourists. For now I live in a beautiful if not not especially trendy (thank God) part of New York and I plan to leave if not feet first at least "next stop sunshine village".

lizyank...completely agree with you...economic diversity made the village, soho, etc. great neighborhoods for artists, writers, etc..now it's all wall street money.

lizyank and julia, i agree, but i have a bit more hope. so many get chewed up and spit out during the upswings, but not all. bubbles are annoying because both the ups and the downs so artificially accentuate the issues, but i hope going forward we may be able to have a more diverse crowd.

i don't mind the masters of the universe, within reason, when they're kind of humorous. when they pervade every corner i get a bit queasy. in our chelsea 1300 sf condo in 2000 our tax and cc's were around $800 per month combined. We lived in a funky little 20 unit loft building, we had the only child even though 10 units were 2/2s. Our neighbors included a 60 minutes cameraman, a couple who had started a freelance marketing company, a retired gay couple, an artist, etc. (and us, with my husband in a large law firm). it was a great group, and i have to wonder if they can all afford the recent cost increases.

how much are the monthlies now?

julia: When the Lower East Side Mitchell-Lama Coops all went private, I warned several people about buying in them for a similar reason to what you state: if the market takes a MAJOR crap, you've got 80% of the owners who bought at less than $20,000. If you are buying a 2 BR for 600,000 and the market goes down to $450,000, but since the amount of units which look EXACTLY the same is so large because there are so many, just about anyone who was there before can drop their price to $400,000 (or $350,000 or $300,000), severely undercutting anyone who bought at "market", and still walk away with a huge windfall profit.

look, the same thing is true for lots of large project Coop conversion like Lincoln Towers: when absorption rates fall, there will ALWAYS be a number of people who can price less than you and still make a big profit. Basically it means if you buy into this type of project at market price, be prepared to just not be able to sell period in a down market.

PS I've lived in the Village for quite a while now, and it pains me to say that it sucks compared to what it used to be.

They were at about $1200 and rising in 2004. cc's were still $400, but taxes had doubled. I've always been kind of confused about the Bloomberg assessment process. We would just get seemingly random notices increasing them, but you wouldn't want to complain because the assessment was still below fair market value and i suppose they could have found against you, and you knew of comparable coops and condos where there hadn't been any recent sales in the building that had lower taxes. The process seemed so mysterious and random. Many of my friends, particularly in condos, were very unhappy campers around that time.

30yrs, any thoughts on what's going on in the appraisal world? For some of these developments I just don't see how anyone could get an honest appraisal at the price the buyer signed the contract at two or so years ago? Even for some of the established developments, particularly the ones that have traditionally been underpriced (the Corinthian in Murray Hil and the St. Tropez in midtown come to mind, as well as the examples you gave), as you pointed out people have a great deal of potential room for price reductions and it seems as though even if you find a buyer, in this restrictive lending environment it might be hard for the unit to appraise at the contract's price.

"please, there are not going to be free apartments. Don't waste our time with such nonsense. If you want a free apartment, then go to Detroit."

Amusingly, Alpine said the exact same thing about 20% discounts.

Whoops.

My parents got into Seward before it went private and that situation never materialized 30yrs. Even those who got in after it was privatized made out like bandits because, when it went private, it was not TRULY private since there was a cap on how much you can sell for. Thankfully, they eventually removed the cap.

It makes me sad when people use the word "privatized" in reference to ex-Mitchell-Lama coops, as if public housing was taken from The People. They were privately owned and owner-occupied from the start, and they were coops from the start. I prefer "went market rate" or the official "opted out of the program" (an option that was laid out from before they broke ground on the buildings). I can see how the 'cap' arrangement makes "market rate" untrue, though.

I can't wait to watch the PBS documentary on the Communist Coops that I'm recording right now, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow or even later. Yes, I know what you're thinking: I'm a petit-bourgeois liberal and not dedicated to the cause.

alanhart: and why are/were they Mitchel-Lama Coops? Where did the money to finance them come from???????

It's so ironic that you use the phrase "PBS documentary on the Communist Coops", because of what went on there for years. People got "jumped" way up on the list to purchase while other people got passed over for years. People were allowed to buy multiple apartments while others ahead of them on the list got passed over. ******AFTER THE DECISION HAD BEEN MADE TO GO PRIVATE< APARTMENTS WERE SOLD AT THE CAPPED VALUES TO FRIENDS OF MANAGEMENT, rather than being held empty and sold at market. Even after privatization, some of the buildings kept caps and a lot of apartment got bought up at raised caps BY CERTAIN INSIDERS from people who had been subletting their apartments for years waiting for their windfall. I could go on and on.

Yes, basically the same thi8ng occurred as with the fall of Communism in many countries. Corrupt people in power raped the corpse of the old system for huge personal windfalls.

"any thoughts on what's going on in the appraisal world? "
"how anyone could get an honest appraisal"

Jumbo shrimp? Military intelligence?

My apologies to certain members of this forum, but residential appraisal has been mostly bullshit for a very long time. And it has to be. If as an appraiser you don't come up with the numbers that the banks or the borrowers want, people stop using you. I've done over 10,000 (over 20,000? I don't even know - it's some big number) of price opinions for various clients which were basically appraisals (all the same criteria, the only difference was the person filling out the form). I've seen banks kick back appraisals for being too high basically because they didn't want to do the loan and needed an excuse. In 1986/87 Citibank was famous for having all the appraisals on 90% loans come in 10% low.

For the last 10 years I have RARELY been surprised by an appraisal which came in too low, but CONSTANTLY surprised by appraisals which I new came in too high. There are all sorts of game you can play: the square4 footage one is always great. Since square footage on Coop's isn't "officially" recorded, all you have to do is use comparable sales which are actually bigger than the subject, but list them as the same size. Instant value boost. I've looked at original appraisals given to me by clients (banks) when asking about the current value for an upcoming auction (back when banks were actually bidding below their liens at the foreclosure sales to induce investors and users to buy at the sale so that they wouldn't have to take the properties into REO and deal with them) and on more than one occasion seen the same property listed as a sale comp multiple times across appraisals on different units, and seen the square footage all over the map. So you had guys using the same limited number of comparable sales over and over again, but changing the description of the units to suit whatever the target property was.

You have to remember that up until about 5 years ago, Coop sales prices were not recorded and appraisers got their comps from 2 places: Managing Agents and Brokers. Managing Agents were often a real pain in the ass, and many stated charging to give comps out to shoo away appraisers. And brokers? If the broker who is doing the sale is feeding the appraiser the comparable sales....... do I really need to say anymore?

What's happening in the Appraisal world? My guess is lots of guys and girls sitting next to mortgage brokers in the unemployment office.

But to answer your question in a slightly different way: the banks are finding so many other ways not to make the loans they have committed to for those projects that they haven't gotten down that far in the deck to play the appraisal card.

30yrs, I agree. The appraisal world has been stunningly corrupt, the whole process has been. I asked a real estate broker a couple of years ago what was going to happen when the banks started paying attention again to owner occupancy rates. He told me, a bit abashedly, that managing agents usually just lied on the forms if they have problems with excessive subletting or investor-owned units.

So, have people in the Rushmore, Brompton, Lucida, those developments just beginning closings recently, been able to get mortgages? Many of those buildings have/had 70% in contract, the Lucida and Brompton particularly had many high income buyers who at least some of them, presumably, could come up with 25-30% down. Can they get a mortgage? If I were a lender, I wouldn't touch those suckers.

alanhart, as a liberal with dubious credentials myself, i'd love to see the PBS special. could you post the link?

aboutready: it's replaying today and tonight on Channel 21, but not on Thirteen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/arts/television/27utop.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bronx%20coop&st=cse

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/athomeinutopia/

30yrs_RE_20_in_REO: For the most part, the money to finance M-L coops came from union pension funds. Corruption both in and outside of the program (ongoing) is at its core a modern frummie culture problem, not a M-L or "privatization" problem.

I don't think it takes much thought to realize that they did it primarily to avoid the court-ordered racial integration that was mandated immmediately before "privatization" ... at least where Cooperative Village is concerned.

Wondering if this apartment falls into the definition of "giving away":

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/406427-coop-3-convent-avenue-west-harlem-new-york

Pirot, very interesting find. My guess is that it's an HDFC coop that's in so much (incompetence- and corruption-fueled) financial trouble that it's effectively a cash-only deal -- because no bank would ever lend. Additionally, the owner is probably eager to disengage from future problems with the building.

Please let us know what the story is if you pursue info.

The ad says it's an established co-op, yet the offer is "by prospectus only" and nothing on ACRIS yet for the co-op corporation.

The building is listed as 1 Convent Avenue in the Streeteasy page (see "More About This Building" or whatever).

1 and 3 are the same building. Next one up is 11.

bed bugs had been reported in that building

http://bedbugregistry.com/location/NY/10027-2603/New-York/1-Convent-Ave

aboutready - re: new developments, closings have not yet started at the Lucida and I do not follow the Rushmore. At the Brompton, the pace of closing continues to be glacial and we could speculate about why, but those that are closing are mostly getting 70-75% mortgages according to ACRIS. A couple more like 60%, which could well be buyer choice rather than bank requirement. I don't recall seeing more than 75%, so your example of people putting down 25-30% looks accurate, at least across the relatively small sample that is visible thus far.

sidelinesitter, thanks for the info. i should become better versed at ACRIS. Then at least some are getting mortgages. Did you get a sense of whether these are the less expensive units? Jonathan Miller was noting on another thread that many people are needing even more now for jumbos, so that could explain the slowdown in closings. i wouldn't want to be the buyer or the developer right now.

"I don't think it takes much thought to realize that they did it primarily to avoid the court-ordered racial integration that was mandated immmediately before "privatization" ... at least where Cooperative Village is concerned."

As my recently deceased partner of 17 years was a LONG term resident of Amalgamted (and long term Board member), as well as knowing many poeple living in the various other Coops down there, I can assure you that the racial integration suit played little to no part in the decision to go private.

And your anti-semetic remarks have not gone unnoticed, but perhaps that's why you think this is why the transaction took place was at it's root discrimination. But that's total bullshit. A lot of people made a lot of money . PERIOD - and that's why it took place. There was just too big a carrot dangled in front of too many noses for it not to happen.

And what about all of those owners who were FORCED to sell their properties to make way for the all these buildings? that was a Government issue, which is now being reaped by private profits. I guess to some extent it is similar to where you stand on the issue of using eminent domain for private projects (a big issue these days). Personally, I'm appalled at the rulings allowing it and will NEVER vote for ANY official who has ANYTHING to do with ANY such project EVER. I'm some what of an atheist/agnostic/non-believer in karma, but seeing Larry Silverstein getting fucked (too bad he got away with that stupid double-up on his under insurance scheme) for somewhat this same issue on WTC, and hopefully seeing Bruce Ratner getting anally raped on Atlantic Yards.... well, perhaps I'll have to start changing my religious viewpoints.

I've always thought real estate appraisal was a game. When we bought our first place, we were anxious that we had overpaid. We hired independent appraisers to do an appraisal (i.e. not linked to bank in any way). In fact, we used Miller Samuel. When the appraisal came in, we then used the appraisal for the bank and got credit a few hundred dollars.

Anyway, the banks should toss appraisals or the current process out the window. Base the loan solely on creditworthiness of individual.

30yrs_RE_20_in_REO, you're crying about eminent domain being used to tear down the filthy, squalid, overcrowded slums of the Lower East Side? For which former owners were compensated, rather than the later practice of simply condemning buildings and forcing the owners to tear them down, leaving worthless empty lots? Nice.

I'm with you on the Atlantic Yards project, because a basketball arena fails the "public good" test, and because they're tearing down viable housing that meets modern standards (more or less). But imagine what the US would be without eminent domain -- transportation routes, schools, parks, hospitals, etc. etc. would have been nearly impossible to build. The others, not at all. How is this the same for the WTC? Silverman took on a long-term land lease from the PA, which felt it could better profit from its investment with an outsider managing the leasing and the PA getting a reliable income, and he has the right to continue that lease just as he would if fire damaged one only one floor of the building. The courts very reasonably ruled that two planes equals two attacks, not one, thus his insurance policy can't cap out at the "one attack" level.

My remark was clearly anti-frum, not anti-semitic. Don't ever confuse the two. I stand by my version of why it went market rate. Contrast that with the decision at Penn South houses, which (like Cooperative Village) has lots of Jews, but virtually no frums . . . the same carrot was dangled, and they voted to stay in the limited equity program. Even though, being in more central and convenient Chelsea, they could have made way more money than their LES counterparts.

Can we agree that the percentage of black and latino purchasers in the period after it went market/capped rate is much, much, much, much lower than the corresponding percentage of new cooperators from the time of court decree to when it went market/capped rate?

"I'm with you on the Atlantic Yards project, because a basketball arena fails the "public good" test"

So the buildings (Grand Street) were built using eminent domain FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD. Did that disappear when the mortgages got paid off? If Ratner makes a deal where the city owns the building for a few years THEN he gets it, will it make it ok?

"Can we agree that the percentage of black and latino purchasers in the period after it went market/capped rate is much, much, much, much lower than the corresponding percentage of new cooperators from the time of court decree to when it went market/capped rate?"

Could you rephrase that please I can't understand exactly what you're asking.

25 years of public good ... quite sufficient for the use of eminent domain, yes. And the slums remain disappeared forever. If Ratner built an arena and had no use of it for 25 years, then owned it, it would be a very different situation, yes.

Rephrase: do you think lots of blacks and latinos have been buying $600,000 apartments since it went "private"? Or do you think more would have moved in under the court decree (for the limited-equity coop to end discrimination)? Do you think the numbers are even close? No, you don't.

There were no 600,000 apartments when it went Coop. They were real cheap at were being bought by people who couldn't get into most other Manhattan Coops....................

And for the one's that had the interim cap, you certainly can't think that they were keeping out blacks and latinos for $75,000 for an apartment, can you?

But the argument is still silly. I saw they way they did things, what they did, the unbridled corruption. It was all about the money. Look, 25,000 units have gone private, there's about 4,500 in Coop Village. You think they went private for the same reason even without the discrimination lawsuits? ok, so lots of them were rentals so we won't count them, but what about Trump Village III, Trump Village IV and Contello 3

nyc10023 this is an apartment that seems to fit your description:
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/372989-coop-301-east-63rd-street-lenox-hill-new-york

Pirot, this issue has been addressed in several other threads. The maintenance in that bldg. is so high it's close to the cost or renting similar apartments in other buildings. In other words, most apts. at 301 E 63 rd SHOULD BE GIVEN AWAY. That apartment is cheap, but not nearly cheap enough.