Brokers are Scum -Sara Settembrini of Corcoran

That is a scumbag move...ironically my broker was from Corcoran and she went over and above telling me that I have to state this on the listing or eat it myself (which i did since there was only 3 months left in the assessment at closing)...case by case basis

spit in the brokers face and move on.

My listing broker is from Corcoran and listed the assesment on my listing as well. It is frustrating when you see listings in your own building who clearly are hiding the assesment and make things look expensive. At the end of the day people will figure it out but why is telling the truth so hard.

Thing is -- why waste people's time. 700 more in common charges is a whole new level of affordability

I have always suggested (going back over 20 years) that when there is a temporary capital assessment that the seller pay the entire amount specifically so that they wouldn't have to "announce" it in the listing. I don't feel there's anything unethical about not disclosing 9in the initial advertisement, listing, etc. IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE TAKING CARE OF 100% OF IT. Of course, once someone is interested, even before they make an offer, you disclose it, but if you say "there's a temporary capital assessment of $X for the new roof, but I'm paying all of it off and you don't have to pay any of it", I have found no one objects to the non-disclosure in the initial contact.

Also, as a buyer myself (and I make this point to sellers I represent when I try to convince them to eat the entire assessment) my opinion is that the item the assessment is for is for something the seller "ate" and therefore the seller should pay for it (when I say "ate", I mean if the building needs a new roof, the seller had the benefit of the roof for the time he owned his unit. now that it's "used up" and they need a new one, he should be the one paying for the "use" which occurred in the past, not the buyer. I mean, buildings come with roofs, boilers, etc. so buyers have the right to expect that this one will as well. the only time i could see it being different is if s building was going to be installing something different (like a pool) which never existed before and the assessment was for that, I could see the logic in the buyer paying for it.

but even in that case, assessments are always a "red flag" so even on a marketing basis, I would suggest a seller eat the assessment just to be able to sell the unit "with no assessments".

PS What is this assessment for?

you're right...but that isn't what apparently happened here. this is precisely what i was trying to point out on the other thread. if brokers in general acted as you have suggested, that would be great. the problem is that by and large they don't. often they are shockingly misinformed and look you in the eye and lye through their teeth.

sorry.

According to the broker it was for roof work and lobby work - they took out a line of credit and want to pay it back -- just seems weird to have a 700 assessment on a 1350 common charge - do i really want to waste my time digging getting an agreed upon price and digging through the building's financials.

From people's experiences -- would you expect this assesment to stay around?

just sitting on the sidelines but cry eye, a close to 50% add'l assessment - sumthins wrong here.

IMO, you shouldn't have to assess for that kind of work. You should redo the lobby when you've built up enough in the reserve to warrant it. You should always have enough in the reserve to take care of routine roof work. The only time I think an assessment is warranted is when the unexpected happens, or when the building decides it wants to preemptively address something that could be more expensive down the line (i.e. replacing your aging elevator now before it suddenly goes out).

We are in an era of conflicting shareholder economics: in a lot of buildings you have lots of people who bought their apartments for relatively little money and now lots of newer people who bought their apartments for lots of money. For those who are in the former camp, they often are very resistant to maintenance increases because they represent a lot more of the total monthly nut than those who paid high prices with high mortgages. Some may even be in fixed incomes.

In addition, they are used to the old lobby, hallways, etc. which are commensurate with the prices they paid, but the new group, who paid much bigger $, wants a lobby, hallways, etc. commensurate with the higher $ THEY paid.

So, it's very hard to get shareholders to swallow raising mtc PERIOD, and almost impossible to get shareholders swallow raising mtc. when it's not even "necessary" but just to have the annual income be far enough about expenses to build up a reserve fund.

But even aside from that there are 2 very important points about this: firstly, many boards tend to spend whatever money they have, so even if you raise mtc, they don't build up a reserve fund because they always find something to do with the "extra" money anyway. Part of the reason is the foolish (sometimes unconscious) belief that it's not "their" money, it's the Coop's money, so it doesn't really cost them anything to spend it: it's "free money".

The second issue is that it's actually a better financial decision to assess for capital projects than to pay for them through increased maintenance (and if you think about it, that's the way you get that reserve fund). The reason why it's better is that you get yo add all capital assessments to you tax cost basis and therefore deduct it from your profit when you sell the unit. Now, this is only meaningful for people who are in a situation where they would actually pay tax on a sale, but that does include a decent amount of people.

As far as $700 assessment on this unit and what the project is/was. It's hard to say if it's "too much" without knowing how long the assessment is for. And as far as having enough money in the reserve fund for roof work, just because they are having an assessment for the lobby AND roof work doesn't say much about that because there's a good chance the lobby cost 10 times or more what the roof work cost, so they very well may have had enough money in the reserve fund for the roof work but decided as long as they were borrowing and assessing for the lobby anyway, they might as well roll the roof work into it as well (and if they were doing it for the "good" reason of being able to add it to people's basis, i actually would agree it's the "right" way to do it).

I think 30yrs's perspective is right on.

I'm currently paying a special assessment. If I were to sell, I think I'd pay it off myself.

Much better optics.

agreed with 30Yrs - My E 94TH property has a $620/mth temp assessment for local law 11 facade repointing that was completed a few months ago. However, my client agreed to WIPE OUT that assessment at closing and every buyer is told this up front. This way, I can market the listing with the original maintenance that in the end will be unaffected.

why should sellers pay the entire assessment? That is insane. If you buy a house in the suburbs and the roof needs to be replaced, that's the buyer's responsibility. The selelr is not going to give you a new roof, plumbing, wiring, etc.

the seller can do whatever they want. But if they do not want to pay the assessment, then they should at the very least market the property with the current TOTAL maintenance - normal maint + the temp assessment or make the assessment public on the listing for all to see up front.

Thats the discussion here. If sellers dont want to pay fine, then dont hide it.

dog food head: no one said a new roof...how about selling your dog house with a roof that leaks? think you could pull that off?

I've heard of sellers selling houses with termites with no dislclosure. If you want to sell a house with a leaking roof, show the house to the buyers on a sunny day!

Take Alpine's advice re: nondisclosure and get sued....

If you insist on making an analogy to the suburbs, then consider the following. If you replace your roof with a home equity line of credit and then sell your house, the balance of that line of credit does not become the responsibility of the buyer. You must pay for it in order to transfer title to the buyer. OTOH, you add to the value of your sale price with a new roof.

The same thing happens when sellers pay for the remainder of a special assessment. By doing so, they give the buyers the full benefit of the new [whatever], which adds to the value of the sale price. This may be less, the same, or MORE, than the remainder of the assessment.

A $750k place with $800 maintenance is going to look a lot better to most buyers than a $738k place with $1,300 maintenance for the next two years. But, to a seller, the cost is the same. Why not just pay the remainder of the assessment and broaden your pool of potential buyers?

rent or buy: I would take the preferred route and make them both pay. (both=owner&agent) make them sign an oath that they are not assholes and won't lie anymore in your transactions, if they refuse, walk. Also tell them to address you as sir when they speak to you. Owner should simply close the loop and pay the balance of the undisclosed payment. Agent should compensate you for their fraud in sqfootage. It is not approx 1200. It is actual 1,038 or approx 1,000 sq ft. You should ask them to justify this before you proceed at all. Simply ask the agent if you should expect her to lie in all conversations going forward, or will she agree to stop as of now.

columbia county: I won't support you in your actions of spitting in a scumbags face, you know, bird flu and all. I actually prefer, just slap her the ass a bit, you know, they like that!

"why should sellers pay the entire assessment? That is insane. If you buy a house in the suburbs and the roof needs to be replaced, that's the buyer's responsibility. The seller is not going to give you a new roof, plumbing, wiring, etc."

How about if you were selling a house with a new roof that you paid for with a credit card? Would you think you should sent your monthly statement to the buyer and they should pay for it? That's a lot closer to the actual situation here: the buyer is buying the "building" with a new roof (and lobby), not a leaky one. The LOC was drawn down on and is being repaid. What you are talking about would be if the buyer's had an engineer tell them the building needs a new roof, it will cost approximately $X, and their pro-rata share of that is $Y. THEN you could say 'why should the seller hand over $Y to the buyer at the closing' - if that's what the buyer asked for to do a deal.

"I've heard of sellers selling houses with termites with no dislclosure. If you want to sell a house with a leaking roof, show the house to the buyers on a sunny day!"

And it's the BROKERS who are lying scum.............. ahem.......

cannot take dog food breath seriously. still wondering about the dog house roof.

ah, the ass slap...reminds me of the long departed agent rachel. ah well, the power broker is no doubt still around and good for a slap or two.

alpine292
"why should sellers pay the entire assessment? That is insane. If you buy a house in the suburbs and the roof needs to be replaced, that's the buyer's responsibility. The selelr is not going to give you a new roof, plumbing, wiring, etc."

It's obvious you have never bought a home in the suburbs. In every transaction where the buyer and his attorney have an IQ high enough where they didn't "ride the short bus to school" it all gets sorted out. (You know what that means, right?) Problems get fixed , escrowed funds to fix it, or reduced sales price.

alpine - the more you post, the more convinced I become that nothing you say about yourself is true. you neither own or have owned in NYC, nor have you ever transacted a single family outside NYC. your post is absolutely insane.

"It's obvious you have never bought a home in the suburbs. In every transaction where the buyer and his attorney have an IQ high enough where they didn't "ride the short bus to school" it all gets sorted out. (You know what that means, right?) Problems get fixed , escrowed funds to fix it, or reduced sales price."

wow, you losers have no idea of house house transactions are executed. Houses have problems when they are sold. So you are wrong when you say that everything gets "sorted out" since sellers are not going to disclose every single problem the house has. And if you buy the house and find a problem, you have to prove that the problem existed when the sellers owned the house and did not start after you bought the place, which is not easy. When I bought my house, there were plenty of problems. When my relatives bought house on LI, they had problems too. I have one cousin who hid problems when she sold.

the only problem in the dog house is you---chief dog.

Here is whats interesting -- the seller is on the board -- if i buy the place am tempted to add a warranty to the contract saying the assessment will end in December as adertised -- he is on the board ---he should be able to rep at least to discussions

But once he sells how is he going to guarantee anything?

Can sue him but in reality just a way to try to get some information -- see what he knows . . .whats not in the board minutes

put 2 years of assessment in the escrow account after closing. have a rider stipulating that every month of the assessment after december will be paid from the escrow account..... i haven't seen too many assessments that last more than a year or so.

if the seller does not agree, you know that they're lying.

"i haven't seen too many assessments that last more than a year or so."

I've seen buildings with "permanent assessments".

I don't know why people in a million years would buy into a co-op that has a mortgage or has any sponsor-tenants. Unless your neighbors, NOT JUST THE BOARD, are of similar values and economic status to you, you are getting yourself into a mess.

breath taking: "a co-op that has a mortgage?" kind of like a person with two legs? are you kidding? any sponsor tenants? our building has been a co-op for close to 20 years and still has a significant number of sponsor tenants---also known as neighbors.