Pied a Terre

Ask the president of the He Man Pied a Terre Hater's Club - NYC Matt - he will tell you why we are all considered pied a terrorists.

Coops want owner occupied units, it effects their credit rating, people's ability to get a mortgage and they want people invested in the community (not coming and going). I would focus on condos.

Basically, many buildings view pied a terre ownership as a problem because it's seen sort of as owners with no long term commitment. .Possibly lots of people coming for short stays (fiends, relatives) in and out to use the apartment for short time use. People who do not have the same interest in the building as full time residents supposedly do.

Sorry "friends" not "fiends"

Manhattan coop buildings are a way to disguise prejudice. very new york. very jewish. very waspy. very passe.

Pied-à-terre owners are less likely to be willing to pull board duty.

Fortunately there're lots of co-ops that don't mind, so between those and condos you have lots of choice.

They're out there. I was able to find one I'm very happy with. Do an advanced search and in "Description includes" add pied a terre.

Midtowner, Jewish and Waspy not exactly the same thing, you sound bitter.

""(fiends, relatives)""

Sounds like a Freudian slip to me...

Boards also apartments to be occupied. Problems in unoccupied apartments, such as leaks, are more likely to go unnoticed.

(("Description includes" add pied a terre. ))

And be sure to also search with misspelled versions of pied-a-terre as many brokers seem not to know how to spell it correctly. "Pied-a-terres" rather than the correct "Pieds-a-terre" for example.

Midtowner is probably AR using another name.

bullshit

Why are you grayed out, AR? Thought that honor was reserved for the likes of Hones and W67.

It's tough to borrow a cup of sugar from an empty apartment. Many people like the sheer neighborliness of a building full of primary residents.

That said, there are some co-ops that don't mind P-A-Ts, and others that don't usually allow them that will make exceptions from time to time. What part of the city are you looking in?

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

We have one pied-a-terre unit in our small building. The unit owners are lovely, sensible people who have been great advocates for taking a long-term view to both building maintenance and finances.

That said, there are complications. There was a leak that was emptying into their apartment for weeks or perhaps months that wasn't discovered until it had done significant damage and infiltrated into the unit below, which then caused a brouhaha about who was or wasn't negligent and who should pay. Their unit is the only practical point of access for many common building repairs, yet they will never grant anyone permission to enter. Planning common building repairs around their ability to be present has delayed them by months or, in one instance, years.

All told, I really like them as neighbors and as people, and I hope they stay for a long time. That said, I feel that we can't practically have another pied-a-terre while we have these guys, as we all have heavy travel schedules and there has already an been instance where a building emergency happened when no one in the entire building was home. I would also be hesitant to allow a pied-a-terre in this particular unit in the future because of its unique access to certain building elements.

So there's one balanced (I hope) perspective on pied-a-terres from a building where our "policy" is dark gray but not black.

Then why do condominiums, with extremely liberal or no policies at all (pied a terres, subletting, renovations) seem to have, on the whole, an equally good quality of life? And if they suffer from such a lack of "it takes a village" way of life, why do they sell at a premium over cooperative apartments?

I own one co-op and one condo, and I don't think condos do have an equally good quality of life. I think they trade at a premium because a lot of people 1) want to skip the board process and 2) want to buy themselves fuller subletting rights.

also often 3) condominiums tend to be newer buildings, and so some of what you see is a newer-construction premium disguised as an ownership-type premium.

ali

""The unit owners are lovely, sensible people who have been great advocates for taking a long-term view to both building maintenance and finances.""

""Their unit is the only practical point of access for many common building repairs, yet they will never grant anyone permission to enter.""

lad, "lovely" and "sensible"? They sound like prime a-holes from what you're describing. And a perfect example of why absentee owners suck.

coop owners cannot keep building maintenance people our of their apartments for building repairs. its in every coop bylaws doc in the world. Sounds off...

Front_porch wrote:
… I think they trade at a premium because a lot of people
1) want to skip the board process
- who wouldn't? -

and 2) want to buy themselves fuller subletting rights.
- how about just having rights.. period. -

also often 3) condominiums tend to be newer buildings, and so some of what you see is a newer-construction premium disguised as an ownership-type premium.
- "ownership" being the operative word. -

The bottom line? People are wising up to the fact that "buying" a coop is only a tick or two away from "buying" a timeshare or a Madoff Fund. To any reasonable person unfamiliar with the underbelly of NY real estate, the world of Coop "ownership" seems incomprehensible. Threads like this are evidence of that.

andwin, you may have told us before, but I forget. What was your co-op trauma?

It sounds like the NYC RE version of seeing something nasty in the woodshed.

I realize that maintenance workers have the right to enter their apartment with notice, but to this point we have been reluctant to use heavy-handed tactics in managing our co-op.

The pied-a-terre owners were very strong supporters of the campaign to refinance the building mortgage to a self-liquidating loan, even though it meant raising maintenance, and they have been very supportive of building improvement plans and also individual renovations (like the one I'm doing now) that push the limits of what's usually allowed in a co-op. I think they have a long-term horizon and a genuine concern for the building and its owners. Some of the reluctance to allow building workers to enter their unit unsupervised may be related to things that happened before my time. I find that they're very reasonable people when we make an effort to include them, but can react defensively when they're looped in only at the point where access is demanded.

lad, they sound like a real drag and not very good neighbors to boot. If they have such "genuine concern" for the building they would allow maintenance workers in to fix problems that are harming other tenants' apartments.

I love co-op ownership. Costs me a fraction of market rent, and I have nice capital appreciation. A condo sometimes costs triple. No thanks. I paid off my co-op mortgage. Cheap stress-free living..

Board approval? 2-3 weeks to sched. a 30 mins. meeting.
Renovation approval? Film out a form (15 mins), approved in 2 days.

TOTAL NON-ISSUE.
Most overhyped aspect of real estate, bar none.