Morningside Gardens co-ops - 70 & 90 LaSalle, etc.

I'm curious about this too.

You really should call Morningside Heights Housing Corp at 80 La Salle St and get on their external wait list. The managing agent show the apartments first. I don't think they charge a broker's fee. If the don't sell on the internal/external wait lists, then the residents may use an outside broker. We missed out on 2 really nice apartments there.

I think that when they go to outside brokers, it's because the residents have unrealistic sales prices. There was an "estate sale" of an apartment in very poor condition. It was on the market for almost 2 years. They finally dropped the price to a reasonable amount. We looked at it a few times over a year and finally decided to pass because we felt the renovation was too big a job for us.

A friend of mine bought one last year. It is a housing project conversion. Common area including hallways are not nice.

CEHN99: NO, NO, NO. You have it all wrong. See the source documents at the end of this comment.

IT HAS NEVER BEEN A HOUSING PROJECT AND HAS NEVER GONE THROUGH ANY SORT OF CONVERSION. This was the first cooperative set up in the city, opening in 1957 It was sponsored by the universities in the area for moderate income people. Many college professors, starting out in their careers, lived there in the beginning. I have older friends whose parents were educators at Columbia and independent schools in the city; they moved in when the buildings first opened.

What you are confusing is the fact that the Morningside Heights Housing Corp. changed their policies on sales. Originally, they set the resale prices for all apartments to prevent people from making huge profits on their apartments. They also did not allow residents to use outside brokers. Sales had to go through the Coop's managing agent's internal or external list. In 2004, they changed that to a "recommended" price closer to fair market value. If the Coop did not sell your apartment within 30 days, you could hire an outside broker.

I did not like the hallways myself. Since the black tiles in the hallway are asbestos, renovations would be costly. The Cooperative kept its maintenance low for many years by voting down capital improvements. Maintenance has zoomed because they were forced into façade and terrace repairs, boiler upgrades, etc.

I see that they have changed their website and are moving with the times to promote sales. Check out the following:

Tenant Group
http://www.mgca.coop/
History
http://mhhc.coop/mhhc-history
website
http://mhhc.coop/

GO TO THE SOURCE, NOT GOSSIP.