Wrong to ignore co-ops?

Bronx, coops come in all shapes and sizes. The more stable the coop, the tighter their rules and restrictions. But that may be preferable to someone wanting some financial security plus the security of knowing who and what type of neighbors they have.

If you want to rent out day 1, you are limited to only buying a condo as far as I know. Or a coop in extremely poor financial health.

Why do you say coops offer a price advantage? If it's due to lack of flexibility, general market preference for condos, or higher maintenance fees in coops, these will not change under your ownership so better get used to it. In other words, don't expect any upside from paying a little less for a coop over a comparable condo as the reasons for the difference are pretty permanent.

BronxDoctor, I think you're stuck with real property: condo's or multi-family if you don't care getting involved in the building's maintenance.

Very very few co-ops are that relaxed in subletting that they allow you to do it from day 1. I've heard of a few, but they are usually small downtown (i.e. think Soho) co-op buildings where the owners all know each other and most of them do it, it's an arrangement/understanding.

Have you considered condops?
streeteasy.com/blog/nyc-condops/
https://www.hauseit.com/buying-a-condop-apartment-in-nyc/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condop
Just be careful though, do your own research. And from the articles above it seems like condops aren't exactly the "condos with coop rules" that some agents like to advertise..

The problem is with the bastardization of the term "CondOp". The true definition is simply a building which has been divided up into condominium units and then the unit containing the residential portion of the building is turned into a residential housing corporation. There are TONS of these. With standard Coop rules. The proper appellation for a Coop with Condo Rules is "Coop with Condo Rules."

The reason you have CondOps is that the Condominium and Cooperative Conversion Protection and Abuse Relief Act of 1980 outlawed Sponsors writing themselves 99 year "Sweatheart" leases for the commercial spaces in buildings they converted to Coops.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/17/realestate/your-home-escaping-leases-made-by-sponsors.html

Coop with condo rules = nonsense broker definition of a CondOp.

If you want a long-term investment property to rent, buy a condo.

Keep in mind also that even if you were able to find a more relaxed co-op there's no saying that a new board wouldn't decide to tighten the sublease rules down the road. I am familiar with at least one building that has done this (after many years of a very relaxed stance on subleasing) and I believe more and more co-op boards are tightening their sublease rules with the uptick in AirBnB and other hoteling-style rentals that have been cropping up around the city. Co-ops as a rule do not want a building full of transient renters.

We rented for years in a co-op on the UES and many units in the building were investment rentals. While there is always a risk that a Board could change the rules, I think it's silly to not look at investor friendly co-ops as a whole. I've also lived in a condo that was very restrictive - no pets, no burning incense, you name it. A condo isn't always a guarantee of a hands off approach.

What co-ops in Lower Manhattan? Most of the housing stock in FiDi is condo, the result of post 9/11 tax policy. 3 Hanover, one of the long-standing historical co-ops, isn't going to approve a long-term tenant ... you'll get maybe 2 years after you've been in residency for a few. I've done some work in the building over the years, and, in recent memory, the board had one of my clients kick a long-term tenant out. Southbridge Towers, the complex that has recently come out of Mitchell-Lama, isn't going to approve sublets easily, if at all (and I can't imagine that any tenant wants to go through their board application). 55 Liberty isn't going to have the kind of small unit you're looking for, same deal 140 Nassau, and ... am I out of Lower Manhattan co-ops? If not, I'm close.... 30 yrs, you there?

Point is, don't spend too much time thinking about whether you'd like the peanut butter ice cream without first checking to make sure that the store HAS peanut-butter ice cream.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

55 Liberty does have some smaller units (the building is very helter skelter in terms of floor plans). To add to your list: You've got 145 Nassau, 65 Nassau, 26 Beaver, 77 Fulton, 270 Water, 176 Broadway.. I'm forgetting some.

55 Liberty story: Back in the 1990's they had to renovate the facade after chunks of terra cotta broke off the building and fell to the sidewalk. It was a big, costly project and there was a HUGE assessment to pay for it. The Coop held an auction on a slew of apartments because those owners were willing to WALK AWAY from their units if someone would take over the obligation of paying the assessment. If my memory is correct there were multiple units which went unsold - meaning that the value of the unit was less than the assessment on that unit.

3 Hanover sq story: There was a 4 BR "penthouse" which we picked up at a foreclosure auction for around $125,000, but after having the tenants show us the unit and looking at the $4,000+ maintenance we decided we didn't want to go through with the purchase. We would have walked away from our deposit, but fortunately I was friends with the Coop Board President so we got our application rejected and got our deposit back.

Agree with you. There are certainly many condos that have surprisingly restrictive rules. Believe it or not, some new construction condos have language in their OPs that allow flip taxes.

That would never happen in an older condo building as a flip tax would require a 3/4 vote of the owners, which would never happen.

Condops from what I've seen are almost exclusively just coops. A coop happens to own the resi portion of a building that also has typically condo commercial ground units. That's it.

So basically you're stuck with the same no subletting from day 1 etc.

But it seems to always draw a lot of investors hoping and praying ...

The problem is the extremely wide scale misuse of the term Condop, which is a parcel that has been subdivided into Condominium units and then the unit which contains the residential portion has been turned into a Residential Housing Corporation under NYS BCL and behaves just like any other Coop.

The proper term for a Coop with Condo Ruled is:"co-op with condo rules".