Board Bias

You and your husband dodged a bullet. Hopefully anyone else thinking of living amongst these sorts of people will think very carefully about what their lives would be like with these neighbors.

Have you considered that they didn't like the price?

We considered everything. The seller was on the board. It's a tiny building. She would've preempted this.

I specialize in co-ops: I spend weeks building board packages and pride myself on getting "marginal" candidates into their dream buildings. It's tough to comment on this without having seen your application, but with the phrases "all-cash" and "very big income" I wonder if you presented as too rich for this four-unit building? Did they think that maybe you were going to use this as a pied-à-terre? Is it self-managed and they thought you weren't going to be around to take the trash out?

I would have the seller quietly do some detective work and find out if it's that, or if, as 30 yrs. suggested, it's price, both of which might be fixable on a second round.

Other possibilities are homophobia, but I do doubt that's the case -- I'm not denying the existence of jerks in the universe but in New York in 2023, it's usually not a protected class issue, or that someone else in the building wants to duplex into the unit, which might also be likely.

ali r.
{upstairs realty}

I also want to add that being 50% cash in this type of building, in my opinion, is a big red flag saying "this is a difficult Coop."

There could be all sorts of reasons. Do you have a large dog? Does one of you play the drums? Smoke? Whatever the reason, IMO the universe did you a favor. I personally would never want to purchase into a co-op with only four units. All it takes is one shareholder to default and suddenly everyone's underwater.

If you're the same couple who posted about this apartment 11 days ago then it sounds like pets were the concern.

Thanks for noticing this, George. Here's a link to the previous post: https://streeteasy.com/talk/discussion/47716-board-rejection

From the other post, it does seem as though the board was more concerned about the pets and use of the space. If a board does not want pets in the building, they won't approve buyers with pets. Even if the buyers promise to leave the pets elsewhere, there's no way a board could reinforce that once the new owners have taken occupancy.

Also, if the unit was not to be a primary home, which seems likely if the prospective purchasers already have a home in CT where they leave their pets, it is possible the board was not comfortable with a pied-a-terre situation.

To the OP - keep in mind that boards generally make rejections prior to any interview, not after. If they were not comfortable with your application for any reason, such as the ones I mentioned above, your application would not have even made it to the interview stage.

I would also say no matter what the reason is, their uber successful agent didn't do their homework. But I'm sure their social media is on fleek.

@ 30yrs -- it is infinitely annoying when realtors erroneously describe listings as 'pieds-a-terre allowed' when in fact the co-op board is against it. In our building we've had agents describe units as 'the perfect pied-a-terre' or some such similar nonsense and the fact is, while we *might* consider a pied-a-terre request, it is on a purely case-by-case basis and is generally not encouraged. The smaller the co-op, the less likely it will tolerate pieds-a-terre. Any agent worth his salt should know that.

Any building without a doorman that allows pied-a-terre use is asking for trouble. People will lend it out to friends, perhaps even AirBnb. It's amazing how many cousins people have after buying Coops in NYC.

Ok, I'm not going to hold back on this anymore:
"Everyone was surprised - the lawyers, the agent, and the seller (who happens to be on the board). "

It sounds like everyone involved in this deal was pretty ignorant and instead of admitting that there's blame of the Coop Board (who it's fairly when known I'm not a big fan of and generally blame them for a lot of ills). This seems like when a kid fails a test and the parents go in and yell at the teacher to change their grade.

Or the recent case of an NYU Organic Chemistry professor who's course was "too hard" so the students got the university to fire him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html

"It's amazing how many cousins people have after buying Coops in NYC."

We had that in our condo.

It's fairly easy to catch & quash Airbnb use because the renters don't know how to play along.

But when an owner just lends their apartment to friends/family/employees/business associates for days/weeks/months at a time, bypassing the rental approval process and Airbnb ban.. then what? It's wasn't strictly disallowed in any house rules, but it certainly skirts the spirit of the rules generally.

For everyone who is sure this new proposed legislation is going to solve all sorts of ills (and I think the OP here is in some manner, shape, or form one of these)
https://www.6sqft.com/new-legislation-would-require-nyc-co-op-boards-to-reform-application-process/

I think you're delusional.

Agreed @30yrs. These proposals never seem to make it through. Why? Because they really don't solve anything. A board can come up with any number of reasons to turn down an applicant. It would be very hard to prove discrimination even if this legislation were to become law.

What's next--employers needing to provide a reason why they didn't hire someone?

The employer hiring example is a funny one because it would obviously be circumvented by not filtering who the resumes/apps on the way in so you don't have to reject people you planned to discriminate against.

Further, the state did already pass the law requiring all job postings to list a salary range.
Of course the outcome has been that they post low & wide ranges.
If they have budget to pay more & get a good candidate, they can figure that out in the negotiations process.
But I have seen some hilariously low ranges for jobs I know pay far more already.

Some of these laws are just cat&mouse, and at the end of the day you can't legislate what is in peoples hearts.

In some staff hiring cases (e.g., people coming into the US on certain visas), you do have to document and report the specific reasons why you rejected candidates for the position. Given the posting requirements, there's no way to initially filter candidates (and it's a big boring slog. BTDT.)

I agree that the proposed laws about documenting co-op turndowns will solve nothing, nor provide any particular transparency to the market. I'd like to see clearer disclosure of up front requirements, though in the years I've been following the market, it seems to have naturally improved, without being legally forced.

I'm no fan of discriminatory coop boards. Search my history and find dozens of negative comments. Yet here it seems clear that OP is simply a jerk. "Beyond stellar", "everyone was surprised", acting too rich, the dogs in Connecticut that mysteriously disappeared, the pied-a-terre usage, immediately blaming the Board when there are other obvious explanations. Maybe I'm seeing the light and there are reasons to prefer coop living. I'd gladly be the one breeder in an all-gay building, but a coop of all jerks would really suck.

Broker did a poor job with the buyer

OMG there is also "something in the water" lately. I'm working with a buyer in a (fairly big) building that has had four turndowns recently. Don't boards understand that this behavior makes the market more, not less, wary of their units?

It seems like a lot of people complain about coop boards and the system. It seems to gunk up the normal functioning of a market. Why don't more coops become condos or condops? Are NYC/NYS property taxes higher on condos?

@MTH I believe the answer is - yes, taxes are higher.
Look at a comparable condo & coop, then compare condo tax+maintenance against the coop all-in maintenance (which is inclusive of tax).

@MTH: Anecdotally, I'd say yes, taxes are generally higher on condos, though things are warped at the moment, given a large number of condos that are operating under various tax breaks (expiring in the next 5-25 years). I'd love to see a comprehensive study, by neighborhood, of the various tax rates, separated out by ownership type (condo, co-op, standalone ownership).

On the conversion topic, it's been discussed before -- there are significant capital gains, tax, and accounting issues (and related fees and other costs) to conversion, let alone getting the owners to vote to agree to a conversion.

I personally think the complaining about co-ops is over emphasized and overrated -- the real complaining should be about the lack of a variety of housing in NYC. Instead people want to whine about not getting to live next door to people they would hate. It's about as useful as whining about not getting into the Union, Harmonie, or Brook clubs.

Building age has a lot of do with condos being higher than coops. Average condo tends to be better quality than average coop. So somehow some seblences of the differences get translated on average into the quirky tax assessment system of NYC.

Sounds like the assessment system isn't very transparent and perhaps not even much of a system at all.

The people who actually buy into any Coop obviously don't strongly object whatever their policies/situation are. So why would that group, once they own, be so wanting to change it? They're the type who are in favor.

The concept the Coops don't convert to Condos because the property taxes would increase is so ignorant that I'm speechless.

xD @30 Guilty as charged - I realize this is mostly for people in the industry but RE in NYC is unlike most other markets. I have never bought RE in the US and fully intend to get a broker when the time is right (3-5 years)

Re existing shareholders - current owners have planned for years around the current system - I get that. Taxes aside, converting to condo would eventually reduce friction for sales, too. So I guess the advantage of a coop is being able to pick one's neighbors and fair enough I wouldn't want to live next door to a party animal

The NYC tax assessment 'system' does seem to produce, as Louis XIV's finance minister said, "the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

(There was a recent "In Our Time" podcast about L14, which mentioned Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the full quote.)

>I personally think the complaining about co-ops is over emphasized and overrated -- the real complaining should be about the lack of a variety of housing in NYC

It is the same complaint. Given what is available for housing in NYC, it is unfair that most affordable-ish quality housing in Manhattan is distributed to club members only.
It is similar to the complaint about schools with legacy admissions.

>So I guess the advantage of a coop is being able to pick one's neighbors and fair enough I wouldn't want to live next door to a party animal

Yes, but how do they know someone is a party animal vs. not from reading an application? Based on stereotypes, or what?

@Krolik - to be fair, you do a lot of complaining about how unfair co-ops are for someone who keeps buying more co-op units ;-) haha.

Ha. Don't most of us (except may be Nada and one more) come here to complain besides discussion of real estate sales/rental prices?

@300 - yes, I plead Guilty as charged

>you do a lot of complaining about how unfair co-ops are for someone who keeps buying more co-op units ;-) haha.

Well, I recognize good value in coops, and want in, but some of them just won't have me. I promise I am not "party animal". I did get into one place that is pretty good, so doubling down here, where board is reasonable. Had boards not been an issue, I would be living in Sutton place.

I think potential noise issues can be solved via fines and other methods available to coops, rather than random discrimination.

Ha. But I would love to see uplifting posts from Krolik in addition to her great post about having a baby!! Something along the lines of how you can make it in America and she is the proof with her ever increasing real estate empire.

And here I am posting another complaint LOL

>Krolik

My building does not allow an existing owner to buy an additional apartment unless it is adjacent to their current apartment (presumably for expansion)

I would have liked to buy a studio somewhere in the building for office/guest space but not allowed to do that. Supposedly to prevent illegal renting.

Does your building allow you to buy an non adjacent unit?

>Krolik

My building does not allow an existing owner to buy an additional apartment unless it is adjacent to their current apartment (presumably for expansion)

I would have liked to buy a studio somewhere in the building for office/guest space but not allowed to do that. Supposedly to prevent illegal renting.

Does your building allow you to buy an non adjacent unit?

I imagine there's a fair amount of scuttlebut among brokers about which boards are difficult, which are 'easy', about legendary deals and broken aspirations. It must be an arcane and fascinating world. I guess you can't write about this kind of thing without breaching confidences but it would make a terrific read.

And then buildings which both don't allow anyone to buy units as investors and also have floor prices, but multiple board members buy units as investors significantly below the floor prices

>> Ha. But I would love to see uplifting posts from Krolik in addition to her great post about having a baby!! Something along the lines of how you can make it in America and she is the proof with her ever increasing real estate empire.

Krolik is French at heart.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200831-why-the-french-love-to-complain

Ha. I had no idea that French did that for fun.