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Contributor: My Big Fat Board Interview

My Big Fat Board Interview

What really happens in a co-op board interview

Latest "My Big Fat Board Interview" Articles

My Big Fat Board Interview: Surprising questions--and a long silence

by Cindy as told to Kelly Kreth | 12/12/12 - 10:51 AM

My husband and I had been renting together for over ten years. Two kids (and a dog) later, we decided it was time to try to make our first home purchase.
We began looking with a wonderful broker in the summer of 2011...
My Big Fat Board Interview: A $50,000 curve ball

by Anonymous as told to Marjorie Cohen | 1/04/12 - 8:09 AM

My husband and I weren’t at all worried about our board interview for a 110-unit co-op on Plaza Street in Prospect Heights. My dad, who owns a co-op in Brooklyn Heights, assured us that once you get as far as a board interview...
My Big Fat Board Interview: A few pets too many

by Anonymous as told to Kelly Kreth | 12/21/11 - 7:58 AM

My husband and I had been renting for five years when we put an offer on a two-bedroom co-op in Inwood. We had no idea what to expect about the process or the interview.
The seller’s real estate agent prepared the...
My Big Fat Board Interview: My first thought was that he had a frontal lobe issue

by Michael as told to Kelly Kreth | 10/03/11 - 8:23 AM

When I finished up graduate school in Boston, I set about moving to New York City. My sister lived there, and she suggested two areas for me to look to buy an apartment: The Upper West Side and the Village, east of Christopher...
My Big Fat Board Interview: They didn't understand why a farmer was getting an apartment in NYC

by Carla as told to Elizabeth Kuster | 9/15/11 - 8:02 AM

When my husband and I got married seven years ago, I was renting a place on West 72nd Street. We decided that we wanted to buy an apartment because we realized that the maintenance and mortgage would come to the...
Best of Brick: My humiliating Fifth Avenue turndown, and what happened next

by Debra as told to Kelly Kreth | 8/23/11 - 1:45 PM

The first time I tried to buy a co-op, I was turned down. It was back in 1993, when I was a single mother of a two-year old living on the Upper East Side. I was going through a divorce and had to move from my two-bedroom...
A real estate agent flunks her big fat board interview

by Kristen as told to Kelly Kreth | 7/26/11 - 7:39 AM

I was living on Long Island and working in Manhattan as a real estate agent. I wanted to be closer to work so I started looking for an apartment to buy close to my office. I searched in my sales database at work and found a...
My Big Fat Board Interview: If I wanted to join a country club, I would

by Ilene as told to Kelly Kreth | 3/11/11 - 7:29 AM

My husband and I were living in a rental apartment in NYC when he got a job offer in Chicago. We’d be commuting back and forth between those two cities but planned to transition full-time to NYC eventually, and we really...
My 7 Minute Big Fat Board Interview

by Sandor Krauss | 2/18/11 - 7:45 AM

My wife and I had been living in a rental but I had always loved the building my sister lived in for 15 years on West 57^th and Sixth Avenue. When she called to tell me an apartment right downstairs from...
My Big Fat Board Interview: "Break your own shredder"

by Anonymous | 2/10/11 - 7:39 AM

After a four-year love affair with our Greenwich Village rental, my husband and I decided it was time for a change, time to stop paying "the man," time, maybe, to grow up a little bit.
Eight months before our lease was...
My Big Fat Board Interview: Reference check!

by Anonymous | 11/18/10 - 6:58 AM

I wasn’t really nervous about my recent board interview. Coming from a small, self-managed co-op in Manhattan, I felt coolly confident applying to a similar one in Brooklyn. After all, I not only had experience being in the...
My Big Fat Board Interview: My humiliating Fifth Avenue turndown, and what happened next

by Debra as told to Kelly Kreth | 11/05/10 - 7:04 AM

The first time I tried to buy a co-op, I was turned down. It was back in 1993, when I was a single mother of a two-year old living on the Upper East Side. I was going through a divorce and had to move from my two-bedroom...
My Big Fat Board Interview starring comedian Robert Kelly: Don't pee on the carpet

by Robert Kelly, as told to Kelly Kreth | 10/26/10 - 7:55 AM

For five years I rented a luxury one-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen, which became my favorite part of the city. Once I had reached a certain degree of success in my career as an actor and comedian, I decided it was time to buy....
My Big Fat Board Interview: My natural reaction was, "Attack!" But I let it slide.

by Liz Yank | 9/17/10 - 7:20 AM

My Big Fat Board Interview story is a tale of personal morality and concealing one’s true self to get what money alone can’t buy in New York.
After 25 years in a minuscule rent stabilized one-bed room, it was time...
My Big Fat Board Interview: Co-ops don't like foreigners?

by anonymous Manhattan co-op buyer as told to Teri Rogers | 9/02/10 - 6:12 AM

I am from France and still own an apartment there where I am on the board. I lived in New York for eight years as a renter before looking for an apartment to buy early this year.

It took four months to find a one-...
My Big Fat Board Interview: A big fat relief

by anonymous Manhattan co-op buyer as told to Amanda Green | 8/27/10 - 7:22 AM

After living in rentals in Forest Hills and the Upper East Side for years, I was in contract to buy a studio with an eat-in kitchen on the Lower East Side. The co-op was in a large complex comprised of four buildings and 1,700...
My Big Fat Board Interview: What maintenance increase?

by anonymous Manhattan co-op owner as told to Teri Rogers | 7/19/10 - 7:33 AM

I’m a mortgage banker, so I work all day helping people buy apartments in the city, and I’ve heard the horror stories about board interviews.

Like the guy who was informed that he was going to be assessed $10,000 for...
"This Is Not a White Glove Building" (My Big Fat Board Interview)

by Anonymous Manhattan Co-op Owner as told to Teri Rogers | 6/15/10 - 11:23 AM

This was the second co-op apartment for my husband and me, and the first interview was a lot scarier.

Our first real estate agent had scared the bejesus out of us by saying the board was really, really tough and she...
My Big Fat Board Interview: “I felt like Jesus Christ walking into my crucifixion”

by anonymous Manhattan co-op buyer as told to Teri Rogers | 6/03/10 - 6:57 AM

I was 31, buying an apartment as a single woman, and I had gotten into trouble with credit cards in my early 20s.

Most of the debt was paid off by then, and I had a good job that paid plenty of money for my mortgage...
My Big Fat Board Interview: “The reason I filed single last year is that you’re a f-----g idiot!”

by anonymous Manhattan co-op buyer as told to Teri Rogers | 5/18/10 - 9:40 AM

My co-op board interview took place in one of the larger, more intimidating apartments in the Upper West Side building where I was in contract to buy a one-bedroom.

There were two couches opposite each other. I...

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