The Market
Best of Brick: 10 signs of a user-friendly co-op board
If you're on the prowl for a co-op board that embraces a dictionary versus despotic interpretation of the word "cooperative," you can find a multitude of clues from the listing itself and from the answers to a few strategic questions lobbed at the seller's broker.
The more you can check off, the better the chance you won't spend 14 years nursing the sting of a board turndown.
Top 10 tipoffs of a liberal co-op board:
- The building allows apartments to be purchased as pied-a-terres.
- Pets are permitted.
- Owners are allowed to renovate, with approval, at any time during the year, not just the three months when most of the residents are spending their quality time in theHamptons.
- Parties are allowed on the roof.
- Understanding that situations change and an owner may not be able to sell immediately, the building has a relatively flexible subletting policy.
- Parents are allowed to purchase with or for children, or act as guarantors for their children.
- Children are allowed to purchase with or for their parents.
- The building doesn't require that the purchaser have a not-so-small fortune in liquid assets available post-closing.
- The building requires 20 or 25% down, and really means it.
- You don't have to meet your dinner in the lobby.
Think of another one? Leave a comment!
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