krepnox
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 52
Registered: 05-23-2006
IP: Logged
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Re: I fought with the law... (+1)
Those vegan hippies you are thinking about are the ones who care for some of the community gardens that sit on undeveloped real estate. Although they will fight to the death to prevent any sort of development that would threaten their gardens, they generally do not sit on the boards of the buildings where they live.
Co-op housing is one of those unique things that seems to exist only here in the NYC area. A co-op is sort of like a rental building - a corporation owns the building and you rent your apartment from them. The big difference is that the shares in the corporation that owns the building are owned by the people who live in the building. The shares attach to specific apartments so that, while you technically don't own your apartment, no one else is permitted to rent it. A rental building is generally managed by the landlord who owns it - a cheap, miserable, enemy of society who undoubtedly will be one of the first ones up against the wall come the revolution. Co-ops are managed by a group of tenants who are elected, by their neighbors, to the board of directors of the corporation that owns the building. Althought they quickly become intoxicated with their own power and self-importance, they will fight to the death to prevent any sort of development that would threaten their property values.
Anyway, sometimes one of the co-op apartment owners will vacate their apartment but, for whatever reasons, they decide not to sell it. In that case, they can sublet it. This is where you come in. The thing is that the the co-op board has a legitimate interest in making sure that you can pay the rent. (A co-op building is like a bunch of people splitting the check for a meal or splitting a bar tab. If one person doesn't pay, then everyone else has to come up with extra money.) As a minimum, you will be asked to prove your ability to pay. This usually involves filling out a financial disclosure form, producing your tax returns and pay stubs and a letter from your employer verifying your job and your salary. You will also be interviewed by the board, so that they can see that you are the kind of person they would like as a neighbor. However, since most co-op boards think of themselves as the lords of all they survey, the approval process is often more intrusive. You might be asked to provide access to your credit history. In some cases I have seen boards ask for access to medical records. Some boards ask for a handful of references, others ask for references from everyone you ever knew plus a letter from God. The interview can be open and friendly or it can resemble the Spanish Inquisition. And on top of that, some boards take their sweet time about the approval process.
Aren't you glad you asked?
On the rental side, I am limiting myself to clients who actually try to maintain their buildings properly. The buildings owned by those clients cluster around Third Avenue in the 170s.
How big an apartment are we talking about and how many people will be living there? Let me know and I will make some calls and see if any of the buildings I work with have any vacancies. Since I don't know you - except for the fact that your scores are better than mine and that you probably don't look like your avatar - those phone calls should be interesting.
[Last edited by krepnox at 10-24-2006 02:40 PM]
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/dy
