Nonprofit Housing Corp Aids Tenants in Converting to CoOp

See attachment. This is a New York Times article from today, about an apartment building in the Bronx, New York City. A nonprofit dedicated to establishing co-ops for low income folks bought the apartment building. Of the 21 studio units, seven are vacant. The 14 tenants will soon own their apartments.

Note how this started when the tenants met up at a nearby bar.

The nonprofit paid the landlord 2.6 million dollars (about $124,000 per unit) for the apartment building.

The tenants feel they defeated the landlord.

Thank you for posting the link. New York has taken making affordable housing available seriously, though need still outweighs the availability, through their lottery system required for new developments. And many years previously by rent control. This was a very interesting read and the resident's determination of searching for alternatives is very admirable.

Charlotte, NC and it's surrounding communities are struggling very badly with rental prices increasing beyond affordability. Recently a property doubled their rents.

There has to be some balance somewhere. When resident's cut back to pay for housing, the local economy suffers when disposable income shrinks. I guess only time will tell.

UHAB's web site: https://www.uhab.org/

Regarding co-ops' structure requiring that owners be financial and legal partners to a great extent than condominium associations, I think you are correct. For example, I believe co-ops often have a prescribed list of chores, and each owner has to pitch in. Pursuant to the governing documents. At least, I have reports from two co-op owners in places far from New York City that this is the co-op scheme. What is behind this? I'd say co-ops are somewhat more social-democratic in nature than condominiums. Perhaps the social-democratic movement has its deepest roots in the New York City area, dating back to the 1930s. I adore New York City and mean this as a mere observation. My sense from the UHAB site is its staff and donors may feel very much a part of this movement, in their own small way. Its staff is probably just too busy helping tenants go through all the legal hoops of buying their buildings, and organizing (Organizing?) said tenants, to think much about politics.

Still, I think there is much overlap between the legal structure of Co-Ops and condominiums.

That 12-hours of training that UHAB is requiring sounds right out of the social-democrat playbook, no? (Again, I do not mean this pejoratively. I would like every prospective home buyer to have to pass a course in personal finance.) It sure seems like a good idea. Right-leaning Florida has a similar requirement but for new directors only.

I just wonder how often housing that a local government regulates to be "affordable" stays "affordable." I am aware rent control was a big thing in New York City for some time but am not sure where things stand now. It's a very different city from my time in the 1980s in and around it. More fraught, I'd say.

I just extended my lease (in a very humble neighborhood of large townhomes) and faced no rent increase. I do not know if this will last. But where I am is not tony (for a good part, AFAIC) North Carolina.

You are welcome.

I agree with Sheila about the value of personal finance classes in schools. I don't remember having a specific class about it, but my grade school math classes often dealt with money calculations, various types of interest, and the like.

In my more cynical moments, I suspect the decision to remove the classes from the curriculum was deliberate. After all, if people understand how money works, then politicians and investment "professionals" can't hand them a line of hooey.

My sister is on the board of her co-op in NYC. NY does not have open meeting requirements, so they only have to do one open meeting per year and that's the annual members meeting. In many ways it's the same as a condo, except that you have to be interviewed when purchasing and you can be rejected and there are other differences including pretty tight rental rules and you can't foreclose when someone doesn't pay their monthly maintenance fees.

In her building, which was originally built in the 1960's as housing for moderate income workers like teachers and postal workers, the maintenance fees are pretty reasonable but they don't have "chores" or anything like that. They do have a lot of committees.

The downside is that problem tenants, because they are owners of the whole building (for example if there are 200 units they own 1/200th of the entire building), are extremely difficult to get rid of. And her building had to have the entire front facade replaced do to aging materials so like a condo association they had to pay significant special assessments. The feeling I get is that a co-op can be less expensive than a condo but also there are some downsides.

I stand corrected. From checking some NYC condo vs. co-op sites, the "chores" thing is something that I think may occur far more often with non-New York City co-ops.

Did you see the year the building was built somewhere?

For rent, these tenants were paying a $1000 a month for a studio apartment. Which in my experience, is a bargain in the NYC area, though maybe not so much the Bronx. For a co-op, the owners own shares in the building. If all stays on track, and assuming 21 tenants paying off a 30-year mortgage at about 5.2% on a $2.6 million loan, they will now pay around $680 per month per tenant for the mortgage plus the costs of maintaining the building plus insurance et cetera. Which I agree could easily put them over the $1000 per month they have been paying in rent. But as you know, the deal is each tenant is now building some equity.

Article with photos:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/realestate/tenants-eviction-port-morris-bronx.html