While home owners just need to keep their own heads above water to survive, in a co-op, one also has to worry about the corporation keeping up on its payments. If the corporation defaults on its underlying mortgage, the shares become worthless, but shareholders still have co-op loans to pay off. It is a bad scenario. Particularly vulnerable are the small, three-and-four unit coops, or the ones with a large percentage of rent-control tenants. Defaults like this happened all over the City in the 1930′s and to a lesser extent, in the late 1980′s.

— by sam in Attendence Falls at Brooklyn Open Houses