Small co-op duties?
Hi everyone, we’re considering a co-op in a 4 unit townhouse. We realize there would be more responsibilities involved in living in a small cooperative, the question is how much more? Are there monthly meetings? Trash duties? Shoveling snow? Your input would be much appreciated.
Hi everyone, we’re considering a co-op in a 4 unit townhouse. We realize there would be more responsibilities involved in living in a small cooperative, the question is how much more? Are there monthly meetings? Trash duties? Shoveling snow? Your input would be much appreciated.
Yes, it CAN work out. It can also be hell.
Suffice it to say that every friend or acquaintance I have had who asked me about my 4-unit coop, when considering such a purchase themselves, said, once they heard about the stuff that happens regularly in small coops said, “Thanks. I’m never going to live in a small building.”
If you don’t hire a management company (and most small buildings don’t) it IS a lot of work for someone (mostly the finances, insurance, violations, hiring contractors for repairs) – but that is not really the problem – someone who cares enought to do it does the work, or it doesn’t get done, whichever. It is the crazy personalities and people who don’t get that a coop board has rules and legal responsibilites that are the big headache.
OP here. Thanks for all the input, it’s great to hear the various perspectives.
We live in a 6-unit condo, new 5 years ago. We manage the building grassroots style, with MOST of us rotating offices. It’s worked pretty well, and has definitely kept maintenance down (as others have mentioned), only $200 per month.
We use a maintenance company for trash/snow/common area clean up, but do everything else ourselves. The only problem is that one owner doesn’t help in any way, never has, and when we do need even something simple (like access to her apartment for a maintenance issue), she’s a real pain in the ass. In the beginning it wasn’t so annoying, but 5 years later, as the rest of us contribute to the running of our building, it’s really getting old.
Wow, that was theraputic! Back to your question, though, it basically works–and as long as you have mostly reasonable people, I prefer this structure to handing off everything to a managment company (which can be expensive, and they won’t necessarily have the owners’ interests at heart).
Lived in a 10 unit self-managed co-op for a lot of years. Was sometimes a bit of work – but the flip side is lower maintenance, which over the long run kept a lot of money in my pocket and probably bumped the resale price a bit.
Not for everyone, but worked for me.
I’m about to move out of a 5 unit co-op, and we have hired a part time maint. guy to take care of cleaning and garbage etc. but I don’t know that I’d do it again. With so few owners, serving on the board and/or being very involved is almost mandatory. If you want to live in a very small building, you won’t have the luxury of just paying maintenance and not worrying about the building at all. Personally, I’m excited to be leaving and not having to talk to my neighbors all the time about when we should paint the hallways and such. As long as you know what you’re getting into, it can be a positive experience.
i live in a similar sized building and we have a co-op meeting once a year,w and a management company that takes care of trash, recycling, snow removal and cleaning of the common/interior areas once a week.
seems to work out great, and worth every penny.
we try to keep after replacing lightbulbs in the foyer and halls, and someone is in charge of looking after the washer/dryer in the basement.
other than that, there’s not a whole lot more to handle, other than maintenance of the brownstone, which we work to alert the management company of if/when any issues arise.
yes, yes, and yes. And someone still needs to be treasurer, and so on.
Re 2:49, I’m not sure age has everything to do with it. Sometimes older folx have more time on their hands to do stuff, while the younger ones are in career building mode.
However in a 4 unit building I assume that issue would take care of itself. Can’t see folx in their 80s climbing too many stairs, so the average age will probably stay fairly low anyway.
We used to own in 4 unit condo townhouse.
We had what seemed like bi-monthy meetings because there weren’t that much to talk about and when we did need to discuss stuff we would see everyone once a week in the hall, front door or on the St anyway.
We did shovel snow, put the trash out, but paid a cleaner for the common areas.
We we’re all in our 30’s, which I think was one reason it worked out.
Jump on me if you want, but owners that are north of 60 have different needs than longer owners, its just the truth.