Stay or Sell?

Who is the best person to consult about whether you should sell or stay in your condo? Looking for someone who can look at the big picture (construction problems, board issues, Legal issues stemming from construction/board, etc). My partner and I are divided about if our building is going to be fine or if we’ll be screwed if we don’t get out now. Not sure if its a realtor, lawyer or someone else? Thanks in advance for your help.

cevejizjilgqlhoz

in General Discussion 10 years and 4 months ago

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cevejizjilgqlhoz | 10 years and 4 months ago

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Thank you for your responses…your insight is helpful and appreciated.

brokelin | 10 years and 4 months ago

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But selling in a building before the legal issues are resolved can itself be hard. Any attorney for a buyer will do their due diligence to ask about the legal issues that are current. This will put off a lot of buyers.

brokelin | 10 years and 4 months ago

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You need to get as much information as you can from the board. If your building is small, this should be easy; in a larger building, it can be harder. Do you want to work to fix the problems in your building? Because the only thing that will fix the board problems is another group taking over the board and running it better. Are there people in your building working on doing this? If so, are you willing to help out? If not, are you willing to start such an effort and fight for it over some years to fix? If not, why would you expect other owners in the building to do so? It is a thankless task. If you have a group working to fix the issues without your input, consider yourself very lucky. The board issue is a separate one from the construction and legal issues. Only people with inside knowledge of the building can gauge whether it is changeable or not. (I lived in a 4 unit building, and decided the board issues were not changeable, and decided to sell – but I did not have legal or construction issues.) The potential and likely outcomes of the legal issues is best explained to you by an attorney who is familiar with condo association cases.

mario71 | 10 years and 4 months ago

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What resident2 is giving you is advice on how to get more information about the true situation of your building from an outside perspective that is objective, or at least measurable information. However, if what you’re looking for is advice on how to interpret such kind of information (number of pending lawsuits, collection issues regarding common charges, etc) then any person you bring in will have a professional bias when interpreting your situation in terms of risk v potential. I wouldn’t go with a realtor, unless the person also happens to be a personal friend, because they are not well versed on legal or construction issues, only market prices. For that you just need to search recent closed sales in your building on the internet, to find out if the issues you are worried about are discouraging potential buyers or sinking prices, or if the prices are more or less aligned with the market for similar buildings. If you have reliable and precise information about the construction issues, and happen to have an experienced contractor as a friend, you can try to find out how serious and costly and long-term the issues are. If the potential legal issues you foresee are specific, maybe there are people in your building who are already researching into that, with whom you can join forces? Attorneys are very costly as consultants. But the whole situation is tricky, for sure.

resident2 | 10 years and 4 months ago

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This is why for a home to live in I prefer a well manged Co-Op any day, simply because the Board/Management can control and manage the whole building. In a Condo, the board really does not have that much control, which is why there are so many law suites all the time in Condos. Call a local mortgage banker and see if they even have a current building questionnaire on file for your building. This is form that the management of the building needs to fill out to see if the building is even mortgageable by the standard underwriting requirements. It lists things like how many owner occupants/investors own in the building. How many any and what pending law suites are there in the building, with the sponsor, construction issues, Common charge collections etc. For example if you are in Downtown Brooklyn any where; Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Heights etc. Call Sterling National Mortgage Bankers. They have most of the buildings that are actively buying and selling, because they do so many of the re-financing, re-sale loans etc. But the other issue with Condos that I have besides the often poor construction and trying to get all owners to co-operate in getting problems taken care is that most buyers always want the next new model. And when you are buying a new condo, you really do not know if you buying a Classic or Lemon! Selling a used condo is like selling a used car quite often. Only you know if you have a Lemon or Classic, that might hit a law suite sooooon! How many units are on the market in your building? How many owner occupants are there in the building? What are things selling for in your building? If you can sell it for a reasonable price compared to what you paid for it, sell it and buy a home in a form that you have more control over…. a house or a well managed, well financed free market co-op.