Pearls of wisdom

As the date neared for my Board interview, both my realtor AND the selling realtor forwarded a list of tips/do's&don'ts/pearls of wisdom about getting through the process. I think they were as nervous as I was! Remember, they've got a vested interest in the outcome too.
A lot of the advice was intuitive, like 'be on time', 'be yourself', and ' don't be defensive'...stuff you should do on a job interview. But some other things were helpful. Like 'don't ask too many questions', this makes them think you're high maintenance, you're being interviewed, not them. Also, 'know your application and board package'...anything you've submitted is fair game for them to inquire about so know your stuff backwards and forwards. There's every chance a curveball question will come your way.
I found this infographic that sums up a lot of the package & interview process nicely. Take heed, it's all good to know.

Tips for the Co-op Board Package & Interview

Dress for success

I had to wait a whole month from the time I heard the Board agreed to interview me to the actual Big Day. As the date was drawing near I was trying to decide what to wear. I wanted to make the right statement and impression A suit felt too formal (and not really me), but going too casual, say in jeans for example, felt not respectful enough to the occasion. There's that old rule: better to overdress than underdress. A friend of mine said, "Sutton Place? You better WASP it up, baby. That's a very traditional neighborhood. Old money." He was right. I decided to go dressed up, but comfortable. Put together and conservative...with a twist. I hightailed it to Brooks Brothers and bought a beautiful tweed jacket. Luckily they were having a sale.

Then the rest of the ensemble fell into place.
Knit tie? Check.

Wool slacks? Check.

Sweater vest? You bet.

Wing tips? Of course.

Horned-rimmed glasses? How could I not?
It was as close to 'WASP' as this Mexican-American kid from Texas was gonna get.
I felt good about the outfit...but what would the Board think of ME?

Schleppin'

All my furniture was packed and out of the apartment.

I was moving into Tony's place four blocks away and all I needed to do now was take all my clothes over there. Simple, right?

As if.

I thought I'd fill my big suitcase and roll it over a couple, maybe three times. Little did I know that it would take NINE OR TEN trips.

I severely underestimated how much clothes I had. And since I was going to be camped out at Tony's for five or six months, I needed to bring ALL my wardrobe...winter, spring, summer, and fall. That's a lot of sweaters and heavy coats. Sportcoats. Jeans. Shirts. Polos. And you forget how much room scarves, socks, underwear, and t-shirts take up. And shoes! So many shoes. Boots are the worst. Big, bulky, and heavy.

And all of this would have been fine except that I was rolling my suitcase a long four blocks away IN THE FRIGID MOST SNOWY WINTER I CAN REMEMBER. It was cold. It was messy. And it was annoying. 

Try rolling a suitcase in THIS.

I think when I move into the new apartment, I will splurge. I'll box up everything and have Oz Moving take it all in one trip. My schlepping days are over.

The wizards of Oz

My old apartment was sold.

The last walk-thru with the buyers and the closing were just a few weeks away.

I needed to pack up and get the hell out of Dodge, find some movers and figure out where to store all my stuff FAST.

But we've all heard the horror stories about moving companies in Manhattan.

They're rude and they have 'tude. Plus you pay out the nose.

I was nervous. Where to turn?

Luckily my friend Jan suggested OZ Moving & Storage. She had moved her four bedroom apartment a few years back and had a good experience with them. "They're great, you'll like them, " she said.

They were the first (and only) people I got a quote from.

And they lived up to the praise.

I spoke to a representative on the phone. She was polite and easy to talk to. I got a quick quote, we set a date, and I ordered all the boxes I needed (they arrived the next day!)

On the day of the move the crew of three arrived EARLY. They were so courteous and easy-going, and took their time packing and wrapping all the furniture carefully and completely. Granted, I didn't have an apartment full of priceless antiques, but the way they treated everything I felt like I did.

They were so efficient with their time that they finished exactly on time. 

And the best part was that the whole thing was a very reasonable price. No sticker shock whatsoever.

My whole life--minus clothes--was put on the big truck and it now sits in storage in Yonkers, New York until the day the new place is finished and I'm ready to move in.

So if you have any qualms about your move, do check out these guys. They were indeed gentlemen...and wizards.  

St. Anthony

I could see from the get-go that I was entering a state of Manhattan real estate limbo, that place between selling your apartment and buying a new one. I'ts cold comfort but I'm told it's a quite common nightmare. If you sell before your new place is ready you have to find a place to live for a short term, not an easy thing to find. If you buy before you sell your old place you're getting whammied with double living costs, a horror story for your wallet.
I had the former problem. If I had bought a new apartment that was move-in ready, it would have been a cinch. But I chose a place that needed a 100% gut renovation that was going to take 4 or 5 months at the least.
Where was I going to go? I had no idea.
I had some vague notion of renting a short term lease apartment, but those are not easy to come by...and they're super expensive. I knew I'd have to put my furniture in storage, but beyond that I didn't have a clue what to do.
I was lost.
Thankfully, St. Anthony the patron saint of finding things and lost people came to my rescue.

St. Anthony of Padua

It was my friend Tony.
I mentioned having to look for a place to live for a few months and one day he had an idea. "Listen, I'm in between jobs right now, why don't you stay at my place and pay the rent for a few months? I'll go live with friends. I could really use the money, you need a place to stay--it works out for both of us." It was a dream solution. His apartment is only four blocks from my old one, so I could also keep my car in the same garage. And his place it totally cute, he has wonderful taste, an eclectic eye for art and furniture. It's an elevator/doorman building with washer/dryers in the basement. All I had to do was bring over all my clothes and it was a done deal.
Tony saved my life, I'm SO indebted. And did I mention he's probably the nicest person in the world too?  :-)

Lien on me

My Board package had been submitted.
My realtor, David, and the selling realtor, a smart and lovely woman named Samara, had pored over every single detail of my submission...it laid bare anything about my financial life you could think of, an 'open kimono' if you will. And I felt good about my chances.
Then I got a call a few weeks after it was turned in.
It was from the director of the Closing Department of the managing company for my (hopefully) new building. He was calling because in researching my legal history something was uncovered that he wanted me to comment on. "When something like this turns up we like to give the prospective buyer the opportunity to address it," he said.
What turned up was this: 10 years prior, there was what he termed an outstanding "lien" against me in the amount of $3500.

Did I want to comment on this? You betcha.
This "lien" was filed by a music school that owned my old apartment building. I lived in that building for twelve years. I was a good tenant. No, make that an excellent tenant. I was never delinquent with my rent, never had loud parties, never complained, I was the Saint of apartment renters.
But I knew what this "lien" was.
See, I had a roommate. When I decided to buy my own apartment, he wanted to stay. But my name was on the lease. The simple solution was that he would send me a check every month and I'd pay the rental bill. This went on for over two years...until the day I got a call from an attorney who represented the music school. Somehow the school found out I didn't live in the apartment anymore (I suspect it was the nosy superintendant who ratted us out), and they wanted my roommate out the space and better yet, me out of the lease so they could raise the rent for a new tenant. If I didn't cooperate they would start eviction proceedings. Ugh.
Needless to say, I said "uncle". (In actuality, I was sorta glad the whole thing was over. It was getting to be a pain writing that rent check every month.)
So that was it. Case closed. Never heard anymore about it.
Cut to ten years later.
This little situation was lurking (unbeknownst to me) in my legal history and the Board was questioning why I would not have paid off this nuisance. Was I the type to play fast and loose with my financial obligations? Was I a deadbeat? And worst of all, was I not a good candidate for the building??
As you can imagine this FREAKED ME OUT.
If I got turned down after getting this far, after finding 'the perfect apartment', after selling my old place, I was going to stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas.
I implored my attorney, a fellow named Justin, to look into it. I got him the official report given to me by the managing company director, the document that put out that word "lien". As best he could surmise, Justin believed this was merely a filing for a possible eviction just in case I didn't cooperate and wanted to keep my lease for some reason. He warned me though that he was not a rental law attorney, he was a real estate attorney so he couldn't be 100% positive this was the fact. (Note to self: first thing kill all the lawyers).
I decided to roll the dice and explain all this the best I could in a letter to the Board. I even had David and Samara review it to make sure I was putting my best case forward in the write-up. I wasn't worrying needlessly; the director told me the Board did question this issue.
I sent off my response, held my breathe, and waited. For days. The suspense was agonizing.
I finally got the email I was hoping for. The Board had reviewed my package and the additional letter and had deemed me worthy of an interview three weeks hence. One more hurdle down!
Next up: preparing for that interview...

What's in the package?

For those of you who've never purchased an apartment in a New York City co-op building, prepare yourself. And I don't meant that purely mentally.
Yes, it is a brain drain and can be emotionally exhausting, but you must also prepare your entire financial life to be studied, dissected, combed thru, and questioned.
This all takes the form of what is called "The Board Package".

Submitting the Board package.

You submit this document after you have a selling agreement with the buyer.
It includes every single fact about your financial life that you can think of...your salary, investments, savings, physical assets, past tax returns, credit history, W2's, 401K, and so on. But that's not all. It's customary to require several letters of reference (on personal stationary please), but also letters from your employer, your bank, and your investment company. In short, your life is laid bare and nothing can be hidden.
Why?
Because the Board wants to make extremely sure that you can afford to buy into the 'company'. See, you're not buying real estate, you're buying shares of stock in a corporation that owns real estate. They don't want to make a bad investment in the company. It's a hard notion to wrap your head around, but I've done it three times now. You resign yourself that it is what it is. You can't fight it. You buck up and pull together all the information they need and if you have a good realtor like I did, they do the brunt of the work in packaging it. Sometimes you need as many as ten copies of this tome.
They get delivered to the Board and then you wait.
And wait.
Sometimes it's a simple 'yes'.
But for me, not this time.
I had a pesky situation with something in my past that the Board was questioning, something I never knew anything about. And it had the potential of derailing my chances of buying the apartment altogether.
I was out on the ledge and ready to jump...

The architect

As soon as I saw the new place I had a few design ideas. The biggest one was flipping the kitchen and bathroom so that the kitchen could open up onto the main step-down living space. It would give the place a more spacious 'loft-like' feeling. 

I also wanted to enlarge these two spaces and make them much bigger by eating into that awkward large foyer. 

Was any of this possible?

Would I be knocking down a load bearing wall? 

Could the plumbing be switched?

Could I include some closets and maybe room for a washer/dryer also?

This is where you need an architect.

Having done many home renovations now, I HIGHLY recommend utilizing the services of a licensed architect. I have a good design eye (I'm an art director by occupation), so I go into any project like this knowing basically what I want. But God is in the details. And I find that architects bring that extra 15 to 20% in ideas and thinking. They see some things in a fresh way, things you never envisioned. And I love little surprises that make the overall design that much better. A good architect is well worth it. Believe me, you don't want to rely on the design sensibilities of only your contractor no matter how good you think they are. 

Fortunately I'm working with a good architect on this one. And he's also a friend. His name is Steve. And we've already had a lot of fun giving this project some thought. His design layouts are great (stay tuned for future posts on those). I can hardly wait to start picking out paint colors, tiles, appliances, fixtures...but I don't want to get ahead of myself. 

The first priority was to get Steve's blessing on the place before I bought it.

I arranged to have him look at the space to make sure he thought it had as much potential as I thought it did. The good news? He agreed almost as soon as he saw it. He assured me that it was a space he could do some terrific things with. 

I was so relieved. 

Sometimes you just need that extra validation, someone that sees what you see and has a similar vision.

Like minds in this case DID think alike. 

December is the cruelest month

When T.S. Eliot famously  wrote "April is the cruelest month..." he was obviously not looking to close on an apartment sale. No, dear friends, when we're talking about real estate transactions, that distinction belongs solely to the merry month of December.

I had the signed selling agreement for both the apartment I was selling AND the one I was buying BEFORE Thanksgiving.
I was making headway, things were happening. And then they weren't.
I hit a brick wall.
Everything stopped cold.
See, during the holidays people have presents to buy, parties to attend, people to see.
And if they happen to be on co-op Board the last thing they want to do is have a meeting.
My new building's Board wasn't going to meet THE ENTIRE MONTH OF DECEMBER.
And the same went for my building; the new buyers were held up as well.
What this meant was that I wasn't going to get an approval on my Board package. And there would be no scheduled meeting for my Board interview either. A whole month of not hearing anything, the waiting, waiting, waiting, and feeling of suspenseful limbo was excruciating. And there's nothing you can do about it. It is, as they say, what it is.
I was told the Sutton Place Board was to meet the first week of January and my Board was meeting 'after the first'.
My fingers were crossed.

The dotted line

The day I signed the selling agreement with the new buyers was a happy one, but also nerve wracking as hell.
My beautiful sister who lives in Atlanta was coming to visit me for Thanksgiving week.
I so wanted to show her the apartment I was going to buy so that she could see the "before" and someday in the future the "after". I had a signed selling agreement to purchase but was waiting for the Board to approve my financial package. There had been some questions and delays (more on this in a future posting).
In the meantime, I was still waiting for the contract for the selling of my place.
The Tuesday morning before the holiday David met us at the new apartment so I could show sis The Beautiful Wreck.
It was also the day we were supposed to get the selling agreement from the buyers. Both sides' attorneys had been sitting with the contract for days, going back and forth ironing out the details. But it was taking so long my nerves were frayed. I just wanted the thing signed and done. If something fell through and I had to find another buyer--starting the process all over again--I think I would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Luckily David got the signed contract that morning. He was to bring it with him when we saw the apartment. I wanted to sign that thing as soon as possible. We went straight to a Kinko's a block away from the building and printed out the contract. David gave it the once over to make sure it was kosher, and I signed it right there in the middle of this tiny crowded store on a stack of cardboard boxes. My sister grabbed a photo of the momentous occasion. I shook hands with David and breathed a sigh of relief. SOLD! And the best part was that the offer was $100K ABOVE asking price :)

False positives

As soon as my two bedroom apartment had gone on the market the interest was keen.
David had a private realtor viewing and the reaction was very good, then the public got to see it starting with the first of several open houses. I couldn't have asked for a better day for that initial showing, a crisp, sunny Sunday in Autumn, perfect for spending the day looking at new apartments. Someone told me once that Fall was the best time of year to sell. Summer vacations are over, time to get serious and figure out where you're going to live before the onslaught of the holiday season.

Within a few days I had the first offer. Yes!
But thrill turned to disappointment when we found out that the couple's finances weren't as rosy as first indicated. She was the breadwinner, he was a stay-at-home dad/ex-photographer. A good chunk of their net worth was a 'gift' from her parents. That should have been our first clue. When daughter brought mommy to see the place for a re-look, two days later their monies dried up, they didn't have as much as originally thought. Hmmm. Methinks mom didn't like her guestroom. Oh well, that's the crazy world of Manhattan real estate. Easy come, easy go, it was still early in the game and I wasn't worried.
We were still getting scads of people showing up for the next two open houses, thirty to sixty individual parties! I wasn't there (my nerves couldn't take seeing that much traffic in my abode), but David said it was a madhouse.
Cut to offer #2.
All cash.
A soon-to-be empty nester couple from New Jersey. They were downsizing from a big house in the suburbs to a city place. They still had a teenager who had one more year of high school before he went off to college. They wanted that second bedroom for when he came home on visits. All was hunky-dory til they started asking odd questions and volunteering way too much information. Turns out the son was a special needs kid and they hadn't yet found a school for him in the city. They still wanted to buy my apartment but wanted to know if they could postpone moving in for a year while he finished his schooling in NJ. The apartment would essentially be a city pied-à-terre till they could make it their primary residence. Alarm bells started going off my head. My co-op board, while very fair, played everything by the book. Hell would freeze over before they allowed a pied-à-terre in the building. It was against the rules and a big no-no. Bye bye empty nesters. Bye bye all cash offer.
Cut to offer #3.
Gay couple, two guys, Brits. And, thank heaven, all cash again. HOORAY.
Their finances were very good, they loved the place. We had s signed selling agreement in a matter of days. When they finally had their Board interview they sailed through.
Now I had to start packing up twelve years of stuff to get the heck out of there. Did I say i HATE packing??

"The cozy enclave"

I choose to believe in omens.

And when they're good ones, so much the better.

I closed on the apartment last week, and yesterday the NYTimes published an article about my neighborhood and it's new desirability, even calling out my building and showing a picture of it. 

Coincidence? Maybe.

But I choose to think it's a good sign too.

The piece describes Sutton Place as a "cozy enclave by the East River" and "homey".

With younger people and newer businesses moving into the neighborhood, the area has taken on a new sense of being a "little community".

You can see the article here.

Lots of lovely wintery photos are featured that give a sense of the regal gentility of the blocks and architecture.

Here are a few:

One of the small parks by the river

The beautiful view of the 59th St. Bridge

My building

View of Sutton Place from the East River 

First impressions

I had been warned that the apartment I was going to see was in terrible shape.
That it was a 'fixer upper'.
The listing even said "The apartment features two exposures, a decorative fireplace, step-down living area, separate windowed kitchen, windowed bath and dressing area, abundant closet space and large entrance foyer. NEEDS EVERYTHING, BRING YOUR CONTRACTOR!"
So I was expecting the absolute Pit of Hell.
I got off the elevator with David and the selling realtor and was immediately charmed by the hallway, a cozy floral wallpaper on the walls and sconces adding a nice glow to the space.
The key went in the front door and we walked into, yes, an apartment in dire need of some love, but far from the disaster it was billed as.
You could tell in an instant that the place had 'good bones' and that it had tons of potential.
Now make no mistake, the place was gross: dark, dingy, and dirty. Peeling wallpaper. Chippped sooty wall paint. Rusty windows that didn't fully shut. Cracked linoleum and sad, dull hardwood floors.
But the layout had possibilities.

The original apartment layout

Right off the entry was a big walk-in closet and small vestibule. I liked that you had a break from the outside upon entering,  you weren't walking right into the apartment proper.

The entry vestibule

View into main room, bathroom door on right

The odd space off the entryway, doors to bathroom and kitchen are to the left.

To the right, you passed into a large space that was much too wide to be a hallway and too ill-placed to be a dining area. Off this was an outdated kitchen and a scary bathroom, where old Kleenex tissues were stuffed around the non-closing window and rust stains lined the tub.

Bathroom window

Bathroom sink

Toilet

All of this opened onto steps that went down into the main room.
Since this part of the apartment was on a corner, there were large windows on two sides that let in good   Southern exposure light and a view of the small courtyard behind the building.

Picture window in main room

Main room corner

Windows in main room

My favorite thing is that one of the other walls featured a faux fireplace and mantel with built-in bookshelves to each side.

Faux fireplace with built-in bookshelves

Faux fireplace

The walls were solid plaster and the ceilings were coffered, those nice details that are do desirable (to me at least) in pre-War buildings.

Coffered ceilings

Coffered ceilings

All in all I knew I could make this place great. It felt right. It felt like home.

The dreaded scaffolding

I was absolutely positive it was the reason I wasn't going to sell my apartment.
Omigosh the handwringing I suffered through because of it.
A  couple of months before my place went on the market the building started re-appointing the outside brick on the entire building. Which meant MAJOR scaffolding around the whole thing.
And since my apartment was on the second floor there was a wooden platform just outside my big picture windows that faced the street. The view was RUINED.

I'd screwed the pooch bigtime.
Oh, the worry!
Thankfully, David talked me in off the scaffolding ledge...several times.
He said 'Don't worry...this market is HOT for apartments like yours. I promise you it won't make any difference.'
And you know what? He was right.
I made sure to leave photographs of what the view looked like for people to see at the open houses.
It was never a problem.
One lady even asked "So how do you get outside to the terrace?" HA!
The eventual buyers never even saw the view until a few days before the closing at the walk-thru, all the scaffolding had come down a few weeks prior.
Whew. Crisis averted.

They don't build 'em like they used to

I loved the place.

From minute ONE.

I met David out front. He know what he was doing. How could I not fall in love with the street and the building?

It's a very handsome pre-War structure, stately, solid, on a street in a well-known enclave of a neighborhood near the East River. There's lots of Old Money in them thar parts. I kept saying to myself, "I'M actually gonna live HERE??" It was too good to be true. But there it was, my little meeskite mess of an apartment, a true ugly ducking if ever there was one, just waiting to transform into the swan I knew it could be. 

The building sits astride a corner where two big thoroughfares meet. The first thing you notice is that there's a drive-thru entranceway with revolving doors that enter onto a circular lobby. (You have to wonder why more Manhattan buildings didn't copy this idea.)

The entranceway that allows drop-offs for cars and taxis.

The lobby then stretches straight back into the building with the elevators to the right on the first floor and there's a gas fireplace(!) that greets you before you ride upstairs.

The lobby. Elevators are at the back to the right.

I did some research.
The building was designed by the famous architect Emery Roth. He created many of the definitive NYC hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, most of them incorporating Beaux-Arts and Art Deco details. To name a few, the San Remo, The Beresford, The El Dorado, and many more, all shaping the New York skyline in the first part of the 20th Century.

So that was just the outside. 

We next went upstairs to see my future home...