All Forum Posts by: Jason Lee

Try Maspeth Federal and maybe also mortgage brokers that have a strong local presence like Rate and Guardhill.

@Frank Chin I'm sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. I hope she can recover.

Some Queens co-ops are on the more liberal side and so getting a board approved tenant or even having your daughter live in the apartment might not be that difficult. What is their sublet policy? If they allow open subletting after a certain period of ownership that might indicate they're on the more liberal side. 

It depends on what you mean by a "little wonky." About half of my buyer clients are 1099 and most don't have issues going to the major retail banks. I would start there and then try some mortgage brokers who can shop around for you. DM me if you'd like strong referrals that can walk you through all your options.

@Frank Chin FYI NYC co-ops have proprietary leases and so shareholders fall under NY state lease laws. The NY "roommate" law allows anyone under a lease to have a roommate. State law supersedes any co-op bylaw so co-op shareholders can have roommates without board approval. Now if you try to put the roommate on a lease that would change things (although not sure you can lease a single room), and the shareholder would have to use the co-op as primary residence. So you could technically house hack a co-op.

I have many condo investor clients in NJ and NY. They typically put down very large down payments, pay all cash, or they've become accidental landlords by turning what was once a primary residence into an investment property. As mentioned above cash flow is limited by high HOA fees and taxes unless you make a very large down payment. On the flip side condos in the areas you mentioned are typically pretty easy to rent out, the tenants are relatively easy, and appreciation has been very strong. Most important thing with condos is doing proper due diligence on the HOA (financials, assessments, capital improvements, warrantability, etc).

Is this in NYC? If so, to convert an SRO to single family or apartments  you'll need to get a certificate of no harassment. Is there one? If not, it could take at the very minimum several months, to years, or never. If it were easy to get the certificate you'd think the current owner would do that and raise the asking price.

The seller pays the commission. So in this case, you're proposing that you as seller will pay a commission split to your own brokerage? Makes no sense. 

I would consult with a good landlord tenant attorney. This is not legal advice but might give you some ideas of what your options are. I'd take a look at the Truth in Renting pdf put out by the NJ DCA. In particular the section on causes for eviction. Part E1 might violate what's in most standard leases about an agent of the owner having access to the unit to show to prospective buyers or tenants. Part L1,2,3 might also be helpful. Good luck!

A couple things aren't clear from your post.

First, you distinguish between condos and apartments. By "condos" do you mean something like a semi-detached 2 unit condo?

For "apartments," are you sure what you're seeing listed are actually condos? Many real estate websites don't differentiate between condos and co-ops because co-op ownership isn't that common in the rest of the country. Most of the lower priced listings you see around the bridge are co-ops. You can sometimes tell in the description if there's no real estate tax listed, or they mention any kind of income to expense ratio requirements. None of those co-ops that I'm aware of are investor friendly.

If you're looking at the former, there's usually no HOA and so those function pretty similarly to a single family house except there could be an ajoining condo next door. If it's the latter, then as mentioned by others, you really have to do due diligence on the HOA (past financials, management, future capital improvements, etc). Any special assessments could really hurt cash flow and some HOA's can put restrictions on renting out units (lease lengths or fees). On the flip side, I have many condo investor clients that appreciate how easy their condo investments are to manage because the major building systems are maintained by the HOA and so there's typically not much to property manage.

Oversupply depends on what you're looking at. If it's a 2 bed above 2.5mm then, yes, there's oversupply. You'll probably have a lot of competition when trying to rent it out from newer luxury rental buildings, and condo investors trying to rent out their units. If it's at lower price points inventory and supply is still relatively low. Even just within Manhattan there are many different markets so it really depends on what you're looking at and where. Aside from that, 5 years seems like a relatively short hold period given where we are in this cycle, and the 421a is really a benefit to the developer. Yes, the tax abatement gives you better cash flow than if there's no abatement but I probably wouldn't hinge a buy and hold strategy off of it.