<p>Here’s the story:</p>
<p>My husband and I have been on the lookout for an apt. in NYC for more than a year. As time goes on my H spends more time in the City on business and there is the possibility that we will become full timers down the road. Our realtor (whom we like and trust - as far as one can trust in these situations) advised that if we could find a coop open to part-timers in our preferred neighborhood we should take a good hard look at any apartments that become available. </p>
<p>There is a sweet little building in the upper 80’s on the East Side that will consider part-timers. It will be very convenient to my H’s office. An apartment went on the market that we liked very much. There was a bidding war. There were FIVE full priced (no mortgage contingency) bids the day that it went on the market. For someone from the Philly suburbs this was a remarkable experience. If I could write well it would make for a great humor piece.</p>
<p>Happy, happy, joy, joy, our final bid was accepted. Now for the fun part…six recommendations and five weeks later and we still have not heard from the coop board with the ok. We were also asked to write a letter clarifying how we were going to use the apartment which we assumed was needed to assure the board that our soon-to-be college grad would be an occasional guest, not a full time resident.</p>
<p>Help a naive suburbanite out. Is this scenario normal?</p>
<p>Yep. When H and I went to one of the closing procedures on our apartment, there were five other couples there, also buying apartments. The apartment person confidently asked “Nobody’s needing to finance any of this, right?” (In other words, everyone’s paying cash, right?)</p>
<p>And lo and behold, none of the other five couples were financing. We felt like mortgage lepers.</p>
<p>Thank you for responding HeliMom. I am getting the impression that financing is fine but it needs to be done privately and mortgage contingencies cannot be part of the agreement of sale. I am taken aback that there is no inspection of the property to protect the buyer. </p>
<p>I love the idea of testing myself by moving to as dynamic a place as NYC but this has all become a little nutty.</p>
<p>Elleneast – have you had your Board interview yet? We found that following the interview, things moved quickly but it took a while to schedule the interview. </p>
<p>We have a small coop in NYC which we recently bought; we use it primarily on weekends and our older two kids use it occasionally. We were up against someone who offered all cash but guess the Board preferred our financials. We contacted several mortgage companies which were recommended to us. We hated gathering all the financial info for the Board – very intrusive. Our offer was accepted in October, board interview in December, and closing in January. We were nervous the Board members would be tough on us but it was very casual and friendly. Mostly they wanted to know about our kids – would they be living there? (As an aside, several friends who also purchased coops were asked the same question because their Boards didn’t want kids living there. But their kids actually lived in the apts either while working full time in NYC or at summer internships. One daughter actually met her future father-in-law in the elevator; he was a Board member and introduced her to his son!). The Board also asked us if there would be renovations. Our building is fairly large and there often are several apartments for sale at the same time so the Board probably is very busy. Good luck.</p>
<p>Depending upon when your board package was submitted and how often the board of the building you are buying in meets, the board may not yet have reviewed your package. Most boards meet once a month or once every other month. Once the board has completed the review of your package, which may include calling your references, running a credit report, confirming certain financial information, etc., I agree that your interview with the board would be the next step in your process. Once you have your interview, you should be approved (or not) shortly thereafter, which will clear the way for you to close on the apartment. </p>
<p>In my experience (as the owner of a NYC apartment and as a former board member), it can, and often does, take as much as three months or more from offer to closing.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone. I am pleased to hear that we (hopefully) are on track. Our closing is not for three months but for some reason our realtor seems to think that board is really taking their time.</p>