Caveat emptor

I see that the apartments from my old apartment building, 55 West 95th Street is finally on the market. These are the lovely folks who evicted me on a month's notice from the apartment where I'd rented for more than three years. My hatred for them is both broad and deep after the various disputes over payment, whether overstaying my lease for a week while my mother found substitute housing required eviction, and a general lack of interest in the actual people involved in the transaction.

Still, I have to say, I'm pretty curious to see what the apartments are like . . . and more to the point, what kind of a lunatic would buy them. The pipes burst three times during the last year I lived there, ruining a number of my clothes and, from what I understand, flooding all of the apartments above me even worse. By the end of my time there, there was no hot water to speak of for most of the day, and the heating was more in the nature of a fond hope than a working system.

I briefly considered buying the apartment I lived in, except that the management company inexplicably demanded, for my cave-like first floor apartment, about what it would cost to buy a one bedroom twice the size in a tony Central Park West building. Then my mother pointed out that the landlord seemed not to have done any work in the building for about thirty years. I had been under the assumption that they were going to gut renovate the thing: put in new boilers and pipes (every time the super talked about the condition of the pipes, he would start shaking his head in sadness), really repair the roof, get the electric up to modern code, and so forth. But it's only been four months since I moved out, which seems barely enough to have finished cosmetic updates on the apartments. Or am I missing something? Can you actually fix deep infrastructure like pipes and so forth in a 60 unit building where ten owners/rent-controlled holdouts are still living, refinish the apartments, and get them on the market by September, which is apparently when these things went on sale? Or did I dodge a bullet?

Update I should note that most people get apartments inspected when they buy them. If the pipes are indeed as awful as I remember them being, & the boiler as spotty, wouldn't that show up on inspection? Who's buying these things?

Comments

This comment has been deleted for profanity and trolling.

Posted by Logan | October 16, 2007 5:13 PM

You'd be lucky to get the permits(assuming they were even pulled), to even begin the job, in NYC, in 4 months.

Posted by MEH | October 16, 2007 5:13 PM

They most probably just slathered white paint over the walls, replaced a fridge here or there, and put the units up for sale at outrageous prices. I feel bad for the poor souls who'll wind up buying them and figuring out months later what they've actually bought, but so goes the market in NYC.

Posted by Christian | October 16, 2007 6:01 PM

Gut remodels in large buildings take something like a year, not counting the permitting process.

Unless the work is accelerated, i.e. crews working around-the-clock, three shifts, in which case it will still probably take six months (while costing way, way too much).

Posted by Joel | October 16, 2007 6:28 PM

Note to self, make sure I do a web search on the address of any building I'm considering buying an apartment in.

Posted by OneEyedMan | October 16, 2007 6:47 PM

"Note to self, make sure I do a web search on the address of any building I'm considering buying an apartment in."

Even better is to have the contracts drawn up so that the apartment must pass an inspection before sale.

Posted by JordanT | October 16, 2007 7:41 PM

Free market's tough.

Move to North Dakota. Maybe someone there will care.

Posted by Boo Frickin' Hoo | October 16, 2007 7:41 PM

I see that the apartments from my old apartment building, 55 West 95th Street is finally on the market.

Caveat illiterate.

Posted by Learn to Write | October 16, 2007 7:46 PM

What ever happene to the peepul's friend, rent controls? Be glad you're gone, Megan, and should you ever end up in God's Own Country, look me up

Posted by ktel60 | October 16, 2007 8:02 PM

Megan, we will have to see if they sell the apartments in the building. If so, that would be an indication that the apartments were in fact priced correctly according to the market, and your assertion that the owner was asking as much as what much more desirable apartments command is amiss.

I think the real estate market can suffer from a lack of transparency, particularly in the rental market. Still, the implication that they will be able to unload a whole building-full of mechanically-deficient apartments for the price of bigger and better maintained units does not sound plausible. More likely, the price was adjusted to take into account the condition of the units and the owner's offer price to you was not as off-base as you make it out to be.

Posted by Jeff Goldman | October 16, 2007 9:30 PM

I walked past the building this evening. It certainly hasn't had any gut rehab, although there could be some new kitchens and baths.

I doubt that the apartments are selling at Central Park West prices. The apartments in our building (on Central Park West just round the corner from Megan's old building) go for about $1000-1200 per square foot without park views, maybe $1500-1800 with park views.

Posted by y81 | October 16, 2007 10:05 PM

"I see that the apartments . . . is finally on the market."

Proofread much?

Posted by Fishbone McGonigle | October 17, 2007 6:27 AM

Our building was bought right about the time yours was. The good news is that I was rent stabalized so they couldn't kick me out. Of the 10 units in my building, 5 were vacant at time of purchase and another became vacant in mid-August. As of October 15 all units have been gut rehabed and rented at prices significant'y higher than the previous tenants had paid.

No permits we obtained. No work on the pipes, heating system, or boilers was completed. Two of the apartments had new, additional, bathrooms added. None is up to code. Yet people were excited to find a 550sq. ft 2br for $2,600. It had green marble tile in the bathroom and stainless steel appliances. No one knows that the apartments are not insullated.

And the truth is in a co-op no one would know either. The "building" is responsible for the stuff in the walls, generally. So if something goes wrong the "building" has to pay.

Although with a co-op if the "building" has to pay it means you do. People often don't realize that.

Posted by Kate | October 17, 2007 10:16 AM

Proofread much?

It's sort of Alanis-ironic that you would point out a mistake that someone else pointed out almost half a day before you.

And how intense must your glee be?! Ohh, ohhh, look, Megan made a mistake! See, not only is she a stupid, selfish Randroid, she can't write for shit!

Lame.

Posted by Bob Dobalina | October 17, 2007 7:54 PM

Gee whiz, Meg. I'm disappointed. I read your blog because of the extensive proofreading and excellent grammar. When I want timely coverage and discussion of emerging issues, I read the Economist and standard print newspapers.

Posted by mike | October 17, 2007 8:32 PM

Hi - longtime reader of asymmetrical information here.... I can remember when you professed libertarianism on your website. Sad that when confronted with a real candidate meeting the ideals of your fictitious character, Jane Galt, you've decided instead to suck-up to the MSM. haha - you'd be kicked out of Galt's Gulch in a second.

Ron Paul 2008 - end the unjust war in Iraq; prevent the unjust war in Iran.

Posted by Jim | October 30, 2007 11:10 AM

I'm from Canada, but my brother-in-law had a lot to dowith RE and grew up in NYC years ago. He said back a decade or 2 that getting permits and passing inspections in NYC was so corrupt that it was impossible. The inspectors used the bureaucracy and nitpicked the rules to stall the job until offered the necessary bakshish to pass the job. I'm not surprised if someone bypassed that process when possible.

So for your building - caveat emptor. I hope someone spending a significant part of a million dollars is doing due diligence.

I've always thought that rent control should be sufficient to permit a stable "no-surprises" environment of gradual change. It should pad you against erratic bubbles and wild swings, not cut you of from the real world. Let's say a max change of, say, 5% over inflation. That would mean that unless prices continued to jump forever (?? ouch!) your rent should catch up to market within 5 to 10 years. This would give a tenant ample time to see the handwriting on the wall and make plans. It would also allow landlords the cash flow to do maintenance, if so inclined.

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Ron Paul is a Nazi. He will never win any primary under either major party.

To compare John Galt favorably with a Nazi sympathizer is to misunderstand Rand completely.

I wish you far leftists would quit pushing Paul; He isn't going to go anywhere.

Posted by Steve | November 15, 2007 11:22 PM

I've herd so much about the problems caused by government imposed rent control, and this sure sounds like a perfect example.

The owners of the building may have been bastards, but they may also have been suffering from severe economic distress caused by restrictions placed on them by NYC rent controls that prevented them from charging the actual costs of maintenance for aging building intrastructure.

The renters were victims of this in suffering from the lousy condition of heating, water supply, water drainage, toilets, etc. The owners danced around inspections and maintenance requirements, losing money while they saw NEWLy constructed buildings AND newly converted condo/apartments able to charge market value (presumably closer to actual costs of operations....)

Thank you government bureaucrats.

Posted by Will March | November 18, 2007 10:24 PM