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While I am fully aware that co-ops are corporations, and thus businesses, they are also HOMES.
Can we have a little sympathy for the poor schlubs who come up against boards that are so anxious about their bottom line that they overlook they might be turning away terrific people who would make excellent neighbors... great shareholders...
simply because they can't afford to tie up 10% more on a million-dollar apartment? That's $100,000, folks. Real money. Money they might have saved for a college education, medical emergency, entrepreneurial investment or long-term care for a parent. Gone because some bean-counting board wants "leverage" in case of foreclosure. Good grief.
Evidently, home is now where the bankbook is.
What is this country coming to?? I guess, the bottom line.
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You seem to have a warped view concerning who lives in a building and who does not. It is this same perception that says to permit people into this country and let us pay their health insurance, give them housing and food stamps, just because they deserve a chance...
In other words you think that a person should be permitted to become a shareholder on the basis of them being a nice neighbor. Sorry to bust your bubble, but it does not work that way. A board has a fiduciary responsibility to the building/Coop/corporation or whatever you want to call it and must abide by it. Numbers do matter, leverage is important and the responsibility to maintain a financial healthy coop is more important than "excellent neighbors".
At the end of the day, when the nice neighbor cant pay, is over leveraged in other areas of his/her financial and has too many debts to pull out of (just because that is the unfortunate American way and the foreclosure rate today confirms this), and the apartment isn’t worth the amount paid for... are you willing and able to pay? Because when your maintenance goes up because of the legal bills associated to the coop and the lack of revenue to the building for an extended period because the good neighbor didn’t pay for a year, you will have to.
So yes, home is where the bank book is, especially when a Board has to manage other peoples homes and be responsible for the outcomes.
Notwithstanding the aforesaid, once desirable conditions are met by the prospective shareholders, then, and only then do we seek the intangible assets that a shareholder may bring to the building.
And that is the bottom line.
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