A Manager’s Duty Is to Treat a Co-op’s Money Like His Own

To celebrate our 35th anniversary, Habitat is telling the stories of multi-generational family businesses that have flourished along with the co-op and condo movements.

As chairman emeritus of Orsid Realty, Maks Etingin cuts a trim, dapper figure. It’s been 48 years since he first joined the real estate management company founded by his father in 1955; now, at 90, Etingin still heads into the office three days a week, focusing on the equity side of the business and enjoying the company of his colleagues. But he’s particularly close to the guy in the office next to his: the president, Neil Davidowitz, who also happens to be Etingin’s son-in-law.

Davidowitz never expected he’d be working at Etingin’s side. He was a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office when he married Etingin’s daughter, Doreen, in 1982. “A couple of years later, Maks and I started a running conversation about my joining the firm,” Davidowitz recalls. “It was clear what he wanted. His father, Albert, had started the company and acquired the properties. Maks had been converting rental buildings to co-ops, and in the process, Orsid developed a reputation for running them well and was being sought out as a third-party property manager. That’s where he wanted me, the third generation, to step in.”

Etingin was indeed looking for a partner with a new skill set. “Since I joined Orsid in 1969,” he says, “the business had shifted from being property owners to being service providers, and it wasn’t easy. With all the new state and city compliance requirements and much more detailed financial reporting, it had also become quite complicated. It was my good fortune that Neil said yes.”

For his part, Davidowitz feels his experience was the perfect complement to Etingin’s. “Maks and Albert were both electrical engineers, so they understood construction, systems, and building operations,” Davidowitz says. “But the fine art of property management – of dealing with board members and shareholders – is definitely not [Maks’s] forte.”

After joining Orsid in 1986, Davidowitz helped with the conversion of the last handful of the company-owned buildings, and then turned his attention to expanding the management business by hiring and retraining staffers and creating centralized departments for everything from insurance to refinancing to apartment alterations.

“Eventually, it came to the point where Maks agreed to take a step back and let me run the show,” says Davidowitz, who became the firm’s president in 2004. “I have to say, I enjoy the autonomy. Maks is hardworking and fair, but he’s a tough negotiator and is used to telling people how to run things and having his way. I like to call him the last of the old-time landlords.”

In their 31 years together, however, there’s only been good blood between them. “We’re the original odd couple,” Davidowitz says. “I’m outgoing and gregarious, and Maks is very serious, all work and no play – in fact, I don’t think he even knows the names of New York’s baseball teams – but there’s been no friction or bickering between us. We’re always able to talk through our disagreements in a respectful way.”

Father and son-in-law have also learned a lot from each other. “Maks taught me that as a property manager, I have a fiduciary duty to treat a co-op’s money like my own,” Davidowitz says. “I like to think I’ve taught him to have more patience in dealing with people’s complaints – and to appreciate and laugh more at my jokes!”