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Co-ops starting to bend — ever so slightly
<i>Some boards become more flexible, allowing pied-à-terres and loosening rules on renovations</i>
Broker Dolly Lenz is reaching out to co-op boards to gauge whether they’ll bend the rules for the right candidate. One of the buildings she’s working with is the Dakota.
From the December issue:
This fall, Lawrence Rich decided he wanted a puppy. “I love my
building, but I’m missing a dog,” said Rich, an associate broker at
Prudential Douglas Elliman who lives at 45 Sutton Place South. As a real estate broker, he also knew that the co-op’s strict
no-dogs-allowed policy was likely hurting the building’s apartment
values in a tough economy.
So he printed out a list of reasons why the building should allow
dogs, and deposited copies on each resident’s doorstep, tying the
missives with a satin ribbon.
In what promises to be another challenging year for the real estate
industry, Rich is one of a growing number of brokers urging co-op
boards to consider broadening their pool of acceptable buyers. And it
seems that some of the boards are actually starting to bend — a
reality that could help boost co-op sales in 2010.