Will Kwan, a co-op board member who testified Tuesday against a bill that would require boards to tell rejected buyers why they were rejected, said that during his 28 years on the board he can “count on one hand the number of applications we have rejected.”
So if the bill passes, his board would only have to explain a denial to a potential buyer once every seven years. No convincing argument against it, Mr. Kwan!
But I don’t want to choose an unpaid board member with a long track record. I am one myself. Fortunately, City Council Member Eric Dinowitz raised an even more illogical argument that I wanted to highlight.
“Wouldn’t it be wiser to just collect more data, get better data before we invariably increase risk to individual board members and increase costs to shareholders?” he said, according to Sheridan Wall’s article.
Did you notice Dinowitz’s hypocrisy? It’s subtle at first, but becomes more apparent if you read his quote two or three times.
Dinowitz demands data while saying something completely unsupported by data. To quote Dinowitz, before making any claims, wouldn’t it be wise to simply collect more and better data showing that the bill would “invariably” increase risk and costs to shareholders?
All he has to do is look at what happened in Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties after they passed similar legislation. Spoiler alert: nothing. There was no increase in the number of lawsuits filed by rejected buyers.
“There is nothing about writing a letter that will increase your costs,” Craig Gurian, executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center, told me. “And the idea that there is an army of lawyers waiting to feast on non-compliant disclosures is simply absurd.”
As readers of The real deal You know, I often criticize Council bills that would cause compliance problems but provide little or no benefit. And I haven’t hesitated to call out Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez or Public Advocate Jumaane Williams when I think they’re wrong.
But like most real estate agents, I believe they are right when they say that people who apply to buy in a co-op deserve a timely response from the board and an understanding of why they are being rejected. Fears of lawsuits have not materialized where such laws have been implemented.
It is entirely possible that bidders who are kept in the dark or rejected without explanation do more likely to file a lawsuit. Give them answers and they tend to move on with their house hunting.
What we’re thinking about: Christine Quinn’s nonprofit WIN (formerly Women In Need) came up with a Chutes and Ladders style board game to cleverly demonstrate the pitfalls families face while navigating the city long, complicated process to get affordable housing. Should the New York Real Estate Board come up with a landlord version for a particular program? Send your thoughts to eengquist@therealdeal.com.
Something we learned: Now that Steve Buscemi has sold his Park Slope mansion, there may be no other movie stars left in Park Slope than John Turturro. The neighborhood previously lost Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, and probably some others I’m forgetting. Kelly McGillis (Tom Cruise’s love interest in the original “Top Gun”) is long gone from the Garfield Place brownstone she owned in the 1980s.
Elsewhere…
In a recent “what we’re thinking about” item, I asked whether real estate companies are susceptible to the same kind of corruption that led to the conviction of 70 NYCHA employees for taking kickbacks from contractors they hired.
An industry veteran responded: “There is no doubt that landlords, property managers and – I would add – contractors and architectural firms are vulnerable to the dishonesty of their employees.”
It seems to me that when someone spends someone else’s money, a bribe will be a temptation.
Closing time
Residential: The highest housing deal recorded on Thursday was $7.8 million for a 7,414-square-foot condominium unit at 87 Leonard Street in Tribeca. Emily Beare, Lexi Alper and Beth Doud Tomashoff with CORE had the entry.
Commercial: The best recorded commercial deal was $5.5 million in front of a former Family Dollar store at 224-11 Linden Boulevard in Cambria Heights.
New on the market: The highest price for a home that came on the market was $16.75 million for a co-op unit at The Dakota, 1 West 72nd Street on the Upper West Side. Daniela Kunen with Douglas Elliman does the entry.
Groundbreaking: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 15,230-square-foot, 18-unit project at 715 East 224th Street in Wakefield. Mohammad Badaly submitted the permit.
— Matthew Elo
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