Page 3 - New York Cooperator July 2020

COOPERATOR.COM THE COOPERATOR — JULY 2020 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Yale Robbins Publisher Henry Robbins Executive Vice President Joanna DiPaola Associate Publisher Hannah Fons Senior Editor Darcey Gerstein Associate Editor Pat Gale Associate Editor Shirly Korchak Art Director Anne Anastasi Production Manager Victor Marcos Traffi c Coordinator Alan J. Sidransky Staff Writer Rick Levin Director of Sales The Cooperator is published monthly by Yale Robbins Publications, LLC, 205 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016, (212) 683-5700. President: Yale Robbins, Executive Vice President: Henry Robbins. Subscriptions are available free by request to co-op and condo board members and homeowner associations. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Cooperator, 205 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016. ©Yale Robbins Publications, LLC 2020. All rights reserved. Application to mail Periodicals postage rates is pending at New York NY. FREE Subscriptions for Board Members, Property Managers and Real Estate Decision Makers. To Subscribe, please visit us at: cooperator.com/subscribe C OPING W C ITH ASH LOW ROBLEMS F P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Among the many realities made visible (or more visible) by the COVID-19 crisis is the domino theory: when one falls, the others follow. Conceived (and largely disproven) as a political metaphor, elephant lurking in the corner of the room. Some submarkets (like Florida, for example) were strong the notion has proven more useful when applied to issues of the economy and public health. The co-op and condo community, unfortunately, is one of those dominos. As the pandemic spread and the threat of mass infection and death rose, the reality of an economic slowdown, or even a full shutdown, came into clearer focus for boards and community administrators. B UDGETING IN A HANGED ANDSCAPE C L . . . . . . . . . . 1 Each year, boards are tasked with fi guring out the costs associated with all aspects of their commu- nity’s operations, including any capital repairs or improvements they plan to undertake in the coming fi scal year, and then making sure the revenue is there to cover said costs. Even in the best of times it’s a balancing act, involving predictions, assumptions, and fungible pools of income alongside hard historical data, face values, and built-in escalations. And at the end of the process often comes the unenviable task of informing residents how much more they will need to pay the association or corpo- ration each month to cover all of it. T P HE RICE IS …R IGHT ?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Even before the COVID-19 crisis hit, the question of where real estate values were going was the —and getting stronger. Others (like New York City) were su ering declines—primarily thanks to tax law changes passed back in 2017. The limitations on deductibility of state and local taxes had already had a deleterious e ect on co-op and condominium prices in New York City, its suburbs, and nearby New Jersey, which are all high-tax areas. Other factors, like the change to the so-called ‘mansion tax,’ also contributed to a decline in prices and values in New York, as did substantial overbuilding in the high-end luxury market. F ROM THE W . . . . . . . . . . . 6 EB R EAL STATE ALES AX EVENUE ONTINUES TO ECLINE IN E S T R C D M AY NYC L EADERS EBATE ROPERTY AX AND NTEREST ATES D P T I R P ULSE . . . . . . . . . 4 Q UESTIONS & A NSWERS . . . . . . . . . 5 S ERVICE IRECTORY D . . . . . . . . . 11