Our Real Estate Blog
06/16/08Caveat Emptor
I saved myself $325 at the A&P this weekend.
No, it wasn’t from coupon-clipping. I ran into a fellow tenant in the cereal aisle. It turns out he was among the first batch of residents to close on their condos—and he had a warning for me. Somewhere buried amidst the lines of all the itemizations of closing costs at his settlement was a miscellaneous “administrative fee” from some outfit neither of us had ever heard of, but which curiously shared the same address as the sellers/owners. The minute his lawyer questioned it, he said, the fee was removed. After our conversation. I didn’t mind so much that the A&P ended up overcharging me for my case of Snapple (Note to A&P: the sale wasn’t over). Sure, I’d read about... Posted at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0 |
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04/17/08Should I Stay or Should I Go
It's been almost two years since the "condo bomb," as I affectionately call it, dropped on me and my fellow tenants in one of the highrises overlooking the Hudson in the Greystone section of Yonkers. There we were, all happily renting along with our year-to-year leases when our building got sold to new owners, who promised a lot of “improvements.”
We expected to hear the details at a meet-and-greet they held in our lounge, replete with refreshments (always the way to get a large turnout in our building). Like many of the other residents, I was initially disgruntled at the prospect of “buy or get out,” (in their defense, they put it to us much nicer than that!). And like many... Posted at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0 |
About This Blog
Robert Schork
Elmsford, NY
Robert Schork’s first experience with real estate was playing banker during family Monopoly sessions (and stuffing a few $500s under the board "in case of emergency"). While his education in economics allows him to understand mortgage rates he still relies on a cheat sheet to calculate the tip when dining out. A Philadelphia native, he considers himself a bona fide New Yorker after surviving 9/11, the blackout of 2003, and a decade of paying Westchester taxes.
