The co-op board application can feel like a daunting task, but we've prepared a number of
tips to help you along the way.
My name is Nick at Hauseit, we are the largest Reduced Commission platform for New York City,
established in 2014.
So, let's get started.
Preparing a board package is fairly straightforward, however, it can take longer than you expect
if you are not really prepared as to how the process will unfold.
So, we're going to give you a number of tips that will help facilitate an expeditious completion
and submission of the package.
The first tip is related to the reference letter requirements that are usually required
for any co-op application in the city.
In particular, you will need to submit a number of personal and professional reference letters,
as well as an employer reference letter and a landlord reference letter.
Now, because you're asking third parties to provide these items you should ideally ask
for these as soon as possible, if not the moment you sign a purchase contract.
You could even potentially ask for these items before you have an accepted offer even if
you want to be totally prepared.
The only thing to consider would be with regard to who these letters are addressed to.
You can just keep it generic so tell your references to address them such as to whom
it may concern and then at a later date you can include the information of the particular
co-op building that you are purchasing into.
So, just to summarize, reach out and ask for around three personal reference letters, around
three business reference letters, keep in mind the personal reference letters cannot
be from family members so they do need to be from arm's length third parties such as
good friends or colleagues and of course business reference letters do need to be.
The landlord reference letter should usually indicate the date you started the lease as
well as your current rent and some sort of statement attesting to whether or not you're
current on payments.
Your employer reference letter should indicate your job title, your start date and comprehensively
break down your income specifically your base salary as well as any other metrics or calculations
for overtime or bonus income.
A second tip for the purchase application is to make sure that you type the application
page itself.
Now while technically most co-op buildings are okay with handwritten applications as
long as they're illegible sending in an application that is not typed will likely infuriate the
transfer agent at the managing agent and you really need that person to be on your side
as they're the ones who correspond with the board and effectively present and transmit
your application to the co-op's board of managers.
A third tip is regarding the application fees and other expenses associated with the application
itself.
95% of co-ops will require that your checks are certified checks.
So if you have a free day you'll definitely want to go as quickly as possible to the bank
and take the time to procure certified checks for the application fee as well as any other
fees that you might have to pay for such as a move-in deposit or an actual move-in fee.
The next tip is about how you actually assemble the documentation for the application.
Now keep in mind that your buyer's agent will be the one who assembles everything once you've
come up with all of the individual items and in order to make this efficient we strongly
encourage you to open a cloud storage folder and to begin uploading the various documents
to this one centralized location.
And that way your buyer's agent will be able to efficiently access the necessary documents
as they're synthesizing your application.
An additional tip is regarding the financial statement of the application.
Now as we mentioned it can take a few weeks to get everything together and the coop will
expect that your financial statement is relatively up to date and when you come up with your
subtotals in your financial statement you are typically using the figures in your monthly
bank statements.
So, if you think that you need some additional time and your submission of the application
will go beyond say the next statement date for a lot of your accounts, it's probably
advisable for you to wait until the very last minutes for you to update and do the calculations
on your financial statement because otherwise you might have to just redo them once all
of these new statements come out provided you haven't submitted your application beforehand.
So, just a summary of the things we've discussed, ask for your reference letters as quickly
as possible, make sure that the application page itself is typed, try to obtain certified
checks for the various application fees as quickly as you can and make sure when you
do your financial statement to wait until your most recent statements come out before
you invest the time to calculate the subtotals and update the statement itself.
We hope you found this video helpful.
I'm Nick at Hauseit.
Visit our website http://www.hauseit.com to learn about ways to save money as a buyer
here in New York City and if you like this video do us a favor leave a comment like or
subscribe.
We'd greatly appreciate it.