Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Guide to Buying and Selling Coops and Condos in New York City

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The pros:

- This book describes the high-level buying process for condos and co-ops.

- Gives good overview of closing costs.

The cons:

- I later found almost all of the information I used in this book on-line.

- Advice is mostly high-level and generic. This info is still useful, however, if you're completely new (as I was) to the New York market.

- No advice on how to find recent comparable condo/co-op sale info in New York.

- Little to no advice on the negotiating process.

- The chapter on how to decide if it's better to rent or buy is completely stacked in favor of buying. For example, the author fails to mention the 6% broker's fee you're going to incur when you sell your place (unless you choose to sell it on your own). He also fails to compare buying a house (which he correctly notes is a highly leveraged investment) to the returns of similarly risky and leveraged investments in other assets (e.g. stock portfolios bought on margin). He also fails to mention how much money you're likely to have to spend updating and upgrading your home to be able to sell it for a price you're happy with.

- Much less advice regarding selling than buying (silver lining: knowing some of the advice the author gives to sellers - e.g. how to sell a dark apartment - can be useful to buyers as well)

This book is short and to the point. If you learn and understand what's in here, you'll know more than 90% of the real estate brokers out there!

Walks you through the basics of the process, each step of the way.