Posted by LaLa on 10 Sep 2012 | Tagged as: Blog
It puzzles me to know end that Gmail has no sort function. SORT is the way we browse or glance through an ordered list to make “bulk decisions.” Search is no substitute for sort. Pls Gmail – give us SORT!!
Posted by LaLa on 09 Nov 2011 | Tagged as: Blog
I have an imac, ipad2, iphone and Macbook Air. Since I upgraded to icloud, my Macbook Air Address Book has been suffering from duplicate contacts. Address Books of all other devices are fine.
After alot of googling, I finally found this thread that solved the problem.
- http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/forums/viewthread/81665/
I’ve rewritten the instructions a little more clearly.
1. First of all, BACKUP you Address Book from another computer that has the correct Address Book.
2. Open the faulty Address Book.
3. On Address Book navigation, go to Preferences.
4. In Preferences, deselect “Enable this account.”
5. In Preferences, click icloud icon and delete (by clicking minus sign).
6. Open System Preferences.
7. In System Preferences, go to icloud and re-check Address Book.
Voila! Open Address Book — there should be only one copy of each contact!
Posted by LaLa on 03 Aug 2011 | Tagged as: Blog, Pets
Other than my father’s birthday, the highlight of the weekend was Myles professing his love for mommy. Catch the video here.
Posted by LaLa on 29 Sep 2010 | Tagged as: Blog
Four months ago, a representative from Precision Interconnect solicited our internet business. We signed a contract with Time Warner Cable . A month ago, another company in our small loft building informed us that Time Warner Cable was refusing to install lines to the building because they were !@#$%^ off that Precision had made the sales in our building. Is anyone else having problems with TWC?
Posted by Baron on 14 Aug 2010 | Tagged as: Apps, Technology
Ever wanted to capture an image of a room or area, but were limited by the camera on your phone and how much it could capture in one shot?
This app automatically creates a panoramic image from your surroundings when you scan around your current location. This app uses the iPhone 4 gyroscope to ‘know’ where you are, and thus create the virtual-reality like image. Unfortunately it does not work with older iPhones. Otherwise the app works very well and seems to be well worth the cost of $1.99.
This is a great app to use to save a picture of a property and then either use to remind yourself what it was like or to send it to someone else. You can email/facebook/tweet the resulting image right from the app.
Posted by LaLa on 30 Jul 2010 | Tagged as: Blog
Manhattan’s owned units are comprised of approximately 80% cooperatives, 20% condominiums with a smattering of condops (discussed in a later post). While the purchase of a New York condominium is conveyed via a real estate deed (like home ownership), coop buyers purchase shares of a corporation with a pro-rata interest and an underlying proprietary lease designating the right to occupy a particular unit. As an international marketplace, the demand for the flexibility of condo ownership outstrips that for coop ownership. Consequently, condos, with scarcer supply, sell at a premium with higher price per square foot as compared to coops. The more abundant coops can provide a good value to those owners who require lesser flexibility such as subletting and can meet coop boards’ financial (and other) requirements.
Coop building are governed by elected shareholders who set rules, policies and bylaws under which the coop is operated. The rules of a Coop Board are designed to approve prospective owners who “fit in” and the financial guidelines are established to mitigate risk of defaulting coop owners. No encumbent coop owner wants to carry the maintenance costs of a fellow coop owner unable to cover his share of coop expenses.
Coop board rules include financial and other requirements for prospective buyers. Financial requirements vary from coop to coop and generally pertain to:
* % downpayment required (or % financing allowed)
* Buyer’s salary as a multiple of housing expenses (i.e. maximum debt : income ratio)
* Buyer’s liquid assets after closing.
BUYER’S INCOME
Most coops will require that the buyer earns in salary at least four times their housing expenses (maintenance plus mortgage expense). For example. If maintenance plus mortgage of the buyer’s prospective coop is $5000 per month, then $5000 x 4 = $20,000 / month x 12 months = $240,000 annual income. If the coop buyer owns more than one residence, then the buyer must earn four times the total amount of all housing expenses. If a coop buyer owns an apartment he or she intends to sell, the coop board will still look for 4X the total housing expenses until the other apartment is sold. A prospective buyer should present a signed contract for the existing home if possible.
When evaluating salary, coop boards may take into consideration a buyer’s financial prospects: is the buyer at the beginning of a lucrative career or he is near retirement age with salary likely to cease in a few years.
Since heretofore self employment was considered more risky than salaried employment, coops have traditionally looked more closely at the financials of self employed buyers and may require additional years of tax returns or additional liquidity.
Some coop boards will permit guarantors or co-signers for prospective coop purchasers. Nearly all coops require that the purchaser be employed, not of student status.
LIQUID ASSETS AFTER CLOSING
In addition to income, coop boards will assess a buyer’s liquid assets after downpayment and closing costs (e.g. mansion tax, flip tax, state and city transfer taxes if not paid by the seller, attorney fees, etc). On the liberal side, a coop board will want to see 12 months of housing costs in liquid assets — eg If a buyer’s housing costs are $5000/month, then $5000 x 12 = $60,000 in liquid assets after closing. It’s not unusual for a board to want three years of liquid assets. A tough board (many Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue coops) that requires all cash (no financing allowed) may require two to three times the purchase price in liquid assets. In general, the “tougher” a coop is with respect to cash downpayment required, the more that coop will expect to see in liquid assets.
* Liquid assets include:
* Cash
* Money market accounts
* Stocks/mutual funds
* Short term Certificates of Deposit
Liquid assets do not include:
* Real estate holdings
* Retirement funds
* Jewelry
OTHER COOP BOARD REQUIREMENTS
In addition to financial requirements, coop boards will require the board package to include:
* Employment letter or CPA letter if self employed
* Two to three most recent pay stubs
* Last two to three years of tax returns
* Bank and brokerage statements for all accounts
* Two to three business and personal reference letters.
* Contract of Sale for prospective coop
* Loan Commitment Letter & Aztec forms
* Certified Checks for coop processing, move in deposits, etc
Sellers want to ensure that their prospective buyers will pass the coop board, so it is standard practice for the seller’s listing broker to require buyers submit a signed Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) Financial Statement along with their offer. The Financial Statement is a summary of the buyer’s income and net worth. Most sellers will not counter a buyer’s offer without a Financial Statement in hand.
Since they were built many years ago, coops are generally located in desirable locations near transportation and parks. Coops can represent a good value for money, but coop buyers should take care to present their best foot forward. First impressions count, both with respect to the presentation of financials, reference letters and board interview. There are no re-dos with coops.
Posted by LaLa on 10 Jul 2010 | Tagged as: Blog
Oy vey. Four months ago, we transferred our asklala.com blog from laughingsquid to hostgator. Over the four months, I blogged a few times, and I cancelled my laughingsquid account. It took several months before the account was actually cancelled.
A few days ago, I found out that our blog was off the air! Apparently, we had neglected to switch the DNS to the new host. This meant that my blog entries for the past few months were being posted to the laughingsquid site. — and were lost (deleted) when the account was finally closed.
Luckily, when I googled our site, I found a cached copy of the site that showed the last 10 posts. So I reposted and back dated them to the moved site.
Moral of the story: When you transfer hosts, make sure your transferred site is actually running on your new host!! Don’t count on being able to retrieve files from your previous host. As laughingsquid wrote: “All files, including email, were deleted from the server when the site was deactivated. You’ll need to use your most recent backup you’ve kept personally.”
Posted by LaLa on 19 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Blog
Love this site – cheezburger.com. Here’s a photo of Bella and Pippa when they were six months old. Is this adorable or what?
Posted by LaLa on 25 May 2010 | Tagged as: Blog
The formerly notorious Limelight nightclub in the popular Flatiron district has been transformed into the cutest little marketplace. Checkout Cupcake Stop with its lightly frosted cupcakes — a refreshing change from the Magnolia and Buttercup Bakeries over-frosted cupcakes.
Limelight Market New York | Flatiron District, NY | Best Indoor Markets NYC.
Posted by LaLa on 27 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Blog
Just read The Condominium V. Cooperative Puzzle: An Empirical Analysis of Housing in New York City by Shill.
It is a fascinating read. For instance, did you know:
“In 1976, there were 1,039,000 owner-occupied cooperative and condominium apartments in the nation, 106,000 of which were located in New York City. Thus, roughly one out of ten such apartments in the nation were located in New York. By 1999, the number of owner-occupied condominium and cooperative apartments in the nation had ballooned to 3,395,000 in the United States and 255,000 in New York City.”
The results of this study should also be of much interest to NYC apartment buyers currently in the market. Essentially if all variables are normalized – a NYC condo is 8.8 more valuable than a NYC co-op apartment.
Further, this valuation varies dependent upon the financing restrictions/conditions of the purchase but the favorable advantage of condo value continues to grow under all conditions as well as over time.
The answer to the puzzle proposed by Michael Shill – why do co-ops persist when nyc condos deliver higher returns on investment is one of cost. Profits gained from conversion of a coop building to condo property are reigned in by the high cost of conversion and most of the financial gain that tenants might see is lost. This cost does not include the capital gains that would be added to the upcoming tax season so net profit from such a conversion would be even more mitigated by cost.
Given that this data was taken during the early part of the last decade a follow up study is in order to determine what has changed for NYC Condos and Coop properties since the financial collapse of the recent years.
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