For the past several months, we’ve been wrangling with the Sponsor to fix the mouse situation. To no avail. Meanwhile, other unit owners suffer their own mouse problems — including mouse eaten sweaters.

This morning the exterminator came to check our “mouse-free” apartment. Lo and behold, he found a dead mouse in the snap trap.

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My tech guy got tired of lending me his cats, so he suggested we adopt our own kittens. I’ve never been a pet person, but when we met Madeline and Coraline, they were purring and so cute. We adopted them immediately.

Such big names for such little cats. M & C are now Bella and Pippa:)

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I love our new apartment at Madison Square North. Apparently, so do a half dozen four legged furry creatures.

I thought about blogging about our mouse-capades after the first incident, and resolved that this was an issue better dealt congenially with the building management. However, six weeks and half a dozen mice later, I’m fed up by the building’s lack of attention to this problem, and I’m very tired from maintaining nightly vigil waiting for the next mouse to drop in.

After eight visits from various exterminators, I’m now a fair expert. Here’s what I have learned — hopefully my experience will benefit other tenants or homeowners.

1. If you see a shadow move on the floor, chances are it’s a mouse. I ignored the first shadow I saw move. A week later, I found a dead mouse next to the fridge.

2. Check your apartment for mouse droppings — dark brown/black “pellets” about the size of a rye seed. Often the pellet will have one or two pointy ends. I’m told that mice leave their droppings anywhere. We found droppings in the middle of the Living Room, the Laundry Closet and, most disgustingly, between the stove top and oven.

3. The most vulnerable areas of a home are:
- Heating / A/C units that have pipes going into the wall. I guess the mice roam about between the walls, then find the openings from pipe holes into the apartment.
- Pipes that are below your kitchen and bathroom sinks. Check to make sure the pipe “covers” are really tight, or make sure to plug have the exterminator plug up the holes around the pipes.

Telltale signs of mouse presence are paint or dust sprinkles on the floor under the heating unit openings. This is a result of the mice squeezing through holes and shaking out paint / dust particles.

4. The kitchen stove. Mice are attracted to the insulation in/around the stove. We found 5 mouse droppings under the stove top.

5. Make sure your Laundry Room is carefully inspected, especially around the hoses.

We worked with two exterminators.
- Connex came in the first night and charged us $670. They explained that plugging holes with copper wire was more effective than with steel wool because steel wool eventually disintegrates, especially if it gets wet. When we called Connex for follow up visits, they were always unavailable and quite rude. I do not recommend Connex.

- Stop Pest is the exterminator for our building. The technician, Taofik, who came to us was very pleasant and appeared to be thorough. Unfortunately, Stop Pest did not stop pests the first, second, third, or fourth times. When mice revisited, Stop Pest’s main office was not responsive to calls from our doorman. However, the technician, Taofik, was very accommodating and responded to our emergency calls at 9pm and midnight. I highly recommend Taofik.

During our last six weeks, we twice borrowed a pair of sister cats. We thought maybe this would scare the mice away. We didn’t see mice when the cats were in the apartment. However, we think the mice might have been hiding in the utility closet. Meanwhile, we fell in love with these cats and are looking to adopt our own cats!

Stay tuned.

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Only 15% of Manhattan apartments are condominiums, but the market was loaded with properties that languished for months while lenders were reluctant to offer mortgages. Even before we started our search, I contacted our friendly mortgage broker to start an application. We began with a mid-range price but no specific property, understanding that the loan might be for somewhat more. Because we had all the required documentation at hand, a good faith estimate was soon followed by a mortgage commitment. This enabled us to approach the sellers with some leverage. And, when we found an apartment, we were able to plan a closing date that satisfied everyone’s timeframe. That is, until we were actually going to close.

I received repeated reassurances that everything was on track, when in fact nothing was. I had been able to put my hands on every piece of data and documentation as it was requested: 1040, 1099, tax bills, investments, properties, bank statements. Nonetheless, when I called a week before the closing a new list of required documentation appeared: global insurance for the condominium itself; verification of employment, again; bank statements showing the source of deposits, and confirmation of the source of the 5% down payment, again. An updated statement of all investments was needed, again, even though it was only 3 weeks since the last one. My mortgage consultant was as confused and frustrated as we were. She stated she felt like she was in a foreign country. No one was allowed to speak to VOE; no one was allowed to speak to Underwriting. And nothing would move until the never-ending list of documents was accumulated.

It wasn’t just frustrating; it was unfathomable and inexorable. The bank treated me like a convict instead of a customer, even though I had longstanding and large accounts in a bank they had purchased. My wife and I have credit scores over 800. I own my house, my office, my business, and have more than enough income and investments. Not enough. My daughter had scheduled the movers, had to vacate her apartment, and there were onerous penalties from the sponsor if the closing was delayed. Not enough. My attorneys, the title insurance attorney, and my mortgage broker were all long-time clients. Not enough. Nothing was enough to make this happen. Just the bank, and they weren’t going to move, so neither were we.

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We were purchasing a condo from the sponsor who developed the building, converting apartments from their prior rental condition. This included new appliances, countertops, floors, molding, etc. There was a thick prospectus that my attorney recommended I read, and file away safely. The contract for sale did not anticipate protections my attorney wanted for us, primarily a mortgage contingency with the ability to retrieve our down-payment if we could not close as planned with mortgage terms as expected. These contingencies were not normally allowed. However, with sales languishing due to the current economy, the sponsor’s attorney was willing to consider some, but not others. My attorney was insistent, invoking his Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules. Believing that we, as purchasers, had all the leverage, he encouraged me to walk away from the deal if we didn’t get every allowance he wanted. However, I was not so cavalier. Units in the building were selling quickly, and this was the one we wanted. After several unpleasant volleys, the two attorneys hit an impasse. The sponsor would give us a contingency for getting any mortgage, but not constrained by the mortgage rate we expected. My attorney insisted we couldn’t trust the bank, and we needed an out if they changed our terms. I was concerned that we were becoming more of a hassle than our sale’s discount would tolerate. While the attorneys wrangled, LaLa kept in contact with the sponsor reassuring them that we were still committed. The fact is, we didn’t have the gold; the bank did. And until they had a signed contract, we could move forward with our mortgage. I had faith that the mortgage company would give us the rate they had committed to. Over my attorney’s objection, I asked him to make the deal. In the end, it all worked out. But until we blinked, it was a very uncomfortable.

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I prepared for our visits by filling a ring binder with copies of the online realtor’s listing, prior sales information (when found), and a detailed review of the buildings from CityRealty. I also found useful information from StreetEasy, especially the price from prior sales. Ultimately, LaLa understood us better than I understood the data. The first apartment she showed us on Saturday morning was the last place we visited Sunday night. We were sold. Convening at a nearby café for our daily debriefing, it was time to strategize the purchase.

I was somewhat skeptical when LaLa insisted that we consider apartments outside our price range. Initially she wanted us to understand the market better, and make more informed comparisons. However, market valuations have been so volatile, some of the apartments that seemed out of our range lowered their offering price even while we were searching.

I was also naïve about asking vs. selling price. Far from set, asking prices are only a starting point for negotiations. Obviously, whenever I saw a baby’s crib in the one bedroom I knew we had a motivated seller. However, my usual reticence to bargain assertively was not a problem. LaLa was not shy.

During our second visit to the apartment we liked best, LaLa took the sponsor’s representative aside for a frank discussion about a realistic approach to their expectations. With this information, LaLa and Jean decided on a basis for negotiation. We shared our comfort range and fallback plans, and let them loose.

By the next day, the purchase price was set, 5% less than the offering price that had already decreased significantly in the prior month. I was satisfied, but LaLa apologized for not getting an even lower price. My accountant said I didn’t wait for the bottom of the market. But this was not just a property for investment, and he readily agreed there was “psychic value” in having a preference and making a choice. My attorney had other ideas.

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We started with a basic menu of requirements: doorman, elevators, and fitness center. So, after location, size, and layout, what really mattered? I thought it was under-counter sinks. All things being equal, it seemed like a way to determine quality. “Sinks can be changed,” LaLa patiently instructed. Built-ins? We saw all manner: drawers, cabinets, closets. All nice, but nothing we couldn’t do later in our own way. Appliances? I was drawn to exquisite countertops, gourmet stoves, tall and sleek cabinets. Ironically, I don’t really cook. Washer & Dryer? Nice, but why tie up a closet for something used once a week? And if the apartment above you floods…why risk disaster? Besides, how will you meet your neighbors if not in the laundry room? A pool? Who knew there were so many indoor pools in Manhattan? I sure didn’t. All with hapless lifeguards waiting for someone to show up. Seemed like a drain on common charges. Floor height? I knew scientists determined that street noise is loudest on the 4^th floor. But I didn’t know that high-rise buildings are restricted to the corners of the block. As a result, one was never far from the busy avenues. Balconies were loud and grimy, so hardly a necessity. Views….ahhhh: cityscapes, glinting glimpses of river. Yes, I believe if you’re going to live in a vertically integrated configuration, go for the views. Obviously, that takes altitude, so higher floors won out. “Views can be seductive” LaLa cautioned. So we tempered our enthusiasm and looked for a balanced collection of attractions. These included sauna, steam room, media room, wi-fi business area. In the end, no place was perfect, but one was exceedingly good enough.

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Lesson 2:  Listings Marathon

Once I gave LaLa our location and price range, she told me she would put together a list of properties for our consideration.  Two days later an Excel spreadsheet arrived by email with comprehensive information about 127 different properties.  Included were data for the street address, floor & apartment number, building name, cross street, construction era, detailed amenities, doorman, elevators, pet policy, number of rooms, beds, baths, area name (e.g. Yorkville, Carnegie Hill), square footage, asking price, real estate taxes, maintenance and common charges, price per square foot, adjusted price per square foot, and a URL for any online listing information.  This document was an invaluable foundation for our search.  Scouring the Internet I did find a few other properties, and LaLa gladly added these to our list.  Ultimately I winnowed this down to our top 10.  However, to truly understand the market LaLa scheduled about 30 apartments to visit.

That was 30 apartments to visit in one weekend! LaLa designed a scorecard for all our scheduled visits by which to enumerate our impressions.  Parameters included location, size, light, view, exposures, and condition.  We also took photographs to capture salient features and guide our comparisons.  LaLa was able to work around open-houses, coordinate with various agents, and even gain entrance when neither was available.  She accompanied us for many of these visits.  Otherwise, we were shepherded by her capable and gallant aide-de-camp, Jean.  If I found another place worth a visit, Jean would retreat to the relative quiet in the recess of a store window and call ahead.  We’d power walk, pingponging up and down the UES.  If necessary we jumped in and out of taxis, yet always managed to keep on schedule. Along the way LaLa and Jean gave us their honest opinions.  

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What follows will be a series of lessons we learned from LaLa on our quest for a condo.  As lessons are added, the narrative will appear to build in reverse order.  I hope readers who find this later will scroll down to beginning.

Lesson 1:  I didn’t know I needed an agent.

I figured all the information I needed was on the Internet and I would just click away.  Silly me.  My search began innocently enough.  My daughter has been throwing money out the window at nearly $1600 a month for a nice enough studio on the UES.  Her lease was up in a few months, and the stars seemed to be aligning in the real estate market.  To address the economic correction, prices were falling from their nonsensical highs, mortgage rates were attractively low, and there was an unusual accumulation of inventory.  A recently converted condo was only a block away from my daughter’s current location.  We could move her in on a dolly. 

So began our quest.  Three units in that building were available from the sponsor.  With Google Earth I was nearly able to peer through the windows, then realized why these were still unsold.  A unit on the second floor had a façade that shrunk the windows.  A higher unit was over the entrance to the parking garage, and the soot stained façade bode poorly for fresh air.  Nonetheless, I made an appointment with the sponsor to take a look.

There was one resale in the building, but I couldn’t get any useful details from the Internet.  Stymied, I left my contact information on a site that offered access to a listing for this unit.    Within an hour, LaLa Wang was calling me.

It was so soon after I had made an appointment with the sponsor, I thought it was someone else from that office.  Nope; it was LaLa, eager to part the Nile on my trek to the Promised Land. 

We discussed the motivation for my search, and my parameters.  These were based on my initial point of reference, the price and location of the condo up the street.  My daughter wants to stay on the UES.  The prospect of moving more that a few blocks evoked:  “But the people in the bagel store know me!”  I reassured her there was a bagel store every 4 blocks, like every other essential business that repeats throughout the city.

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There are many types of rental listings in the NYC metro area.  We’ll break down the list into what the financial impact of the listings are:

OP listings are traditionally called “NO-FEE” by real estate professionals because the owner pays a portion of the broker fee to the rental agent representing you.  If an agent or broker shows you an OP apartment, unless the OP is very low, you will normally avoid paying any additional brokerage fees.

NO-FEE to the consumer, generally means that the listings in question are offered by the landlord or management company directly with no brokerage fee.  Traditionally, brokers have access to these “No-Fee” listings and charge an added 12-15% of the year’s lease as a broker fee.  At MLX, we charge $149.00 to supply you with all the NO-FEE listings as opposed to charging 12-15% of the year’s lease.

FEE listings are those for which a broker exclusively represents the owner of the apartment in the lease transaction.  Broker fees for exclusive listings are traditionally 15% of the year’s lease.  At MLX we advise you to consider all apartments.  Broker Exclusive apartments are often better deals than either the NO-FEE or OP listings for a variety of reasons:  1.  The prices are often negotiable.  2.  The owner is not paying overhead to a management company.  3.  The Brokerage fee is not factored into the rent.

The break down of all the rental apartments divided into the three categories is as follows:

OP apartments:  6% of the rental market
No-Fee apartments: 27% of the rental market
Fee apartments: 67% of the rental market

Have questions about the rental market?  Ask LaLa!

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