Front Page Forum: Co-Purchasing a Brownstone
A work friend of mine and I are both looking to buy a place in Brooklyn. Seperately neither of us can afford a browstone, however, together we could purchase one ($1.5m range). Does anyone have any experiences purchasing a multi family with someone else — good, bad, etc? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!…
A work friend of mine and I are both looking to buy a place in Brooklyn. Seperately neither of us can afford a browstone, however, together we could purchase one ($1.5m range). Does anyone have any experiences purchasing a multi family with someone else — good, bad, etc?
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
– M.E.
i almost did this with a friend and pulled out at the last minute. definitely take everyone’s advice and have a partnership agreement drawn up in addition to spelling things out clearly in the contract. make sure the person you are doing this with is someone you would want to be “in business” with for the long term. if you have any doubts, don’t do it.
I did it and it has worked out great. Only one person legally has title, but we have a side agreement that spells out each parties rights and obligations. It was hard, but well worth it.
I once considered buying a unit in a 2-unit condo brownstone (two duplexes). One unit was totally modern, the other a DIY renovation that was a bit sloppy. The two didn’t seem to get along and they still needed to agree on a lot of decisions (like yard, exterior). Also it may be a big plumbing project if you want seperate heat & hot water. They didn’t do it and couldn’t agree on the temperture setting in the winter..
Another thing to consider- you may be able to buy a 1 family brownstone for what you can afford- 700k? in some parts of brooklyn (crown heights, prospect lefferts).
NYT article mentioned earlier — http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905EFDB123BF932A25754C0A9629C8B63
You need to talk to a lawyer who specializes in doing condos…The NY Attorney General office is overloaded with condo offering books from all the construction going on now, it will be at least 10 months from start to finish.
I think the best options sounds like turning it into a condo and doing it that way. i’m going to talk to my lawyer and see if he has any more info on how to do this and how hard it is.
thanks for the advice everyone!
I think going condo is a great idea. It seems well worth the cost because it’s so much tidier than the “tenants in common” solution, which requires a lot of effort– since every decision has to be reached through some kind of consensus.
Another route would be ‘Equity Sharing’ with a 50/50 split