How to Hire a Condo or Co-op Managing Agent in NYC

Hiring a managing agent is a time-consuming task for small, medium and large condo and co-op buildings in New York City. We’ll demystify the topic of hiring a managing agent in the following video. Learn More: https://www.hauseit.com/condo-co-op-managing-agent-responsibilities-nyc/

Save 2% When Buying in NYC: https://www.hauseit.com/hauseit-buyer-closing-credit-nyc/
Save 6% When Selling in NYC: https://www.hauseit.com/agent-assisted-fsbo/

I’m Nick at Hauseit. Check out our website https://www.hauseit.com to learn how to save money on commission when buying and selling real estate in New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley. So let’s get started!

So, the challenge with hiring a building manager is three-fold:

1) Finding suitable candidates for managing agent
2) Asking candidates the right questions
3) Galvanizing the board to actually fire its current managing agent and make a new hire

There are a number of ways to find managing agent candidates in NYC. You can request possible candidates from the listing agent who sold you your apartment, and if you had a buyer’s broker, you can also ask them. You can also reach out to friends who own properties in similar sized buildings. Another way to find suitable candidates is to ask your real estate lawyer.

Finally, it’s also possible to look-up the managing agent of any building in the city using the search tool on the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development website. So if you walk by another building in your neighborhood and wonder who their managing agent is, you can easily look it up online. The link for this search tool is below in the description.

Once you’ve identified a few candidates, it’s a good idea to meet with each managing agent at your building and conduct a walkthrough of the common areas, roof and basement. We recommend inviting the candidates to your board or owner meeting. This way, all stakeholders can ask questions and genuinely buy into the possibility of making a change.

Questions to ask the candidates you interview include:

What current maintenance deficiencies do you observe with our building? What are the top 3 priorities for our building based on what you observed?

What experience do you have in managing comparably sized buildings? How often do you physically inspect the buildings you manage?

What’s your strategy for dealing with after-hours emergencies? How do you approach quote procurement for large capital improvement projects?

Can you share the financials and budget for other buildings you manage? What Are the Signs of a Bad Building Manager in NYC?

Fortunately, it’s very easy to spot a bad building manager. Immediate managing agent red-flags include:

Being slow to respond or totally unresponsive to emails

Only responding to board members and ignoring emails from other owners

Selectively responding to emails and complaints based on the subject matter

Failing to comply with to direct requests and feedback from owners

Writing aggressive, petty or negative emails in response to owners who complain

Hiring the same repair companies all the time without fielding multiple quotes

Never actually coming to physically inspect the property

Failing to reign-in unusually high insurance, water or other bills

Tolerating sub-par work from the super or elevator servicing company

Is Self-Management a Good Idea in NYC?

Self-management is a great idea for smaller buildings which have a healthy number of owner-occupant, hands-on owners. When a building is self-managed, owners and board members assume all of the responsibilities which would otherwise be handled by a managing agent.

The key benefit of self-management for smaller condo and co-op buildings is the fact that unit owners have much more skin in the game when it comes to hiring repair companies and making sure costs stay low while keeping the building in optimal condition.

Simply put, a self-managed building with motivated and competent owners can save $15k to $20k per year by not having a managing agent while actually doing a better job maintaining the building and controlling costs.

The challenge for small buildings is that they don’t typically have the budget to hire a more established management company. As a result, most small buildings are forced to settle for mediocre managing agents who do a terrible job of actually managing properties.

So there you have it! We hope you enjoyed this video, and if you did, please like, subscribe and leave us a comment. We’d greatly appreciate it. I’m Nick at Hauseit, and we’ll seen you on the next video!

Save 2% When Buying in NYC: https://www.hauseit.com/hauseit-buyer-closing-credit-nyc/
Save 6% When Selling in NYC: https://www.hauseit.com/agent-assisted-fsbo/
.
.
Hauseit LLC, Licensed Real Estate Broker
Tel: (888) 494-8258 | https://www.hauseit.com
_
#hauseit #hauseitnyc