Legal hanky-panky appeases boards on price

A well-researched piece in BrickUnderground finds that buyers and sellers have been fudging sales prices increasingly to avoid board turndowns.

Approximately one in 10 co-op sales are recorded at misleadingly high prices to appease boards defending their property values, the Web site reports on the basis of its interviews with several lawyers and a mortgage broker cited in the post.

The process is somewhat convoluted, but the housing market’s plunge after the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15, 2008 renewed interest in faking contract prices with the knowledge of all concerned parties, BrickUnderground says.

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Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
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Meet another broker whose name I won’t provide

Fordham University

The apartment: A two-bedroom co-op on a high floor overlooking Fordham University and Lincoln Center with wonderful views toward the Hudson.

The price: Nearly $2 million.

The problem: An aggressive and reckless broker who doesn’t know how to shut up.  (I didn’t catch his name and don’t know whether he was covering the open house for the listing broker or was that individual himself.)

It wasn’t so much that this broker–call him Dick–insisted on a hard sell as he pursued us throughout the unit, though that was pretty offensive.  It was that he made a promise for which he could be sued.