Jackson Heights Life

Hello JH neighbors.

I would like to hear from people that have been done or are going through renovations recently. Did you feel the materials were more expensive? Fewer choices and longer times to arrive?

Thanks!

D

I did a recent renovation. I don't have a previous renovation to be compared against so I don't know it's more expensive or not.

However, I want to point out that the determining factor of the renovation cost is the labor (especially in a coop), some increase in the material cost doesn't matter much.

Not sure what you are talking about when you say it's more expensive in a coop. Huh? Why? There is labor and there are materials--same thing whether in a coop, condo, or house. Of course, more credentials and licenses might be required in a coop or condo vs
a private house, where nobody is overseeing what you do. And yes, materials are scarcer and more costly now than before the pandemic. There are more shortages and delays now. In a coop or condo, you might have to go through approvals, you might have to hire an architect--that would add expense, but we've had two coops where we've done renovations and we never had to hire an architect. Overall, yes, we've been told that materials now cost more and there are shortages.

Well, all those caveats about renovating coops and condo's might be generally true, but one of the charms of JH real estate is that there are so many small coops here, where there is much less red tape overall. We live in one of them: ten units only and we are self managed. We are all on the board, and we all make the rules, which tend to be few. We used to live in a much larger coop in Manhattan, where there were many more rules, enforced by the staff, and you'd get a letter and maybe a fine if you broke a rule. Here, things are much looser. So renovating entails letting everyone know and ideally choosing a contractor with ample experience in these buildings, making sure to upgrade plumbing and electric properly, etc, but it's all off the cuff, no papers to fill out, no fees for the managing agent to process the non-existent papers. So people should not feel daunted by the prospect of buying a coop that needs work on the assumption that having such work done in any coop or condo will be difficult and excessively costly. Not true in all cases. In our case, it's been easier and less costly than when we did the same in Manhattan.

Hmmm...are you assuming that in a self-managed coop, shareholders are necessarily using unlicensed and uninsured contractors? That's not the case.

Things are just not so formal in a small coop--it would be weird if they were the same as in a large building. We're just a small group of neighbors and we communicate with each other our plans. The "supervision" is more informal, but there is no reason to assume that informal means negligent and people should be frightened off from small coop ownership because it seems scary and unregulated or something. Our longtime president tells people what to watch out for, that certain things should be replaced during a renovation, but we don't have forms and fees and formal reviews.

Our contractor did all the filing during our renovation. We didn't have anything to do with any of it.