Chapter 9 Jordan
Jordan
Now
News? My heart leaps. I wait for Jinny to elaborate with growing excitement. Has the bank reconsidered our loan? Or maybe the sellers decided to give us time to work things out after all? But when she speaks, my bubble bursts.
“There’s an opening at the Glendale, and I think you might qualify.”
I place my coffee cup down on the table, try to mask my disappointment. “What’s the Glendale? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Only one of the most exclusive cooperatives in town,” Jinny says with more enthusiasm than I’ve ever heard from her.
“Almost impossible to get into. It’s located in the Back Bay, near the Public Garden.
The smallest apartment is two thousand square feet, and all the units have a view of either the Charles River and Cambridge or the Boston skyline. ”
“Really?” I don’t know anything about cooperatives, having never lived in one, but it doesn’t matter. “A two-thousand-square-foot apartment in the Back Bay with a view? Sounds expensive. Like, ‘Way out of our price range, why even bother looking at it?’ expensive.”
“That’s the thing. It really isn’t. The price for each unit in the Glendale is determined by the amount of the building it takes up, and you purchase the relevant percentage of shares in the corporation that owns the place.
That’s what gives you the right to live there.
It’s sort of like a permanent rental for as long as you hold the shares. That’s how cooperatives work.”
Jinny seems to be forgetting one thing. “We can’t purchase anything right now. No mortgage approval, remember?”
“That’s just it. You won’t need a mortgage.
Not with the way this deal is structured.
The apartment is financed by the board that runs the Glendale.
And here’s the best thing. Because you’re buying shares instead of real estate, the closing costs are minimal.
There’s no title insurance or mortgage taxes, and the down payment is only five percent.
You just commit to paying a monthly maintenance fee, which I hear is quite reasonable. ”
“Five percent?” We’d saved twenty for a down payment. Depending on the asking price, we might actually be able to keep some money in the bank. “That’s incredible.”
“Right? It’s an almost unheard of down payment for a co-op unit. You’d be nuts not to pursue this.”
“I don’t know.” I’m still not convinced, because there’s always a catch. “Those shares must be super expensive.”
“They are, and normally you wouldn’t come close to qualifying.
But the board are looking for certain qualities in a tenant.
I think you and Sam would be a great fit.
And if they like you, they have discretion to provide financial assistance from a fund set up by the family who built the place.
From what I’ve heard, that assistance can be extremely generous . . . for the right tenants.”
I’m confused. “It’s a new building?”
“Goodness, no. The building has been there forever. It’s sort of a fixture.
It was built back in the early 1900s as rental apartments by an industrialist who wanted to get into real estate.
It’s been in the same family ever since.
His descendants converted it into a cooperative about ten years ago and changed the name.
” Jinny takes a breath. “Look, none of that matters. What’s important is that there’s an opening.
The previous occupants of the apartment are moving to California, or so I’ve been told. Something to do with their work.”
“Then why is the board selling it instead of the owner?” I ask.
“Because you can’t sell your shares in the Glendale on the open market.
It’s a limited equity cooperative, which means you have to sell them back to the executive board at the price you originally paid, plus a percentage on top for each year you owned them linked to inflation.
It’s in the rules when you purchase.” Jinny takes a quick breath.
“Look, we can talk more about this later. It could all be moot. The board might not approve you to live there. Like I said, it’s super hard to get into.
But we might as well put an application in. What do you say?”
I think about the apartment we just fled. The graffiti and the busted door. The idea of renting somewhere like that again twists my stomach into knots, so there’s really only one thing I can say. “Okay. We’ll give it a go.”