There was a joke on one episode of the old Saturday Night Live that New York City was going Coop. The joke was intended to refer to New York City going exclusive and that only certain people would be able to get in (the implication being that COOP meant exclusive and high class).

Well, the fact is that everywhere EXCEPT for New York City, Coops are for low and middle income people. The federal government at one time had a program for creating coops for low income people which required that tenants could not join the coop if they made more than a certain amount of money.

The concept of a housing coop is so incredibly beautiful that the way the concept has been perverted in New York City is almost criminal. The concept of a coop is that a group of people pool their resources and create a company that buys a building. As a benefit of being stockholders/shareholders in the company that buys the building, each stockholder/shareholder gets the right to one apartment in the building.

In the early 10 years or so of a coop's creation, virtually all of the money that the tenants pay in maintenance to the coop goes toward interest that the company (which owns the building) has on the mortgage on the property. So, all of the tenants get to deduct almost 100% of the monthly maintenance fee from their personal income taxes as if they were homeowners.

In the later years when the mortgage that the company has on the building is paid down, the shareholders/tenants can see their monthly maintenance fee drop to almost nothing. I was a member of a coop in Michigan and I paid about $700 to join the coop and my monthly maintenance charge was $500 per month (most of which was tax deductible because the coop was only about three years old). My APARTMENT in the coop was a two story townhouse with a basement. The townhouses were connected on the sides.

In New York City, instead of a group of people coming together and creating their own company to buy a building, ONE guy or ONE company creates the company and owns all of the apartments and then that one guy or company sells the apartments to idiots. I'm not sure, but I think that anywhere other than New York City, it would be illegal for someone to sell coops the way they are sold in New York City.

With the creation of limited liability companies, it is now very easy for a group of people to get together, form a LLC and then to have the LLC buy a building or house. The nature of a LLC is that the people who create the LLC are by default, MEMBERS/SHAREHOLDERS of the LLC. I think I read a report somewhere that the number one use of a LLC now is to BUY REAL ESTATE.

You would think that people making a lot of money and people who can afford lawyers and financial advise would have the SMARTS to create their own companies and buy their own buildings, rather than paying through the nose for the coop con in New York City.

There is also the matter of the PERCEPTION I get when someone in New York City proudly announces to me that they bought a COOP. I know what a coop really is.