NEW YORK CITY

John Devall, a managing agent and account executive at Orsid Realty, remembers it well: "There was a lot of discussion — a lot of discussion. Rand, the engineering firm, attended one meeting, and presented all the pros and cons, and we talked about the numbers. Then at that meeting, the board still wasn't decided. It was a tough decision."

The debate Devall remembers was at Kensington House, the 195-unit co-op at 200 West 20th Street. Built in 1937, the Art Deco building, now populated mostly by young professionals, had seen better days. The main problem was a continuous string of leaks over the years, which, admits Devall, baffled the manager and the seven-member board. "We had performed some inspections and we couldn't quite figure out where the problem was," Devall recalls. "We had been doing interior repairs the entire time."

You're a tenant in a rent-stabilized building. You love your apartment. But the building's owner is making noise about wanting to sell. Your first instinct may be to rally all the tenants to see if they are willing and able to join forces, buy the building, and convert it to a co-op or condo. That's what one tenant in a rent-stabilized building in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, would like to do. And the latest "Ask Real Estate" column in The New York Times explains that although, in theory, it's a possibility, in practice, such plans ever really come to fruition. Still, it's not a pipe dream, says the Times column, offering nuggets of advice that includes forming a tenants' association and hiring a lawyer to guide them through the conversion process if the landlord takes a shining to the idea. And if there are enough tenants willing to put their money where there mouth is, who knows? We might see the birth of a co-op or condo.

A READER ASKS: A shareholder in our co-op, fearing for her security, is refusing to give us duplicates of her keys. My fellow board members and I have tried reasoning with her, explaining that we need to be able to access her apartment in an emergency. We are getting nowhere, and the board president is getting fed up. He's considering evicting her for breaching her proprietary lease. Is there any way that we can reach a realistic compromise that satisfies the board and assuages the shareholder's concern for her safety without this getting ugly?

When it comes to apartment renovations, virtually every board and managing agent has a horror story. Remember that time a leaky Jacuzzi was installed directly over a neighbor's bedroom? What about the time a wall was removed even though it contained the wiring for every intercom in the building? Or the time a work crew showed up at a landmarked building and started tearing down walls without either Department of Buildings permits or Landmarks Preservation Commission permission…. 

The estate of Florence Weinbaum had to sell Weinbaum's co-op apartment at 260 West End Avenue. It contracted with a third party and, as is typical in co-ops, the sale was conditioned on the board's approval. The board waited until after the estate and the unit's purchaser had signed the contract to promulgate house rules directly addressed to this unit and the buyer refused to close. 

In 1947, the unit — which was located on the "mezzanine" level and accessibly via the lobby — was leased to Weinbaum's father, a doctor, as a professional office. When the building converted to cooperative ownership in 1980, Dr. and Mrs. Weinbaum purchased the shares and he continued to use the unit as his medical office until his retirement in 1981.

A group of real estate executives recently sat with Gotham magazine to dish some dirt about New York City real estate — and what they had to say is worthy of some serious eyebrow-raising. According to the group, co-ops should be added to the endangered species list. "If you look at the resale as well as new-sell price data on condominiums, they are rising 30 percent over co-ops," said Nikki Field, senior vice president at Sotheby’s International. More scathing was Kirk Henckels, vice chairman of Stribling & Associates, who said: "Poor co-ops! They are stylistically and locationally unpopular; the structure of the deal is unpopular — they don’t have a thing going for them at this point." One piece of advice they offered? Convert co-ops into condos. Don't count the New York co-op out just yet, though. The group focused almost exclusively on a luxury market, but co-ops aren't about the 1 percent. They aren't country clubs; rather, they are communities — a major point the group seems to have missed. Consider also that sellers are going to prefer condos to co-ops; they are easier to sell because there's no board approval process, for starters. For all the stats they seemed to pull out of the air, the group also overlooked a pretty important one. In an economic downturn, co-ops endure. That annoying board approval dismissed as snobbery and "scrutiny [of finances]" puts co-ops on much firmer financial footing than condos, where unit-owners have a greater chance of foreclosing. 

Condominiums continue to use the lion's share of the 421a tax exemption, with very few co-ops participating in the program that along with the popular J-51 exemption is set to expire in June, panelists said Wednesday in a housing symposium. Participants also revealed proposals for affordable homes and predicted the fates of "poor doors" and a new, related wrinkle, "poor fences."

The holidays are here again, and the most wonderful time of the year brings with it the annual rite of holiday tipping. 'Tis the season to show your appreciation to your co-op or condo's building staff.

Here, we guide you through the process, particularly determining how much to give and figuring out any tax consequences.

It's back to the drawing board for Rivergate Apartments' plan to build a retail building on top of a playground in Joseph Slifka Park. DNAinfo.com reports that the City Planning Commission will not give its approval until the developer reaches a compromise with residents. The original plan, which Rivergate owner UDR presented last month to members of Community Board 6, called for a 4,000-square-foot retail building as well as a renovation of the remaining green space, according to DNAinfo. New dog run and artificial turf field notwithstanding, some folks want the building to be smaller, while others don't want retail encroaching on what amounts to their backyard. The bottom line is that residents want a say in the final design, and it looks like they will make their voices heard at a public meeting with UDR on Jan. 7, 2015. New year, new proposal. 

Ask any middle-class or working class New Yorker, and they'll tell you that limited-equity Mitchell-Lama co-ops such as Manhattan's Penn South, The Bronx's Co-op City and Brooklyn's Cadman Towers are miracles that allow them to keep living and working in an increasingly expensive city. But the problem, as BrickUnderground.com writes, is that there are only 45,400 Mitchell-Lama co-op and rental apartments left, in 98 buildings, down from the 105,000 apartments in 269 buildings constructed under the program beginning in 1955. So when we hear that New York State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein (D - 34th District) proposed in December that $750 million be funneled into revitalizing the program over five years, well, a lot of people raised their glasses in toast to State Senator MacNeil Mitchell and Assemblyman Alfred Lama for creating the program in the first place. Of course, we being middle- or working-class, we're toasting with an inexpensive sparkling wine rather than Champagne. But what the hey ... l'chaim! Oh, and write your representatives to encourage them.