The apartment buildings located in the Five Towns area fall into two main categories. One variety is large garden apartment developments featuring two floors, some with balconies, many without, but usually surrounded by beautiful gardens and lawns intermingled with the individual buildings contained in those complexes. The second category is the elevator building which contains more than two floors, and usually offers an underground garage accessible by elevator from the interior. Although this second category is more desirable, it is found in only a small percentage of the existing co-op or condo stock of apartments in our area.
I imagine that in the past, all these complexes were built with the rental customer in mind, and tenants rented these units for periods of time and then moved on to larger horizons. Today, with nearly all these developments turning co-op (only a very small percentage in the Five Towns are condo), a different kind of customer is looking at these units with an eye towards purchase rather than rental.
A purchase customer has different priorities than a tenant. A tenant can pick up and go when the apartment no longer suits him or is just happy to get a rental he can afford and makes do; whereas a co-op purchaser has to think about the future resale value of an apartment unit they may buy as well as wanting comfort since they are investing money in the apartment from the outset.
A buyer is going to look more closely than a tenant at the convenience of an available co-op apartment for sale and the amenities that are included in that sale. A buyer might want a certain location in the complex, such as the first floor so they do not have to run up and down stairs, or possibly a certain layout found in one unit that might be preferable to the layout in another. They might also be looking for amenities that offer them some convenience such as easy access to parking.
At one time, young couples might have purchased a co-op apartment as a way to start their new life together, living there for a few years and then selling their apartment to another young couple and then moving on, possibly into larger quarters or even a house.
Today we are seeing a radical change in the population of people purchasing co-op apartments in our neighborhood. Although you will see a percentage of young people buying apartments to start out, the larger percentage of co-op buyers today are people either retiring or already retired, downsizing and moving into apartment space neatly configured on one floor for easy movement, and availing themselves of the services offered by the various co-op developments, which may consist of a variety of maintenance items included with the purchase of the apartments.
Maintenance might include heat, water, landscaping, snow removal, building repairs (which an older dweller would be grateful not to have to consider any longer), and built-in amenities such as security solutions, parking garages, community rooms, storage rooms, etc.
I fail to understand, as the garden apartment developments become increasingly inhabited by an older population, why the residents have not gotten together to improve some very uncomfortable features of these developments—really quality-of-life issues that cause difficulty rather than ease.
Most of the garden apartment complexes here in town feature underground garages which need to be accessed by exiting the various buildings and then walking down steep staircases in order to enter the garage and storage areas. Although one or two complexes have included at least one entrance each that has steep ramps, this is really not a very good solution for daily use.
Some of these complexes have the space within the individual buildings to install small elevators which could be used to access the basement areas more easily. Installing some kind of elevator in each building would even enhance the value of the second-floor units in these buildings, which typically are much harder to sell than the first-floor units, due to the stairways and inability for some people to navigate them either by themselves or with carriages or shopping carts.
I have seen these small elevators regularly being installed in very small buildings in Israel as the owners of apartments in those small buildings get together and get it done. If all the co-op owners in each development would pool funds towards creating solutions for installing these elevators, not only would it enhance the access options of their buildings to the individual floors as well as the garage and basement, it would also increase the value of their apartments immediately upon installation.
Elevator designers have become very creative, offering a variety of flexible options for smaller spaces which might have been altogether unheard of years ago. These options have also become more cost-effective.
With all the second-floor units available in town as well as those customers walking away from the possible purchase of beautiful units because of the discomfort of walking those steep stairways down to the garage, don’t you think it’s time for developments to reinvent themselves in a fashion that would be a win-win situation for both owner as well as purchaser? Time to sit down and talk, folks!

Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a licensed real-estate broker and a licensed N.Y.S. mortgage broker with over 20 years of experience, offering full-service residential and commercial real-estate services (Anessa V Cohen Realty) and mortgaging services (First Meridian Mortgage) in the Five Towns and throughout the tri-state area. She can be reached at 516-569-5007 or via her website, www.AVCrealty.com. Readers are encouraged to send questions or comments to anessa.cohen@AVCrealty.com.