To be specific, this question pertains to Condominium (condo) sales in Manhattan, NOT co-op sales. The closing process for a co-op is very different than a condominium sales.
How quickly you can close on your Manhattan NY Condominium purchase depends on a couple of different things.
Is it a New Construction condo or Resale Manhattan New York condo?
Are you buying it ALL CASH or FINANCING?
What kind of building you are purchasing in?
If you are buying a new construction condominium that has their certificate of occupancy and is completed enough that you can move in, then you could probably close within a couple of weeks once the contracts are signed, if you are paying cash for the property. There is no condo application to submit or condo board waiver needed. Your closing will depend on how quickly the attorneys can schedule the closing.
If you are buying a resale condominium all cash, then you will have to submit a condominium purchase application, a credit check will be completed, and the condominium board typically has a first right of refusal for the apartment and they must issue a waiver for you to be able to schedule a closing for the apartment. So in this case the closing depends on how quickly you can submit the application (here is blog post we wrote about condo sales applications). Often sales applications require some financial documentation, maybe reference letters, documents to be notarized, etc. The longer it takes for the application to be submitted the longer it takes you to close on the Manhattan NY Condo. Once the application is submitted the first thing the management company usually does are the credit and background checks. Each management company works at a different pace, often they will say they have 5-7 business days, to complete the checks, which in reality can turn into 2 weeks. Then they give the board the application. Each building is different, but each building will have a certain amount of time they are allowed to review the application, often 3-4 weeks. The board might not take the full 3-4 weeks, sometimes they might issue the waiver in a week, but sometimes it could be the full amount of time. Once the board issues the waiver for you to purchase then a closing can be scheduled. All in, you are probably looking at approximately 30 days-60 days once the contracts are signed until you can move into the apartment in a resale condominium.
How are you purchasing the Manhattan NY Condo? (All Cash vs. Financing)
An all cash purchase is always the fastest way to close on a Manhattan New York. This means you have all the funds for closing in the bank account, and/or the funds are in an account that can be wired/transfer to a New York bank account to issue the check.
If you are financing the purchase that is probably going to double the amount of time it can take compared to the cash option. One of the big realities of getting financing for a Manhattan NY condominium in today’s lending environment is that the bank will not only be qualifying you as a borrower but they will also be looking at the building if they want to do a loan in the building. The qualification of the building is going to be different for every bank. One bank might be okay with doing a loan in the particular condo building and another may not, even though the banks are using the same information about the building to determine their desire to give you a loan for that building.
Qualifying the Manhattan Condo building is a process that will add time to the closing. We have seen certain banks able to qualify the building and the buyer, do the appraisal, issue the commitment letter and have underwriting give a clear to close in 45 days from the time of contract signing, but we have also experienced when it takes more than 5 months for the bank to finally give the clear to close.
What also adds time to the closing when you are financing is that in a re-sale condominium building, the purchase application will often require the purchaser to submit the commitment letter from the bank within the application. As we have already discussed, once the application is in the hands of the board in can easily take 30 days to get the board’s approval. Once the board issues the waiver that the buyer can purchase, then the bank will have the underwriters look at the buyer’s information again before they issue a clear to close.
As you can probably easily see, the process can become arduous and consuming very quickly because there are so many integral steps that have to be done one at a time when financing your purchase.
Conclusion:
Every buyer’s situation will be different and there is no one step by step map for every purchase. Depending on what you are buying, how you are buying (all cash vs financing), and the building you are purchasing in will determine the approximate amount of time it will take to close.
If you want to know more about what to expect for your OWN situation, contact us today and we will talk to you about how long it will take for you to close on your Manhattan NY condominium.
