NY Mortgage Co. closes 405 loans in 2 weeks

Real Estate Weekly, Feb 26, 2003

Funding what is believed to be an unprecedented volume of residential mortgages in Manhattan by a single lender for any two-week period, The New York Mortgage Company LLC has closed on 405 condominium end loans, totaling more than $102 million, for tenants of Ruppert-Yorkville Towers on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

The 1,247-unit high-rise community, stretching from Second to Third Avenues and from East 91st to East 92nd Streets, is a former Mitchell-Lama subsidized rental complex that has just been converted to open-market condos. Residents of about 850 units chose to purchase their apartments, and virtually all of the closings took place between Jan. 30 and Feb. 14.

The New York Mortgage Company (NYMC), which made nearly half, of the mortgages, is the only lender to have committed loans in triple-digit volume for Ruppert-Yorkville Towers. The closings were held en masse in 10,000 SF of unoccupied space leased solely for this unusual event at 450 West 33rd St.

"It was the most remarkable and gratifying experience of my career," says Teresa Donohue, vice president and sales manager, who oversaw the closings for NYMC. "We proved that with speed and carefully honed efficiency, you can do what is seemingly impossible."

Donohue says that a majority of NYMC's borrowers chose fixed-rate over adjustable loan products, although a small minority selected mortgages that are interest-only for the first several years. "The choice had a lot to do with whether the buyer intends to remain at Ruppert for the foreseeable future, or primarily bought the apartment m order to resell within a short time frame," she explains. "Tenants who have been there for many years were used to a stabilized monthly expense for shelter and generally took advantage of today's low fixed rates to ensure a continuation of predictable monthly costs."

The insider prices at Ruppert-Yorkville Towers ranged from about $150,000 to $750,000, for one- to three-bedroom apartments.