Whither Northeast Queens Co-ops?

It's a sector of the real estate market that normally doesn’t receive much attention. 

For starters, the wave of foreclosures that decimated whole blocks elsewhere never materialized in the well-kept grounds surrounding area cooperative buildings — thanks largely to choosy co-op boards boasting stringent income "formulas" for potential buyers.

Yet the financial crunch from the five-year-old (and counting) housing bust has unfolded in less visible, but no less devastating, ways.

And for those with fixed incomes and buyers that purchased their units near the top of the market, the pain may even be deepening. 

The culprit? Unlike owners of single-family homes, the problem isn't just slumping prices — though that is certainly not helping co-op owners looking to recoup their investment.

Instead, for co-ops, it's a "perfect storm." On one hand, shareholders are being pushed by declining values for their units. On the other, a steady increase in maintenance costs at many buildings is hitting shareholders in a one-two punch of diabolical proportions. 

Add to the mix the city's for 2011-12 — which area co-op presidents say would be passed along in the form of higher maintenance fees — well, then you have the recipe for the kind of anger seen at meetings  last month. 

With outside forces (read: taxes, insurance, fuel costs) driving higher maintenance costs unlikely to end anytime soon, what of the long-awaited stabilization in Queens co-op share prices?

According to several area realtors contacted this afternoon, the price slide had yet to abate.

"Most sales seem to be generated by people cutting their prices," said Gerard O’Connell of Bryce Rea Realty in Little Neck. "When the prices do go lower there are buyers."

According to O'Connell, stringent income guidelines, an aversion to pets among many co-op board members and high maintenance fees may also be putting a crimp on sales. 

Some Little Neck Patch readers reported fees of around $550 rising to about $800 in only a few years time. According to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, the maintenance on a Little Neck two-bedroom co-op unit in on the market for $242,000 was given as $711.

For Lou Matinale, office manager at Station Realty in Douglaston, there was a silver lining to the price declines. 

"Today co-ops are more affordable for first-time buyers," Matinale said. "We've been selling more co-ops and condos than anything else for the last year-and-a-half."

Even with glimmers of hope on the horizon, there was still plenty of pain in the Queens co-op market. 

"Unfortunately, sometimes we meet people who paid that top dollar and cannot accept that their units are not worth what they once were three or four years ago," he said.