Current tenants can buy their apartments at a 5 percent discount.

The insider price is about half that, but so far no tenants have bought.

In a deal struck in 1994, the tenants bought the building for just over $550,000.

If their tenants won't buy, someone else will, and the tenant must move, she added.

One tenant has since bought from the bank "at a very favorable price," he said.

The idea is to help such a tenant buy a first home within the window period.

But the tenants soon buy their own house, leaving ours empty.

In 1985 the tenants, some of whom had been there since the world's fair, formed a limited partnership and bought the building.

My husband was manager of the building after the tenants bought it from the city.

In some cases, tenants are buying their buildings through nonprofit corporations.