12 Oaks town home /condo in Schaumburg (Bath: apartments, rent, condos)

[arzhan]

Last week I went to see some townhomes/condos in '12oaks' (120 Kristin circle, Schaumburg). The townhomes start at 230k. They quoted a 2 Bed/2Bath Condo for 200K. I find the price very steep

I've lived(rented) in the city for 5 years. I did some google on the management nd heard mostly bad reviews. Thought would post on this forum.

>Being new to suburbs, I wanted to know if anyone has any good or bad feedback on the management (Sparks & Associates)
>Is the price worth it? 200K for a 2Bed/2Bath condo
>What would be the re-sale value?

THANKS FOR READING!

[arzhan]

Anybody? Atleast on the pricing?

[xxJoyfulxx]

I have a friend who went and looked at 12 Oaks as well, he had the same opinion as you - that FOR WHAT THEY WERE - they were too expensive.
In MY opinion, in that area, that is a GOOD price for a 2bd/2ba condo. But the problem with 12 Oaks seems to be that they have not really done too many improvements to the place since they were apartments. They aren't upgraded very well, still no W/D in some (most?) of the units and the improvements that WERE done, were done somewhat cheaply.
I've heard a lot of negative things about them - the units also are NOT selling as quickly as they would like you to think that they are. So re-sale value would be questionable and you would most likely have to hold onto it for 3+ years to even see if you could get a return.

Of course opinions are subjective and I don't mean to sound like any sort of an expert on these units. These are just things I have observed with my knowledge of the Schaumburg market, and the opinion of a couple credible people that I know, who have checked them out.

Good Luck!

[arzhan]

Thanks for your opinion.

They said out of the 175 units, 173 has been sold in 2 weeks. I'm not sure how much of this is true. I checked the price in zillow.com and found that a unit has been sold for 175K last month.

My purpose of buyin a home is:
>simply to avoid the huge rent I'm paying staying in the city
>Tax benefits
>ROI (for this i may have to wait fir 3 years)

[xxJoyfulxx]

I am almost certain they have NOT sold virtually all of their inventory even relatively that fast.
These condos went on the market nearly a year ago - I had friends who lived there when they were apartments, so I remember when they were bought and turned into condos. I lived in an apartment at the time and we started getting the direct mailing flyers about the condos. That was at least a year ago, if not more.
When they had the first "open houses" for the condos, I know they sold a good amount (about half was my impression).
From that time on, they have advertised like CRAZY. To the point where I can't barely stand to see the flyers because they have become so annoying. Every evening (around 5pm) for about 4+ months straight they hired an airplane to fly an ad banner around in the sky over their complex for a couple of hours. Everyone use to joke about the plane because it has to be the worst form of advertising.

So all I know is that after at LEAST 1 year of them being open, they have AGGRESSIVELY advertised and they would not be doing that if they only had 2 units (give or take) left in their inventory.
Because of the reasons I mentioned in my last post, I'm sure they are exaggerating about those numbers and these units are not at all in demand as they say they are.

I'm not at all discouraging you or being negative about the units, like I said, it might be the perfect situation for you given your reasons for buying. I just want to make sure that you look around and make an informed decision before you buy something because they told you that the units are priced great and in high demand - it's just overall exaggerated that's all.

Good Luck!!