Single family home and townhouse in same community - is it a negative? (Plano: low income)

[frankylake]

I am thinking to buy a single family home in community with $350+ single family home and 150+ town home in same community. As single family home and town home will bring in different income group together would this be negative from re-sale perspective?

nothing againt lower income group but just want to make sure the investment value does not go down.

[MckinneyOwnr]

My own personal view is that it's a negative when resale is concerned. The townhomes have a greater likelihood of being occupied by renters, not owners, and that impacts the resale of the neighborhood as a whole. I've talked to a few realtors about this same issue and the ones I've talked to have agreed that it's definitely not a plus. However, if you can buy the home for under "market" value, it still may make sense to purchase, provided you get enough of a deal.

As a general rule though, I'd say it would hurt resale a bit, or at the least, tether the SFH's so they don't appreciate as much as they normally would.

[rantanamo]

Its going to be different per neighborhood. I would take each case individually.

[GreyDay]

Your best bet is to break even on a townhome. However, low income groups aside, there's nothing you can do to guarantee the value of your home won't go down.

Historically safe bets have been Park Cities then Southlake/Westlake and parts of Plano. Still around 2009-2011 there were homes down 20% in some of those locales.

However as they like to say, 'past performance is no guarantee'.

[TheOverdog]

Completely agree with GreyDay. Outside those areas listed (and a small few others) what you should expect in the DFW area is not that your home appreciates no matter what it's built next to, but just rather that it hold its value. It's very tough though, as the metroplex is relentlessly sprawling and reading the average post here will show you the mindset that newer is better and TXDOT does a really good job of keeping the highways ready to support the sprawl.

In other words, the group of people willing to pay $200k for a used house is smaller when they can drive 20 minutes farther north and get a brand new house of equal or slightly greater sq footage for $180k and that $180k house is in a master planned community and the older one isn't. Of course, if gas increases greatly, then that equation changes, but I wouldn't bet on that happening any time soon.

[frankylake]

thax all for your feedback