[SandyJet]

Originally Posted by BBMW

I'm a little leery of rental conversion condos. I think a lot of converted complexes never "took" as owner occupied housing, and have traded a single professional landlord for many amateur landlords. If you want someplace where you're dealing with neighbors who own their units, this is probably not the type of place you want to buy into. Then again, there are lots of SF house developments in Vegas that have gone that way now.

It depends. I have owned in two of them.

Back in 1991 I bought a unit in a rent stabalized non-eviction building where owner had 1/3 of building empty, 1/3 of renters bought at a discount and 1/3 of renters refused to buy.

I sold in 2000 and my friend who still lives in building told me it was not until maybe 2007 that the renter mentality wore off. My neighbor had a large rent stabilized tenant and she smoked in hallways and did whatever she felt like. The building legally could not fine her as her rent stabalized lease trumped the buildings rules for owners

My current place was a non rent stabilized type place. Owner of apartment building just stopped renewing leases till building was empty and then he renovated the entire complex and then sold the condo units to new owners with no discount to old renters of which none of them bought the units.

Trouble with my current condo it is trapped in the 1970s with design of building and back in 1970s we had garden apt style apt with no ammenities other than some grass and your own parking spots and each unit has a deck with room for a BBQ and chairs. Remember folks lived in junky apts in the 1950s/1960s. My building was built with central AC and cable ready with assigned parking which is a big deal back then

Today condo units near me have pools, tennis courts, club houses, gyms, party rooms, golf courses all sorts of things which we have none of. We tend to attract newlweds, start home folk, old people on a budget or folks who want to rent out unit. None of these folks want to pay extra for ammenities or pay high maint.

[BBMW]

I've never heard of Vegas having anything like rent stabilization. Being from NYC, I'm very familiar with that. I thought all private rentals in Clark County were market rate. What am I missing here?

Originally Posted by SandyJet

It depends. I have owned in two of them.

Back in 1991 I bought a unit in a rent stabalized non-eviction building where owner had 1/3 of building empty, 1/3 of renters bought at a discount and 1/3 of renters refused to buy.

I sold in 2000 and my friend who still lives in building told me it was not until maybe 2007 that the renter mentality wore off. My neighbor had a large rent stabilized tenant and she smoked in hallways and did whatever she felt like. The building legally could not fine her as her rent stabalized lease trumped the buildings rules for owners

My current place was a non rent stabilized type place. Owner of apartment building just stopped renewing leases till building was empty and then he renovated the entire complex and then sold the condo units to new owners with no discount to old renters of which none of them bought the units.

Trouble with my current condo it is trapped in the 1970s with design of building and back in 1970s we had garden apt style apt with no ammenities other than some grass and your own parking spots and each unit has a deck with room for a BBQ and chairs. Remember folks lived in junky apts in the 1950s/1960s. My building was built with central AC and cable ready with assigned parking which is a big deal back then

Today condo units near me have pools, tennis courts, club houses, gyms, party rooms, golf courses all sorts of things which we have none of. We tend to attract newlweds, start home folk, old people on a budget or folks who want to rent out unit. None of these folks want to pay extra for ammenities or pay high maint.

[SandyJet]

So if in Vegas owner has ability to throw out all the tenants some rental conversions could be pretty good. But you need to do a ton of research.

[lvoc]

The problem with conversions is that the apartment buildings have different systems than a condo. They often lack water meters and individual unit heat or AC. That has to be fixed in a conversion and it is often badly done. They also are often poorly insulated between units and floors. The units in LVCC for instance were pretty bad. The set in the NW corner of Desert Shores were awful but ran into a brick wall as the developing corporation dissolved and the insurance ran out of money.

[BBMW]

Are you in/talking about Vegas in your original post?

Edit: So I see you post in the Long Island forums. So I guess that's where you are. Vegas is a vastly different world than NYC Metro.

Originally Posted by SandyJet

So if in Vegas owner has ability to throw out all the tenants some rental conversions could be pretty good. But you need to do a ton of research.

[SandyJet]

Originally Posted by lvoc

The problem with conversions is that the apartment buildings have different systems than a condo. They often lack water meters and individual unit heat or AC. That has to be fixed in a conversion and it is often badly done. They also are often poorly insulated between units and floors. The units in LVCC for instance were pretty bad. The set in the NW corner of Desert Shores were awful but ran into a brick wall as the developing corporation dissolved and the insurance ran out of money.

My condo dont laugh, all five buildings have chimneys. When it was a rental and heat and hot water included each building had an oil or gas burner and one water heater.

In conversion cheapskate did not want to install gas lines and individual gas burners so he shoved in an electric outdoor HVAC each unit and electric water heaters, threw out old burner and hot water heater for whole building and left chimneys up.

Stupid stuff. In a new condo conversion there would be gas in building. Electric heat, ovens and dryers are expensive to operate.

[SandyJet]

Originally Posted by BBMW

Are you in/talking about Vegas in your original post?

Edit: So I see you post in the Long Island forums. So I guess that's where you are. Vegas is a vastly different world than NYC Metro.

I am interested in condos and real estate does not matter where.

Vegas has this huge condo bubble in 2002-2007 and Long Island had a similar one in 1978 to 1988.

Now we have lots of old apartments buildings from 1960s that got cheap face lifts 30 years ago that have infarstructre issues and not really built for todays standards.

A real condo built from ground up in 1985 is holding up a lot better in 2015 than a building built in 1960 converted to condo in 1985.

Some of the older rental conversions had devastating damage in Sandy down by the beach in Long Island.

Also fires are a huge issues, mainly have shared attics when one unit goes on fire they all do. And many have lower level units at the beach. All stuff illegal now.

[BBMW]

I grew up on LI. In a lot of ways, LI is like Vegas in that it's a very single family detached residence-centric market. There's some multifamily, but that's a minor issue to the rest of the market.

Vegas is very much the same way. The meat of the market is SFR. When things got really hot in the mid-zeros, there was a bit of a condo rush. Now they've become largely speculative toys, with a large part of the resident base being renters. Compared to NYC Metro, single family houses are so cheap that condos don't really make sense for owner occupancy.

[SandyJet]

Originally Posted by BBMW

I grew up on LI. In a lot of ways, LI is like Vegas in that it's a very single family detached residence-centric market. There's some multifamily, but that's a minor issue to the rest of the market.

Vegas is very much the same way. The meat of the market is SFR. When things got really hot in the mid-zeros, there was a bit of a condo rush. Now they've become largely speculative toys, with a large part of the resident base being renters. Compared to NYC Metro, single family houses are so cheap that condos don't really make sense for owner occupancy.

Pretty much similar on Long Island with exception of Long Beach.

That is the area my condo is in. Only my mechanical were lost in sandy, no water in the unit and since it is a slash/vacation rental home flood insurance increases are not hitting me as I fall under RCBAP condo master flood policy and I dont need contents coverage as I have an upper.

But where my primary is my single family property taxes are less than a similar sized condo and I have no maint. My gardner charges 25 bucks a month. A condo makes sense manily for older retired couple

Condo prices they say recover last from a recession and are first to fall when a recession starts.