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As someone who has renovated two houses and moved two years ago into a condo, all I have to say is "Totally worth it." My wife is the CFO of a large commercial real estate operation and she says the same. We traded in our 3,500 sf house with all the charm in the world for a 1,400 sf condo. And we have yet to miss the square footage we gave up. What's more, we gained a pool, exercise rooms, and more. Not to mention a killer view from our balcony. The place is solidly-built, so we never hear our neighbors. It's well maintained by two guys who have been here 10 years. And while we have a solid HOA, we really don't have officious biddies roaming the grounds, nitpicking everything we do.
First thing's first. Not all condos are the same. Some are well-run, some are not. So you need to make sure you buy a condo that has a good board, a solid reserve, and an ongoing maintenance program. Before you buy, you should be asking about past issues as well as anticipated future outlays and assessments. That doesn't preclude the unexpected, but it should tell you a lot. And make sure the HOA rules are common sense, not just an accretion of nonsensical stuff. It should mainly exist to make sure the grounds are well-maintained and nobody plays Van Halen at peak volume at 11 at night.
In fact, I'll go one further. Someone on here previously talked about all the horror stories about condos. Well, hell, you'll find similar horror stories about houses, apartments, mobile homes, and RVs down at the KOA Campground. Every living arrangement has advantages and drawbacks.
Second, a good condo association will get a lot of the same services you'd be buying anyway at a significant cost savings. As one example, our water, natural gas, and cable/internet are all part of the monthly fees. Add that to the fact that our electric bill is about 1/3rd what it was living in our previous home, and we're actually ahead of the financial game (Not to mention that we're paying a mortgage fully 1/3rd what we paid before). Plus we have all the amenities. Hell of a deal, if you ask me.
Third, there are the hidden costs of maintaining a home. You know, the hundred little trips to the hardware store or wherever, the yardwork, you name it. And a lot of things that you can't do yourself no matter how handy you are. In truth, you're already assessing yourself for all kinds of maintenance. If you are as much a lickpenny as you claim to be, then surely you know how much you're pouring into what you describe as a money pit of a house.
Me? In the five years before we sold our house, I had to a) fix the driveway and repave it, b) put a new roof on the house, c) rebuild a deck, and d) reinforce a creek bank running through our property. Mind you, I'm a guy who can put up drywall and run wiring with the best of them. But those are the kinds of things I'd be an idiot to try myself. Ergo, $$$$.
Finally, do you really want to spend all your time and energy keeping up a house? Hey, if it's your bag, then great. But I have to say that I really enjoy not spending every damned weekend roaming the aisles of Home Depot or shoving a lawnmower over my half-acre of grass. There are about a zillion things I'd rather be doing with my time.
Time is as valuable than money. Moving into a condo has give me back a heck of lot of that.
Water and sewage monthly costs for my two person home can be up to $175 a month. A $200 fee is a bargain.
But there's nothing like the character of a historic home. Condos are a dime a dozen. But just my opinion
Of course, there are also historic condos; the one I'm considering was built in the 1920s in a major city center as an apartment building and has all the charm one would expect from that era. Just look at the Dakota in NYC, for instance... But the burden of "historic charm" isn't borne by just you alone in a shared building.
After renting in a townhouse development with a condo HOA and owning a SFH with an HOA, I'd rather live in a cardboard box under a bridge than ever deal with the covenants and obsessive board members ever again.
After renting in a townhouse development with a condo HOA and owning a SFH with an HOA, I'd rather live in a cardboard box under a bridge than ever deal with the covenants and obsessive board members ever again.
I have lived in HOA in IL, MA, and SC. I love them.
See the space at the top of the page that says "Search Forums"?
Put in the word condo and click on "find."
You'll find hundreds, maybe thousands, of condo horror stories that should make you shy away from buying one.
And horror stories about SFH's, historic old homes, brand new homes where the builder screws the buyers, townhouses, rentals, landlords, tenants.
What's your point?
While I'm sure a Condo HOA can be filled with difficult people, I'd be more less concerned in a condo given that I'd expect to have less that they could nitpick me on, as opposed to a single family house in an HOA (where I'd have the exterior of the home, lawn, garden, etc.) What does the condo HOA tell me? You can't hang your wreath on the door? Fine.
After renting in a townhouse development with a condo HOA and owning a SFH with an HOA, I'd rather live in a cardboard box under a bridge than ever deal with the covenants and obsessive board members ever again.
Sure. But, as I pointed out earlier, there are good condo boards and bad ones.
I've lived in condos and SFHs. I do prefer to write one check to the condo and have it all done for me, but that is up to you. Here are things my condo provides, and I will probably forget some:
Maintenance on the outside of the condo
Swimming pool maintenance
Gym maintenance
Cable TV
Internet
Water and Sewer
Landscaping
Pest control
A/C and heating unit on the top of the building, my electric bills average only $50 a month (1200 sq ft) so this has to be keeping my bills low
Security - I live in a condo in a city area, we share security with ground floor restaurants and shops
Having owned, lived in, and managed as a landlord a series of houses, mostly old and historic, I really feel, as I head into retirement, that I am OVER the historic old house thing. Charming money pits, and I absolutely loathe dealing with the maintenance, especially exterior. I'm honestly tempted to go the condo route next time but, being extremely frugal, just can't justify to myself paying $200 or more a month for, essentially, free water, sewer, and garbage and maybe snow removal (it doesn't snow here). Also, garbage is free here. Water is a couple of dollars a month; sewer is $20 something. I intellectually (or at least theoretically) understand that it goes into a fund to maintain the exterior of the building but, honestly, how often does this really pay off? It seems any MAJOR expense, and you'll pay an assessment (basically, you're paying for the exterior repair just like you did when you owned an entire house) ON TOP OF the $200-plus to have your free garbage picked up. A condo I have my eye on at the moment doesn't offer a pool or any other amenity that would compensate. Of course, there are downsides: noisy neighbors. Then there's some added difficulty in selling when that time comes versus a SFH. What benefit am I missing that would make this acceptable in my penny-pinching eyes, or is it really a rip-off that people accept for the convenience of condo-living???
I believe in comparing apples to apples. Having a business that we owned for 21 years that dealt with exclusively condominiums, I have to say I agree with you. You pay more for that convenience. But there are economies of scale. There’s no way at all that you could get a cleaning person to do the common areas of your house for 20 bucks a month. Which is essentially what every unit in one building paid me per month.
I would if I were you, I’d get some bids on things that condominium owners pay for like landscaping, common area cleaning, trash, water, electricity for the common areas, cable TV if that’s included, it was at one of our places, Internet, for your house. What would it cost if instead of you doing all this stuff, you hired people in on a contractual basis to do it. I know at my house I spend $130 a month on landscaping, more if they have to tarp it up and take it somewhere.
And then you have to add a little bit for the fees for the management company which as far as I remember aren’t as high as everybody thinks they are. If they were higher, your property manager would be able to concentrate more on your property instead of having to concentrate on 15 others to make any money.
Also, you have to have a set aside reserve fund. Not to mention the buildings that I worked for that were well well-managed, when they replaced carpet, the next month they were starting to put money in the carpet fund, something they called the general ledger account. Over 10 years they had enough money to replace the carpet again which after 10 years of heavy use needed to be replaced.
So it might be a little difficult to compare apples to apples, but I think you can get pretty close if you really do your due diligence. And then you will see if it’s worth it or not. I just don’t know about the neighbors thing because, out of the 16 buildings that we cleaned over our business lifetime with 21 years, all of them had nebby neighbors, the outrageous demands, management not being able to deal with certain things(homelessness), residents abusing the trash system, dumping, it was a nightmare sometimes. And I’m really glad I don’t have to do it anymore. Retirement suits me to a T.
But one of the funniest things I ran into was the rule of the white curtains. The window coverings chosen by the homeowner had to face the exterior as white. So if you bought burgundy drapes they had to be lined in white. Not a biggie. I had a woman buy a unit and she had her rooms repainted. She chose to paint her rooms deep vibrant colors. And then she had the audacity to open the curtains.
I ran into four people who complained about the color of her walls. One was so incensed, she invited me into her unit so I could witness this. What I noted was that everything that faced the window was white. So either she had all white curtains or they were line, but the curtains were white. And I said to this woman you don’t have the right to look into her unit. You don’t have the right to tell her what she can paint her walls.
Yeah, I got reported. But the manager did tell me that he told them all the same thing because he was getting tons of complaints about it too. That’s the level of bullpuckey you have to deal with when you’re living in a place like that. There’s not enough money in the world to make me live in a places like that.
And granted I only had 16 buildings. But they were all sizes from small buildings to really big buildings, and they all had drama, and they were all price points from very wealthy to the middle class.
__________________ Solly says — Be nice!
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Solly says — Be nice!
