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My lease expires on the 31st of October at the current condo I live in. I've been renting here for the past 2 years and my oh my how high rental prices have gone up around the area since then. I've been figuring that since I'm paying $750ish w/ electric + internet now, I could afford to pay another $300 and actually eventually own the property I'm putting money in instead of throwing it away. I'm interested in the possibility of buying a property, one where I don't have to worry too much about doing major repairs myself or other things like lawn maintenance, not until I at least decide to settle down and that won't be for another 5 years or so. I figured that a condo or townhouse would be the best choice for me and with the places I'm looking at, the HOA fees seem to hover around $299 to $375.
What I really want to do is get the closest estimate possible on what my monthly and yearly expenses would be. Would anyone be able to give any advice on how much property tax and insurance would be for a condo no bigger than 1025 feet in Clearwater, Palm Harbor, or Largo? Anything else I should know about Pinellas county rates?
I've been looking at primarily three areas for 1 or 2 BR apts.
Innisbrook Resorts, Cove Cay, and Grand Bellagio.
Siding with Cove Cay and Grand Bellagio in Clearwater since commute to work is less than 10 minutes where as Innisbrook is 20+ minutes.
Preferably would love a 2 BR, as this gives me the possibility of having a roommate to share expenses with or just to make my office, but it depends on the price overall and what's in the market right now. I'm not married, no kids and have excellent credit. Also, I'm open to considering other places so as long as its a quiet neighborhood.
Ask what the HOA covers and some cover insurance. You can get tax information from the county website for the house you are interested in with the understanding what the current owner pay may not be what you will end up paying but you get an estimate.
You can get tax information from the county website for the house you are interested in with the understanding what the current owner pay may not be what you will end up paying but you get an estimate.
No, that is completely wrong. What the current person pays has nothing to do with what you will pay. If my elderly neighbors next door sold their house, the taxes would rise from $2,000 a year to $10,000 for the new owner. This is how a lot of people underestimated their costs and went broke during the last real estate boom.
Check the milleage rate for the property. Then take what you are going to pay for the property, subtract $50k, and multiply by that rate. That is a much more accurate view of what the new taxes will be.
It's likely that the assessed value is going to be different than the purchase price. It's usually lower. The Pinellas County Property Appraiser's website has put the preliminary 2014 information for most properties on its website, so you can look at the just/market value and get an idea that way. Don't look at the assessed value/SOH cap number, as that won't apply to you.
You can get a rough estimate by multiplying the market value by the millage rate. If the millage rate is 25.123, multiply the market value by 0.025123. That will not include your homestead exemption. To include the homestead exemption do what chi_tino said and reduce the assessed value by $50,000. That will actually underestimate your taxes, as school taxes are only based off of a $25,000 exemption. Also keep in mind that you won't get the homestead exemption next year unless you're living in the property on January 1st.
I would definitely suggest working with a Realtor who is familiar with the condo market in Pinellas County. The HOAs of lots of properties are in bad financial shape with a large amount of delinquent owners. Banks are leery to lend to people if they're moving into these properties without sizable down payments. A knowledgable agent can steer you in the right direction.
Cove Cay and Grand Bellagio are both nice complexes.
Best way to get an idea of possible taxes you'll be paying is to go the the Pinellas County property appraiser website and do a property search by address and when you find the specific property record look at what the tax would be without any exemptions or Save Our Homes cap. That would be the tax amount for a new buyer. If you buy and move into it by the 1st of next year then you would get the homestead exemption for that year which would reduce the tax amount by $700-$800.
Insurance is harder to estimate as it depends on amount of coverage, deductibles, etc. but since you're only insuring the interior of the condo and your belongings it could be in the $700-$800 a year range.
If you're getting financing to buy the condo, then both of these would be paid by your lender annually and you would pay 1/12 of the annual amount for each as part of your monthly mortgage payment.
You'll need to find out what you qualify for and what an estimated monthly mortgage payment would be at a certain price range. Then add on the monthly HOA to determine what your overall monthly expense for owning would be, whether you could afford that and based on all of that you'll have a better idea of how much you could afford to buy. Also, if you are putting less than 20% down there will likely be a mortgage insurance premium that will be tacked on to the monthly mortgage payment and that will have to be figured in also (when you speak with someone about financing they should be able to provide you with that info).
You've done one of the first steps you should be doing which is figuring out the area and possible complexes. The other part is figuring out the financial aspects and if you will be getting financing for your purchase you do need to find an experienced and qualified mortgage broker or loan officer who can help you with this step and who knows how to get loans approved for condos. Doing some research on your own as you are doing is not a bad idea but it will be better if you have a mortgage professional help with that as there are many factors you may not take into consideration - plus you'll need to get a preapproval if you find something and want to put in an offer.
Regarding the comment above that many HOAs are in financial trouble - that is true for some and especially ones that were condo conversions. Cove Cay was in good shape last time I had a client buy in there and Grand Bellagio was also in good shape last time I checked. But one of the steps of buying a condo is getting all condo documents including the most recent budget and if your contract is done correctly then you have 3 days to review the condo documents after receiving and if you find anything that is of concern you would have the right to cancel and get any deposit back. If your lender determines that the condo is in bad financial condition it is true that they would not approve the loan but the established complexes like Cove Cay and Grand Bellagio generally are not a problem. In the last 6 months, 2 of the sales at Grand Bellagio were done with conventional loans and 6 in Cove Cay had conventional loans so that should not be an issue with either of those complexes.
One thing to keep in mind is that to meet your timeline you will need to act soon. You have a little over 2 1/2 months until your lease is up and the steps to get a loan approved from the point where you get a contract can take 30-45 days.
First thing to do though is to make sure you know what you really qualify for and how much you can afford to buy and still stay within your budget. This includes knowing what you will need for your downpayment and closing costs, where that money will come from, getting a preapproval letter, etc. Once you have that fully worked out then the next step would be looking for condos in those 2 communites (and possibly others) that are in your price range.
Hopefully this helps answer some of your questions and provides you with resources for others as well as giving you an idea of what you need to be doing now to move things forward.
This is Pinellas MLS; let's you search by price, type of home, size, location, etc. It's more up to date than Zillow, Realtor.com, etc. because the MLS is the first place that homes are added by the listing agent. If you're interested in FSBO's, Zillow is best for those.
No, that is completely wrong. What the current person pays has nothing to do with what you will pay. If my elderly neighbors next door sold their house, the taxes would rise from $2,000 a year to $10,000 for the new owner. This is how a lot of people underestimated their costs and went broke during the last real estate boom.
Check the milleage rate for the property. Then take what you are going to pay for the property, subtract $50k, and multiply by that rate. That is a much more accurate view of what the new taxes will be.
Did you even bother to read my post? I said what the current owner pays may not be what he is going to pay but he get an estimate. That "may" comes from the fact that if the owner lived for a long time, the rates are capped yearly to CPI. We have beaten this to death on other posts. The OP can search how to get a more accurate estimate on a specific property. The "market value" the appraiser site put in is relatively insensitive to a single sales price and completely independent from the length the owner lived there. I even mention these probably thousand times. And that market value can be way different from sales price.
You are wrong that it is not the price that you are going to pay AT ALL that matters. It is what the appraiser says market value for it is. Using your logic, If somebody sold me a 500K house 100K for whatever reason perhaps my family member, my taxes is not going to be based on 100K sale value. People pay money for what ever reason (updated very well inside which can't be seen by county appraiser, etc.). What matters is the market value of the neighborhood that the appraiser puts value in by looking at all the neighborhood houses.
You are wrong that it is not the price that you are going to pay AT ALL that matters. It is what the appraiser says market value for it is. Using your logic, If somebody sold me a 500K house 100K for whatever reason perhaps my family member, my taxes is not going to be based on 100K sale value. People pay money for what ever reason (updated very well inside which can't be seen by county appraiser, etc.). What matters is the market value of the neighborhood that the appraiser puts value in by looking at all the neighborhood houses.
The OP did not say that they were getting a sweetheart deal from a relative.
The assessor weighs the purchase price very, very heavily in determining the market price because that transaction IS the market price. If you pay $500k as an independent buyer and the assessor thinks it is worth $700k, you will file an appeal and will almost certainly win. And why would the assessor intentially undervalue a property and leave tax money on the table?
People using past/wrong numbers for property taxes get themselves into trouble. Just ask Christine Hanson, soon to be the Treasurer for the Florida Realtors (and eventually President). She's currently in bankruptcy because she made some terrible financial decisions in real estate. That makes her the perfect representative for an organization that promotes financial irresponsibility.
Use the purchase price, subtract $50k, and multiply by the milleage rate. It's not rocket surgery.
The OP did not say that they were getting a sweetheart deal from a relative.
The assessor weighs the purchase price very, very heavily in determining the market price because that transaction IS the market price. If you pay $500k as an independent buyer and the assessor thinks it is worth $700k, you will file an appeal and will almost certainly win. And why would the assessor intentially undervalue a property and leave tax money on the table?
People using past/wrong numbers for property taxes get themselves into trouble. Just ask Christine Hanson, soon to be the Treasurer for the Florida Realtors (and eventually President). She's currently in bankruptcy because she made some terrible financial decisions in real estate. That makes her the perfect representative for an organization that promotes financial irresponsibility.
Use the purchase price, subtract $50k, and multiply by the milleage rate. It's not rocket surgery.
You are doing an Algia now, lol. You keep shifting the talking point. You did not read my post the first time and jumped in to put your unqualified opinion.. Again, the appraiser number for a house are consistent with the neighborhood price than the sale price of an individual house (kind of doing a spatial filtering). That is the fact. If you want to argue that point, carry on.
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