Screw condos. I’ll take a home where I can put up ham radio antennas and shoot guns, without pesky neighbors.
The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
21–30 of 104 posts
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#22a major point people dont consider is the HOA. Speaking from experience of a friend who was a plumber for one of these condo complexes: In a condo, if an HOA is required to fix plumbing or landscaping, paint, or roofing, then it comes out of the CAM fees paid by the residents. However, if the HOA does NOT pay for that work, or tries to stiff the construction firm they hire, the construction company can take out a lie…
54 people couldn't cough up $20k?
Another "tragedy of the commons" thing. It's only about $370 per person (or unit), but they're probably not all trying to sell at the same time, so you probably can't get them to all agree to it. So there's probably 5 people trying to sell at the moment and the rest refuse to pay up just to help those 5 sell, and they probably think that this might come up again in the future thanks to even more mismanagement.
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#23I'm remembering how weird of a place (Boston) I'm living in. > This is the New American Home for 2018. It’s a sprawling monstrosity of more than 10,690 feet (the lot encompasses 65,340 square feet). Even properties that Red Sox players are living in west of the city are rarely over 6,000sq/ft. When I see a listing for a home over 3,000sq/ft here it's a rarity. ~1200-2400 sq/ft homes are pretty average in the Boston/C…
$4,000,000 / 15,000ft^2 = $267 / 1ft^2 That's actually a steal (unit price wise) in the Boston/Cambridge market right now.
he said 9k sqft, 15k sqft "estate" whatever that means. At 9k it's $444/sqft.
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
54 people couldn't cough up $20k?
54 people couldn't pay the bare modicum of attention to their HOA's budget to stop them from spending on meals and vacations that have nothing to do with the HOA's role?
I've lived in HOA neighborhoods before; the power any individual resident has over the HOA is nearly nil. You'd basically have to run around to all the neighbors and convince them to vote for someone else at the next board election; it's just like regular government politics that way.
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#25Granted I only skimmed the article, but it seemed rather myopic to me. Why is the "dream home" assumed to be in an urban/suburban area? Why not in a small town or rural area?
In January 2018, we moved back from Charlottesville, VA (which itself isn't even "urban") to Harrison, AR. I was able to buy a five bedroom, two bath home on a half acre in a quiet neighborhood for under $125k.
My wife and I are beginning to put together our requirements for our next home, which will likely be a bit further from other people, outside city limits, and likely be on 5-10 acres. The cost will till be far less than even a three bedroom townhome would have been in Charlottesville.
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#26Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#27a major point people dont consider is the HOA. Speaking from experience of a friend who was a plumber for one of these condo complexes: In a condo, if an HOA is required to fix plumbing or landscaping, paint, or roofing, then it comes out of the CAM fees paid by the residents. However, if the HOA does NOT pay for that work, or tries to stiff the construction firm they hire, the construction company can take out a lie…
54 people couldn't cough up $20k?
I had a friend go through a roof replacement in his condo complex that cost $13k for each condo owner. I know nothing about plumbing but maybe it was per owner?
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#28What is the point of these opinion pieces? Why should we care about what someone at New York Times says over any other person? These kind of articles must be made simply to drive traffic and stimulate rage. It will be interpreted as just another coastal elite telling Americans they should aspire to live and die in a cold steel and concrete box partitioned out in a shared building with neighbors on all sides pestering…
You don't need to read the NYT if you don't want to. They publish things that people seem to enjoy reading.
Concrete is warmer than wood, it's a much better insulator.
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#29Personally I'm a fan of tightly packed townhomes (or, SFH packed with just a few inches between them, as seen in some places), but I think an important step towards the walkable urbanism the authors want is simply to remove unnecessary restrictions on housing. Like, I get that some people want big lawns and backyards but I don't get why this needs to be the only housing that's legal in the majority of all suburbs in…
The big problem with townhomes and apartments is shoddy construction making neighbors a noise nuisance. Also, economics is weird. Townhomes cost almost the same as nearby houses, perhaps because they are relatively limited supply and more cost-efficient to maintain, so people look at the sticker price and think "oh, I can get a lot more footage for a little more price". Also, townhomes tend to get built as sound buff…
Townhomes, at least in the Portland OR suburbs, cost exactly the same as stand alone homes while being typically smaller, sometimes with a one-car garage, and maybe only a small backyard (sometimes no backyard). While the list price of the townhome is typically less, you can pay hundreds of dollars per month for a HOA which brings your monthly payment up to almost the same price as a stand alone home.
Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo
#30a major point people dont consider is the HOA. Speaking from experience of a friend who was a plumber for one of these condo complexes: In a condo, if an HOA is required to fix plumbing or landscaping, paint, or roofing, then it comes out of the CAM fees paid by the residents. However, if the HOA does NOT pay for that work, or tries to stiff the construction firm they hire, the construction company can take out a lie…
Are condo HOAs typically run by insane petty dictators who will demand absolute perfection in lawns, house trim, and the shapes your car leaves in your driveway?
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/nation-world/national/ar...