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The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

nytimes.com

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Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#51

Post by notJim »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #25

Granted 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…

The rural lifestyle you're describing has a much higher ecological impact than an urban lifestyle. And many people now, myself included, prefer a lively city where I meet and see lots of people, rather than the isolation of rural life.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#52

Post by esoterica »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #25

Granted 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…

The article was focusing on the environmental impact of different living situations, and rural living is horrifically environmentally unfriendly. It would also be financially untenable if rural areas weren’t massively subsidized by urban economic centers. If you had to pay for the true cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure you use (which would be amortized over very few people due to the low population density) you wouldn’t be bragging about how cheap rural living is.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#53

Post by alistairSH »

gowld wrote: post #15
helen___keller wrote: post #13

Personally 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…

Those problems are solvable. My perception... the real problem is Americans expect a lot of space. They would rather trade quality for sqft. A 2200sqft TH with thin walls is more sellable than a 1600sqft TH with thick walls.

Additionally, THs are considered "starter" homes. Certainly here in DC, a couple is expected to "move up" to a single-family in the outer 'burbs when their family grows.

It's all quite silly. And I say that having bought the single family in my 20s, hated it, sold it in my early 40s to go back to a TH. Now I walk to work, shorter drive to pretty much everything when needed, less maintenance. I'm much happier.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#54

Post by tom_ »

superkuh wrote: post #37
madengr wrote: post #21

Screw condos. I’ll take a home where I can put up ham radio antennas and shoot guns, without pesky neighbors.

You're not wrong and this isn't just a throwaway sentiment. Yours is an actual realistic criticism of the ideas of the article despite what the urbanites think.

I'm not really sure it's a criticism, more just an minor splash of inchoate rage, and we're supposed to sort of figure out the implied criticism. Which is, I assume, that perhaps more people want a massive house in the middle of nowhere than don't, and that most people don't actually want to live in a city, but put up with it for one reason for another. And then perhaps this massive house should be the ideal home, because what is the point of an ideal if it's something that most people don't want?

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#55

Post by abawany »

I have dealt with more than my fair share of HOAs in such housing (townhomes organized as condos, high-rise, etc.) Some of the stories of dysfunctional HOAs are right on the money unfortunately. Also, state laws give HOAs more power than they typically deserve: until about 2012, Texas allowed HOAs the following: place liens on shareholders' properties without explicitly informing them, deny them xeriscapy options, and define where they may or may not place flags. It is horrifying what trouble a bunch of tinpot bullies can cause when they manage to infest an HOA board.

Transparency is another problem area: it is often difficult, without going though the expense of making a purchase offer, to get HOA terms, details of board meetings, and budgets; this makes it tough to go in with informed consent when making one of the biggest purchases that you will make. I had to withdraw a purchase offer (and lose my option fee; I since learned that a good realtor would get the information before going through the process of making an offer) once after reading the 60+ page HOA terms, which appeared to mandate that the buyer must leave a key with the central office and that the latter may visit properties as they needed with unacknowledged prior notice.

I wish HOAs had to be treated as public concerns so that the light would shine brightly on pathological boards and buyers would have the best available information possible.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#56

Post by alistairSH »

dragonwriter wrote: post #46
criddell wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about the HOA as if they are a third party. Isn't the HOA just the group of condo owners? Who were the two parties in the grisly court battle?

> You're talking about the HOA as if they are a third party. Isn't the HOA just the group of condo owners? No, in the same way that a corporation is not just the group of stockholders; it's a distinct legal entity operationally controlled by it's own management (either employees or a contracted management firm), who is accountable to a board, who is normally accountable by election to the condo owners. Owners, or gro…

While all that is true, as an HOA member and major stakeholder in the HOA, it's incumbent on the members/owners to actually read the quarterly financial updates, attend HOA meetings, vote, etc.

Certainly easier to do in a neighborhood-run HOA for a small building or TH cluster than a high-rise, but the point still stands, I think.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#57

Post by magduf »

alistairSH wrote: post #53
gowld wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Those problems are solvable. My perception... the real problem is Americans expect a lot of space. They would rather trade quality for sqft. A 2200sqft TH with thin walls is more sellable than a 1600sqft TH with thick walls. Additionally, THs are considered "starter" homes. Certainly here in DC, a couple is expected to "move up" to a single-family in the outer 'burbs when their family grows. It's all quite silly. And…

>Certainly here in DC, a couple is expected to "move up" to a single-family in the outer 'burbs when their family grows.

Yep, I'm in DC too, and happen to live in a condo. There's lots of townhomes near me, but it amazes me how many people willingly move out to Haymarket or Warrenton to buy an McMansion and then drive 2+ hours/day, mostly sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-66. Now the government has cut down all the trees and dug everything up around that highway so they can widen it, which of course isn't going to help one iota.

>It's all quite silly. And I say that having bought the single family in my 20s, hated it, sold it in my early 40s to go back to a TH. Now I walk to work, shorter drive to pretty much everything when needed, less maintenance. I'm much happier.

Interesting: you sound a lot like me.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#58

Post by helen___keller »

briHass wrote: post #39
helen___keller wrote: post #13

Personally 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…

There's more to zoning than just wanting nice looking grass. For areas not originally built to house 3-4x the density, there's likely issues with capacity for: utilities (sewage/water), roads/traffic, stormwater runoff, school enrollment, and local services. That's not even considering veiled NIMBYism manifested as environmental concerns: tree removal, disruption of ecosystem, natural/green spaces, etc. Even still, i…

Oh sure I get that. Any matter of urban design & planning has infinitely more complexity than you're going to find on an internet discussion. Undoing postwar suburban sprawl is not going to be an easy task.

Still, for any person who is a fan of urbanism it's easy to be salty about this topic. City planning has favored motorists living in sprawl for half a century. Nobody cared about the noise pollution that would result to those living in the inner cities when public policy pushed everyone to the suburban fringe. Nobody cared about the risks and the inconveniences to pedestrians and cyclists when we designed our cities to favor motorists.

And yet, the moment we start to talk about allowing some multifamily units in a place that is traditionally single family you are immediately bombarded with the Concerns. My schools! My traffic! My parking spaces!

I wish the same concern was shown before we covered the entire nation with the suburban blight that rules today.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#59

Post by magduf »

danans wrote: post #32
sopooneo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$4,000,000 / 15,000ft^2 = $267 / 1ft^2 That's actually a steal (unit price wise) in the Boston/Cambridge market right now.

Very large houses never have high price per square foot because the utility of housing space scales logarithmically not linearly. The price curve starts flattening just above the median sized house for a given area.

Not only that, but the construction costs are cheaper per square foot for larger houses. Much of the cost of a house is in the kitchen and bathrooms. But bigger houses almost always still only have one kitchen, even if it is a lot fancier, and the number of bathrooms doesn't go up linearly. Bigger houses just have bigger rooms mainly, and also extra rooms that are empty and don't cost much to build ("bonus rooms", dens, etc.).

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#60

Post by taborj »

esoterica wrote: post #52
LyndsySimon wrote: post #25

Granted 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…

The article was focusing on the environmental impact of different living situations, and rural living is horrifically environmentally unfriendly. It would also be financially untenable if rural areas weren’t massively subsidized by urban economic centers. If you had to pay for the true cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure you use (which would be amortized over very few people due to the low population…

My friends who have their own well and septic, and only pay for electricity from "the grid", would be very interested to hear how the folks in urban environments are "massively subsidizing" their home and property, and how they're not paying the "true cost" for building and maintaining their property.

Related, I looked at a house that had a co-op for water. It was $25 a month and controlled completely by the homeowners, compared with the $100+ I'm paying for water in town where I'm subjected to the whims of the city council.

Got any evidence to back up your claims?

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