I mostly like mine. The square footage is great, the layout fits my needs, and not having to do yard maintenance while still having outdoor amenities is pretty cool. We have a pool (well, not now, thanks COVID), a community garden, and tolerable neighbors. The downsides are that the HOA fees are too low (like, $100 a month less than other comparable communities in our city) which means the association scrimps on things I don’t think they should. Also, the association volunteers are all old af busybodies. See my complaint from a couple years ago about the garden committee fucking with my flowers for example. My galley kitchen is a bit small and I’d rather have a real garage than the covered carport we have. None of this really affects my quality of life though.
@moose your market is one of the worst in the US for rent collections. That's likely going to have an effect on home prices in a few months, especially once stimulus checks stop. I would wait personally.
Oh yeah, we aren’t going forward with anything right now. Do you think it will decrease the home prices?
It's about 500 sqft per floor so maybe. I mean my 1 BR apt was over 600. Then add a toddler that never stops moving. @moose our townhouse was definitely how we were able to afford an SFH. I think I got about 90k out of it after realtors fees and such (this market is insane too). The people who bought it sold it a few weeks ago and made like 50k in 2.5 years!
As Canal said, it's anyone's guess, but your area falls faster and harder than most because of its reliance on tourism and low barriers to entry for development (hence, why we don't invest there). And a lot of homes are rentals, so low rent collection rates are eventually going to cause a problem for those owners. Most people think rentals are owned by big companies, but the truth is that ~3/4 is owned by individuals/couples with 1 to 4 units. This keeps up and they won't be able to pay their mortgages, which will put downward pressure on housing prices.
I’d just really encourage you to go over the options with a mortgage broker or advisor before going too far down the rabbit hole of what you think you might want. I’m not kidding when I say we are spending between $300-700 less a month on our 1400sq ft single family home with a large yard and 2 car garage than we would have with any of the townhouses/villas/condos we looked at. The monthly fees were that high anywhere that was worth buying, and the loan options for non-single family houses were much higher interest rates (not sure if that’s changed).
I did not find this to be the case when we bought. @calicat bought her SFH the some month I bought my little rowhouse and we got the same interest rate. I think that the fact that our complex is like 75% owner-occupied made a distinction, though. Loan options are different in condo associations that are less than 2/3 owner-occupied.
Agreed, there are a lot of factors that go into it; our rates were the same for our condo as my friends were getting for single family homes. It depends on the condo association, number of units, number owner/occupied, reserves in the condo association fund, etc.
Yeah I know there are a lot of factors that can influence it, so going over it all with an expert is definitely the best way to go. I know that one kind of loan we were originally looking at (first time homebuyer/FHA loan) could actually not be applied to any of the townhouses/condos we initially looked at.
Oh yes! A lot of condo complexes don't qualify for FHA financing - there is a certification process for the building and/or the unit that looks at all of the things I listed above and probably other factors too.
Q about FHA- if you want to know what properties are FHA approved, is that generally listed or is that something that doesnt get determined until someone starts the process? (So, in their own search they would need to see if the property meets the checklist of criteria vs being able to only look at homes listed as FHA approved)
If you want to know if a whole building is approved, you can search: https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/condlook.cfm
For my FHA loan I believe it was determined by the appraisal. I was not restricted on the homes I could look at (though I didn't look at condos at all). This was 2010 though and some FHA rules have changed since.
FHA is a pain in the ass, and they won't lend on brand new condo/townhome construction until a certain number of the units have been sold as owner-occupied residences. And approval on a condo/townhome project can be revoked in the future, which doesn't affect an existing mortgage, but could affect resale prospects. Eta: clarified that this refers to condos/townhomes. Single family housing is completely different.
My brother used FHA to get his home I think, which was a new build in a new subdivision but that was the midwest. I'm not sure if J and I could ever have enough cash on hand for the down payment on a home here. We're talking triple digits and anything on the lower end is likely a fixer upper home already in the cheaper neighborhoods. Which is not a complaint about home prices or anything, just the futility of trying to get 20% cash on a home of that price and still needing a significant reserve on top of that for renovations.
FHA does not require 20% down payment. My first house was an FHA and our current house was FHA until we refinanced.
@Apples&Oranges You might not need to put down 20%. We only had to do 3.5% this past fall. I did an FHA loan based on being a first time buyer, but even if I hadn’t wanted to do that I could have put down 5%. ETA 5% would have been for a conventional loan, not FHA.