Being the forward-thinking folks that we are, my husband and I are considering the purchase of a condo for our empty nest years. Having owned houses with up to an acre of property, we don’t intend to spend our golden years dealing with the associated maintenance of suburban home ownership. We see the advantages of condo living as being:
no yard work
minimal worries when we want to cruise
easy upkeep
the advantages of apartment living, but with equity
What we envision is a community with apartment-like units as opposed to a townhome development. We see this place as our home base when we’re not out on the boat for weeks/months at a time. We’re not thinking in terms of a retirement community per se, tho an adults only environment would be preferable.
So, have you ever or are you now living in such an arrangement? What do you see as pros and cons? What should we ask as we shop for said living quarters?
We’re looking to do this in about 3 years or so…
We now have a home, but have been in the condo situation.
Pros- no yardwork; exterior paint and other maintenence is taken care of for you; maybe a security building to keep things quiet.
Cons- all the problems of apartment living- noise, leaks from upstairs, problem neighbors sharing walls and possibly ventilation with you; sometimes restrictive pet policies; pain in the ass associations.
One thing you could look at is a resort-type condo community. During the times you are not using the condo, you may want to allow a management company to rent it out for you. If you were to buy before you wanted to occupy it, you could lease it to someone in the meantime, thus your renter pays your mortgage for you. You must ask about subletting your unit when you inquire about purchase.
I am not a condo owner (merely a renter), but I’ve seen my share of good and bad.
Big warning! The Board of Directors - A good board is great. A bad board is hell.
Caveats:
Make sure you get competent people on the board: we’ve had everything from “power-hungry micro-managers” to “burned-out apathetics but won’t admit it”. We just got rid of the former president who would fire the lawn people on a whim despite the fact they were doing a great job (he was the only one who didn’t like them, and firing them was supposed to be a board decision). Did this to three different lawn companies, all of which were highly recommended and competent, unlike his cousin who ran over the sprinkler heads with the power mower.
Make sure the board operates in the open. One former board used to make decisions without any imput from the residents, and were quite surprised when the residents balked at their extravagent spending - purchasing terra cotta planters instead of fixing a badly leaking roof. We replaced them very quickly.
Check how the condo is designed - mine right now has odd-sized windows and patio doors (special order), a 58" bathtub (also special order - most tubs are 60"), the dryer hose snaked snugly through a 3" section of the wall (necessitating tearing out the walls to replace the dryer hose - f that, we cut a hole in the ceiling [with the landlady’s permission!]). Are you going to be paying higher prices to replace something just because the builder got a ‘great deal on odd-sized materials’.
How well insulated are the walls? Are you going to be hearing everything in your neighbor’s condo, anything from the radio and tv to, ahem, ‘other’ nighttime entertainment? Are you going to be smelling corned beef and cabbage from one side, liver and onions from the other side and kim chee from below?
Do the owners live there, or do they rent to leasees and tourists? Are the owners snowbirds (excuse me, ‘thermally-impaired’), there only half of the year? (We got a real break on our rent because we would be living there year-round and could check on the other units our lanbdlady owned - she lived in California for part of the year.)
Quiet neighbors? Party neighbors? Sense of community or isolationsts? Do they watch for watch out for each other or do they use that as an excuse to know everybody’s business? Things like community garage sales, pool parties, and holiday dinners can be fun with the neighbors (just like a block party on a smaller block).
Good things:
I have some good neighbors, people who really care about how the place looks,
I have a small area to plant the flowers we want.
Lawn, trash and the pool maintenance are taken care of by professional companies.
Sort of home, without most of the hassles (except for serious lack of parking - everyone now has two vehicles and most of the reisdents also store a boat on property!!!).
I just moved into a condo in Ottawa about a month ago with my parents (I’m 18), and I used to live in an average house in a small town. I expected a lot of changes, and I got them. My condo is really great, no unexplained smells, no noisy neighbors, and people are friendly. I try not to play my music too loud (About half the level of when I was in my old place), and I don’t hear things I don’t want from other people. Other than the corridors, etc., when I step outside, I could be living in another house. It’s great!
I would go for a townhouse or row house style over an apartment style condo. If you get an end-unit townhouse, you have only one neighbour to worry about (noise, smell, and general neighbour-wise). The only advantage I can think of of apartment style over townhouse style is that they’re usually cheaper, and you may not want to deal with stairs as you get older. That said, some row houses are available in a bungalow style with no stairs either. Like others have said, the board of directors makes a huge difference. Also, check out the reserve fund for any complex you’re considering; they should have a big, healthy reserve fund if they’re managing things right. I would also find out about the percentage of owner-occupied versus tenant-occupied. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings here, but it is a fact of life that tenants don’t always look after things the way an owner will. I’ve owned a townhouse before, and I probably will again; they’re a good compromise for people that can’t afford or don’t want the full house deal (and equity is always a good thing).
I live in a condo right now, though ours is a townhouse style. I’d echo what other people have said. There are advantages and disadvantages.
Since a lot of these things are unknowns until you live there (you can ask, of course, but people who are concerned about their property value may not be forthcoming about community frustrations), I’d suggest looking into how well condos in your particular development of interest are selling. That way, if you find you’re erred and want to move, you can unload it without too much hassle. It does vary–our neighborhood sells well (we’ve had people ask us if we’re thinking of moving, because they’re interested in our unit, and I get 2-3 pieces of mail from realtors each week). But just a few blocks away, those condos (very different style) aren’t moving.
Follow-on question about the townhome style - is grounds maintenance responsibility of the owner or the association? As I mentioned, we expect to spend long stretches of time away from home on the boat, and we’d rather avoid the hassle of getting a long-term house sitter/checker. Stopping mail and setting light timers is easy, reliable grass-mowing may be trickier.
Also concerning parking - how much of a pain is it for guests to find spaces? Not that we entertain a lot, but I expect somewhere along the line, we’ll have visits from the future grandkids… (WAY in the future - my kid is just 15…)
FCM, typically the Homeowner’s Assocation (aka Board) takes care of the lawn by hiring a professional.
When we were looking for a home, we considered condos briefly. We did not buy one for the following reasons:
Resell. There are lots of condos in our general area (Los Angeles), and their value varies much much more than a single family home. We have friends who bought condos back at the real estate peak who now cannot get out of them, and who in a few cases owe more on the condo than the place is worth (more likely with condos, though around here it can happen with anything). Always look very closely at how condos in general are selling, and especially how ones in your complex and your neighborhood sell and have sold over the past five years or so. (Good way to check, in addition to all the standard ones: if there’s any building going on in the area, look to see what’s getting built. In the more condo-ridden areas near our place, developers are now buying old houses and etc and replacing them with two-per-lots and three-per-lots. Translation? No one wants a condo anymore, especially not in a big complex; people want something that at least looks like a house - a separate dwelling.)
Neighbors. It’s like living in an apartment but being locked into it. If you end up with really awful neighbors - noise, smells, personality, hygiene - you’re stuck until someone sells. That will take a lot longer than merely waiting until someone moves. In a way, it’s sort of a combination of the worst of home and apartment living in this respect.
Fees. Frankly, this is what made us super-leery. You’ll pay a (usually) monthly fee into the Homeowner’s Association account, to be spent at the discretion of the Assoc. These fees are stipulated up front, mandatory, and can be quite high in our area - hundreds (typical) or even thousands (rarer) of dollars every month. This, of course, is what covers the services of professionals. But in your own home, you make the choices: fix it yourself? Wait? Hire someone? Harder, but if your financial situation may change or fluctuate, condos will give you less options.
Limits. If you want to change something major, you probably won’t be able to do so. It’s like living in a gated community or similar - you will have a set of rules (can range from structural to decorative to activity-based) from which you may not deviate. So it’s a good idea to know the limits beforehand and to be absolutely sure you can live with them - if you plan to grow old in this place, for example, ask yourself what changes you might need to make for medical reasons in the future, and if or how that will work.
Parking. Around here, where everyone has one car per driver in the house and sometimes more, parking is just from hell anywhere in the vicinity of condos. Not too many places come with two spaces per unit. And places may or may not have visitor parking - check - and it may or may not be enforced. Street parking, in an area with lots o’ condos, may be very hard to find, and may entail walking great distances. This is something else to think about if you plan to grow old in this home, along with the stairs issue, since often parking is below the house.
There are lots of problems with home ownership, too, but we weighed them and decided they were preferable. Condos may be just right for you, though. (I don’t want this long list to sound like I’m down on 'em; these are just things we considered, alongside many other factors, when we were home-shopping.)