Are you projecting or just stereotyping? Or whooshing me?
You’re at the mercy of your landlord for upkeep. Many, if not most, are unwilling to do repairs.
You’re at the mercy of the landlord when he wants to raise your rent.
You’re at the mercy of the landlord when he decides to sell and gives you a month to pack all your shit and GTFO.
If you’re in an apartment, the owner of the building can decide at any time that he wants to convert the apartments to condos. You have no recourse but to buy or GTFO. This happens often.
Basically, you’re at the mercy of the landlord. I’m retired: with all the headaches that can crop up, I’d rather own my house.
My grandma lives in one and it’s pretty awesome. The homes are all single-story with wide hallways and doors (for walkers and wheelchairs). There’s nurse call buttons in the bathrooms and bedroom (her community is next to a retirement home with nurses on call). She doesn’t have to worry about taking care of the outside of the property but she can still garden in some spots (her passion). There are tons of special events and weekly activities which are all geared towards seniors - no time or effort needs to be put in to families with children. Her neighbors are all sort of around her age…actually she might be old, she’s 80.
I love that she lives there. She moved there from her early-20th-century farm house on 2 acres of land that she could barely manage with a little help from grandpa. She moved just when grandpa was in hospice and it was such a burden lifted off everyone. She is happy to have the autonomy in a little community that is exactly her speed, and we are happy that she has that little bit of backup if she needs it, and a ton less responsibility.
My parents’ best friends are in their early 60s and live in a different 55-and-older community. They love it for all the same reasons my grandma does!
If you don’t like what’s happening you leave.
If you own, and there are bad neighbors, what do you do?
For me, its obvious, you rent and have freedom.
Whoa, back it down a notch! I’m looking ahead to retirement and possibly buying a condo, not living in an old folks home!
Y’all have me gumming Jello and waiting for a Bingo!
mmm
Sure, except for those pesky rental/lease agreements, paying for movers to come get your shit, finding a new place that’s acceptable, then going through the whole thing again. Get back to me when you’re 65.
Oh, and ‘retired’ != wealthy.
You’re killing me chefguy. The OP stated his house was paid for. I don’t know if it was a trailer in a park, or something better.
Bottom line, he has money from the sale. Maybe a pension. He can afford to investigate other options. Rent. If he likes it, maybe he could purchase it. If it ain’t right he can move on. But, he has choices, no?
And I surpassed 65, many years ago.
I’m stereotyping, yes. A lot of Americans think that renting is something only poor and irresponsible people do. I think this view is slowly changing, though.
If you buy a new car or boat, people will just smile at you. But put down the same amount of cash for a house, and they’ll say “Congratulations!!” Like you just graduated from college or something. It makes me laugh. I can’t wait to join the club so that I’ll start doing it too.
Gracias monstro. You are a keen observer.
I’ve paid off my house. It’s perfect for me. I don’t want to move again, EVER.
I mean, it all depends. I live in an inexpensive, quirky but ultimately functional building. We have 24-7 onsite maintenance staff that respond to calls within minutes and can fix most things within a day’s notice. It’s a large enough building that they have their own stock of appliences, paint, etc. and a pretty large staff to deal with stuff. We are rent controlled, so rents go up a predictable amount each year. Nobody’s tried to turn it into a condo in the last 70 years, and I suspect it will stay that way for a while.
We’ll move eventually because we need more space, but this is definitely the most hassel-free living we are ever going to get. I mean, my mom’s AC just broke and they had to shell out 6k to fix that. Before then, it was the hot water heater. I don’t even pay utility bills- everything but cable is included in the rent. The only thing I have to do to maintain my house is run a check down to the front desk once a month.
A friend of mine bought a condo. The association decided to reroof the section her condo was in. The roofer bungled the job and declared bankruptcy. The condo association then charged my friend for the cost of reroofing her section of the condo. She tried to sue the association for …well, stupidity in hiring an incompetent boob essentially, I don’t remember the legal issue…It turned out that she was a member of the Association, and therefore could not sue the Association because she would be suing herself. This was in Georgia.
I belonged to an HOA and the HOA manager stole $30K (unrecoverable) from the HOA and went to prison. Also the next manager decided to let the high school use our tennis courts (newly refurbished) to be a court used for the high school tennis tournament bec. his son was on the local team. When it was finished, we had to pay for the court to be refurbished. The weight room I used was run down and never used – because the old people on the board didn’t use it and didn’t put money into it. The pool for their gradkids that got the money.
You’re joining a group with power and usually no knowledge of how to run a business. Runaway! Runaway!
I am currently trying to sell my condo and would probably never live in one again because the HOA is insane. They also raised the amount of the monthly assessment by almost 300% since I bought it 10 years ago.
THAT SAID… I have attended only a handful of board meetings so that’s entirely my fault for not getting involved in that way.
I live in a retirement community. It’s not age-restricted, but I am the only person here under 60. Duplexes, all one floor with two car garages, vaulted ceilings, gas fireplaces, granite, very nice.
Pros:
[ul]
[li]Yard work and outside repairs, including roofs, handled by HOA[/li][li]Activities at the clubhouse include Bridge, other card games, Bingo, Monday Night Football, various parties throughout the year, a lending library, puzzles, and an exercise room.[/li][li]Almost everyone is old and retired and enjoys each other’s company. Very friendly place.[/li][li]Everyone is nosy, which has helped with criminal (few) and medical (many) events[/li][li]Low dues ($150/month, I think)[/li][li]Renters are not allowed, low absenteeism[/li][li]It’s cheap, so a lot of people buy here and also buy a place at the beach or travel or whatever[/li][li]Grandkids are generally not allowed in the pool.[/li][li]Located right next to the town Senior Center, which has yoga, water aerobics, movie nights, etc. and other shops/restaurants[/li][/ul]
Cons:
[ul]
[li]Poor construction, which is frustrating and causing problems 10 years later. My mother wants to move to a newer/better constructed place. I think where we are is fine.[/li][li]Interior repairs not handled by the HOA. Stop asking. No, we won’t fix your smoke alarm. Go away![/li][li]People die frequently[/li][li]The HOA did, in fact, get sued, which meant no one could buy or sell in the community for three years (can’t get a mortgage on a place with ongoing litigation). All solved now.[/li][/ul]
Personally, I love it. I’m a big ascriber to /r/personalfinance, which is anti-home ownership in most cases, and the services and benefits outweigh… whatever I would want. What would I want besides a nice sunroom with a big TV, and an office space for my company?
There’s no outside maintenance that you have to do. You do pay for it, but nobody is expecting you to do it yourself.
Condos are usually all on one level, with no stairs. If there are multiple floors, it’s likely there are elevators.
Both of the above might be a big advantage to someone with mobility problems, as many seniors have.
Neighborhoods don’t always stay the same on a timescale of thirty years or so. Some places that might have been very nice places to buy a home 30 years ago aren’t so nice now. Mr. Neville’s grandparents lived in Van Nuys until they moved to a retirement community. It was probably a little nicer when they bought the house. If your house is in a neighborhood that has declined, staying there might not seem so attractive.
Some neighborhoods are a lot more livable than others for people who don’t drive. High density housing has some significant advantages if you don’t drive. A lot of seniors don’t drive, either by choice or for medical reasons. A senior-oriented condo development might have shuttles to nearby medical offices, grocery stores, and the like, which might make it even easier to minimize your driving or live without driving.
Seniors usually don’t live in large households (the Golden Girls notwithstanding). They usually live alone or with one other person. You just don’t need as much room for two people as you do for a family with several kids. You have to pay to heat and cool space that you’re not using, and it has to be cleaned periodically, so there is a cost associated with having extra space.
A senior-oriented condo development might have social activities that are likely to appeal to seniors. It’s hard to make new friends as an adult, especially if you’re not working. Not driving or not driving at night further limits your social activities. Activities at a retirement community can help with that, and you don’t have to drive to get to them.
One big attraction of renting over buying is the ease of moving if you don’t like where you’re living. But moving is going to be harder if you and most of your friends are not in the kind of physical shape where you could do a lot of the work yourself. The ease of moving also means the neighborhood might change on an even shorter timescale than
might happen in a neighborhood where most people own their homes. If it goes more upscale, your rent is likely to go up (unless you live somewhere with rent control). If it goes downscale, you might want to move out.
I explained up-thread the tax subsidies for owners, to the detriment of renters.
In the neighborhood you’d like to move to, are there a lot of homes that are all on one level? Do you know someone you could hire to do yard work and general outdoor maintenance if you needed to? It’s not terribly safe to assume that you will never have mobility issues with stairs and such as you get older, especially if you are buying a new place to live.
How would the neighborhood you’re looking at be if you couldn’t drive? That happens to seniors, too.
Bear in mind, you don’t always get a lot of notice that you’re about to develop mobility problems or become unable to drive. There are conditions that can cause those things and that can come on suddenly. A condo could help with the stairs issue, and possibly also the driving issue.
What’s the real estate market like where you’re looking? If you did need to move out of your house on short notice, due to health problems or whatever, would you be likely to be able to sell your house quickly? You probably don’t want to be stuck paying for a house and a retirement home for an extended period of time. Even if you’re not paying a mortgage on a house, you’re still paying property taxes and maintenance costs.
Wow. I think I am glad I don’t live in your state! Rest assured, there are many other places in the US where such things can’t happen.
In many places, the HOA rules that apply to member homes are spelled out in the covenants. These are contracts between the homeowner and the HOA. They can’t be changed unless both parties agree. So what they say is all the HOA and the homeowner has to do. If you don’t like what is required of you, don’t agree (that is buy the property) in the first place. If you agreed up front to give the HOA the power to foreclose on your home, then at least you know that up front.
That sounds nice on paper, but that’s not what happens. Typical 55+ community goes something like this…
- Sit by front window and watch everything your neighbors do.
- Drive around community and look for violations or other complaints to forward to the HOA/board.
- Go to the clubhouse to play cards and spend the entire time talking about your neighbors and their activities.
- Add a pickle ball court to the unused tennis court area, then 4 people will have something to do 2 times a week.
- Turn the pool heat up to 77 degrees so the small number of ladies can do pool exercise for 30 minutes in the winter time.
- Form groups to walk around the community 4 times a year and note anything that just ain’t pretty in someone’s yard.
- Create a list of arbitrary and unpublished community standards.
- Investigate the unclaimed and ignored pile of dog crap left in a common area.
- Create a monthly newsletter and inform the community of who won the Tuesday Bridge game, who died, who is in the hospital, who went to aftercare, who fell and sprained their knee, and who is visiting their family in Podunk Iowa. Also add other interesting things like forming a group to go walk around the mall.
- Beg people to come to board meetings. If that doesn’t work, threaten to raise the HOA dues, that will make them come.
- Set up several committees to plan the upcoming ice cream social. Vote on flavor of ice cream to be served.
- Bitch about someone not refilling the ice cube trays in the clubhouse.
On the good side. They monthly crime report portion of the newsletter finally reported a “real” crime. Someone had their lawn gnome stolen. (in reality, I’m pretty sure it left due to boredom)
These are all things that actually happened.
I’ve lived in condo’s / townhomes for a lot of years. I’ve never really had a “bad” HOA. The worst thing that has happened is that some repair that I hoped was covered was not covered, and I had to pay for it.
Oh, yeah, I did get a nasty-gram once or twice from the HOA when our Christmas lights were still up in April, but that seems pretty minor.
One thing I did learn, though, before buying is to make sure that the HOA has enough reserves (or is on track to have enough reserves) to cover the big-ticket items coming up in the future.
If / when I ever buy again, it will be in another condo / townhome.
J.