buying a townhouse

[mattisr1984]

thinking about buying a townhouse. anyone live in / own one? do you like it? what dont you like about it? does your HOA suck?

[robotfactory]

we just bought one back in june. so far, so good. our HOA actually seems pretty good, they have been very response to my requests thus far. our HOA fee sucks here, and they are raising it 10% starting next month, but i guess that's the name of the game with HOA fees.

not sure what your HOA fee would cover, but ours covers: water, garbage, landscaping, exterior painting, roof/roof maintenance, essentially all exterior maintenance. it also covers the more expensive part of our home owners insurance. with that said, we are paying $340/month right now for our HOA fee, and it is going up to about $365/month starting in 2011. it sucks because it feels a bit like still paying rent, however, it truly does cover a lot of shit and we knew when we decided to buy a townhouse that this was something we would have to deal with.

not sure what the typical HOA fees are like in your area, but in san jose, ca where we live $250/month is considered "good/fair" so ours is a bit high.

sometimes i do wish we had bought a house, it would be nice to have a full size yard and no shared walls, but we could not afford a house in any of the areas we would have been comforetable living in. we are more than happy with our decision to buy a townhouse.

if you have any other questions i would be happy to chime in, i feel like i have ranted long enough in this post.

[mattisr1984]

yeah, it sounds like im thinking the same thing now that youre thinking. average HOA fees around here seem to be around $135 - 175 a month. i can afford a house but its just deciding whether or not i want to pay the same amount for just a mortgage (in a house) or a smaller mortgage + an hoa. i guess hoa's are becoming a bit of sticky situation with the amount of people walking away from their homes? as in the less people paying hoa's means those that are end up paying more? have you been hit with a lot of special assessments?

the downside im learning is that the majority of the houses i can afford are lender owned which theres nothing wrong that. but after walking through a couple of lender-owned homes, im seeing how awful people have taken care of their houses. its sort of mind blowing really. so while houses are at great prices - a lot of them seem to need a lot of work (which doesnt excite me). and by a lot of work were talking anywhere from an additional 15k - 59k to fix a place up and be livable in.

[robotfactory]

no special assessments yet. our townhouse was actually a foreclosure/bank owned AND it was a rental for over 10 years. it was in surprisingly good condition. the only thing that sucks is the carpet, which i plan to tear out and replace with laminate flooring within the next year.

we did look at A LOT of short sale and bank owned houses that were in our price range, but they were nasty, and typically in bad areas where we did not want to live.

the hoa deal is funky, but it also has some upsides, like all of the included items i mentioned earlier. it also lessens the burden on the owner for some of the larger ticket items and maintenance costs (roof, paint, landscape, etc.)

i think that if you find a townhouse that you really like, i wouldn't let the hoa completely stop you.

you are correct though, with the housing market the way it is, people stop paying their HOA fees before they stop paying their mortgage (that is step 2). because of this, the hoa runs out of money, and then the people that are paying have to deal with the burden.

the best thing to do is have an accountant or your tax guy look at all of the HOA's financials and he can tell you if the HOA is stable financially or not.

also, talk to some of the neighbors, find our if they are owners or renting, and ask them how the HOA is, and how they like living / owning in the community.

good luck!

[melikecheese]

Just rent if your going to buy an apartment, share walls and have to pay a monthly fee, and probably have to get fixes and changes OK'd by the evil HOA, that's my theory.

[mrc]

bought a townhouse like 10 years ago. our HOA fees suck and we are at $300 but it will go up next month (it includes water, trash, maintenance, cable...). Its not too bad because we get cable but it increases by like 35-50 bucks a year.

I personally would never Buy a townhouse again. Its a great starter home but I was annoyed with shitty neighbors, and with the economic times we had a ton of renters who dont give a shit about their units and you can tell.

I kinda wish i never bought it since i need to sell to place within the next 6 months and i know it wont happen. Im just gonna have to rent it out but that is going to be a headache.

I am looking forward to upgrading to a small house in Tampa in the coming months.

[drabley]

Buy a house.

Townhouses are like housing projects for the lower middle class.

[robotfactory]

Just rent if your going to buy an apartment, share walls and have to pay a monthly fee, and probably have to get fixes and changes OK'd by the evil HOA, that's my theory.

not always the best theory.

i had to get my HOA to OK a Directv install, was not a problem, they OK'd it in less than a week.

i had to have them OK my wanting to install i new rollup garage door on my garage, they OK'd it in less than 2 weeks.

i had a leaking chimney, which is their responsibility, they sent someone out to fix it within 2 days of my calling them.

just saying, some HOA's are not necessarily evil.

also, if we are talking a true townhouse, you should have an attached garage, which is HUGE. we share one wall with our neighbors. i would not buy a condo, but a townhouse is a bit of a different beast. having my own garage, only one shared wall, no one above or below me.

also, the rent vs buy debate. if you can afford to buy, this is a friggin great time to buy. rates are super low, prices are super low. we were renting a house last year at this time, and now we own a townhouse, for LESS than we were paying in rent. seems like a no brainier to me.

word of advice. get a 30 year (or 15 year if you can afford it) FIXED rate loan. the 5/1 ARM loans look attractive because of the lower payments for the first 5 years, however, you have no idea what the rate will be 5 years from now, and they are so low right now it would be crazy not to lock it down.

[midatlanticmauler]

We bought a house in april '09. I used to live in a duplex and I didn't mind that at all. If you could get a end unit that would be your best bet, but they are usually desirable and sell rather quick. Essentially you were saying hoa plus what you would pay would be the cost of a mortgage on a house, but all the stuff the hoa would be covering your going to have to be paying that out of pocket. Which blows. When we bought our house it was a short sale and lender owned. Gigantic pain in the ass. The house was in horrible shape and we put a good bit of money and 3 weeks of my time every single day into it to make it livable. You can ask American Spirit Dan Jones, I made him help me half the time.

[mcm1610]

Anyone who signs an ARM is a super-tard.

[mattisr1984]

yeah, im staying far, far away from an ARM. probably going to pass on the townhouse as well. i liked it. it was clean and well-maintained but the floorplan kind of made me feel boxed in and i could see outgrowing it pretty rapidly. the search continues.

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

if you have the money to buy a townhouse... you should probably look at houses. the resale value of a house is much better than a townhouse.

[robotfactory]

if you have the money to buy a townhouse... you should probably look at houses. the resale value of a house is much better than a townhouse.

very true. we are happy with the townhouse that we bought, but we bought it with the intentions of not living in it for more that 3-5 years.