Everything to do with the townhouse itself is your problem. All the common exterior areas are everyone’s.
So the only advantage over a condo is how they design the building?
You’re only liable for your roof and walls, not everyone elses. And yeah, you only have people on the sides.
Not much resale value to townhouses. Get the cheapest 3 bedroom house you can…
That’s like $250k around here. No way I can afford that.
Wow, insane prices!
Considering how much money people make around here, not really. It is increasing income segmentation, though; the lower middle class has to buy homes down in Renton. No idea what the people with bad paying jobs here in the city do.
Down here in southeastern VA, you can get a real nice house for $150,000 - $200,000. Of course, there’s $1 Million mansions too.
Cleveland prices have really gotten out of wack, urban renewal has led to stupidity.
http://pure.progressiveurban.com/propview.php?view=595
$243,000 for this. Does the outside look ghettoish? It should, when we lived in our crappy $425/month one bedroom apartment, this was in the neighborhood nearby we were scared to walk through (on the bad side of the tracks). That was 4 years ago and the neighborhood has gotten progressively worse. Even the pager store and unknown video store closed.
Developers in Cleveland just stick down these condos or rehabs without any rhyme or reason and charge out the ass, not even in one community, anywhere they can fit them in the ghetto. And people buy them. The asking price for this is more than for our house - which is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Cleveland, has a private beach on lake Erie. People are stupid. Which is why i really urge you to look, look, look.
Chet
I’d say it looks run down on the outside. My god it was built in 99. How did it get so fugly in 5 years? They must have designed it that way.
That is the year rehabed, i would guess the buildings which used to be 2 ghetto units per 1 fancy unit, are about 50-60 years old. They actually looked better pre-rehab.
Chet
Live close to where you need to work or go to school. Public transportation is mostly bus and it takes a long time and is unreliable in the winter.[/quote]
YAY! I
a) don’t go to school
b) own my own business
here’s hoping b) works out so I need’nt bother with a)
Heh, decent 3 bedroom homes are at least $600k in Toronto, and we pay about 50% more in taxes and don’t get to deduct our mortgage interest. The world is your oyster!
As home prices have skyrocketed around here ($700,000 and up now), the condo market is actually hotter than the detached home market because first-time buyers still have a slight chance of paying for one. We’re seeing $15,000 to $20,000 price increases per month so I’m not sure how long that can last. Our place was appraised in March for about $365,000, and a smaller unit nearby is now in escrow at $407,000.
Here in St. Louis you can buy a spacious house (2500 sq. feet) in the suburbs within 20-30 minutes of most businesses in the $200-300k price range.
In fairness, that’s probably the case in Toronto (and pretty much any city, other than NY), but that’s not living in the city. If you’re willing to use public transit trains (and the coverage is decent), it’s almost the only viable option if you want to own a house, unless you’re really rich or inherit one.
Now isn’t a great time to buy a house, if you can hold off a bit, Jason – interest rates are going to start rising in the immediate future, and the market is going to crash the year – probably significantly in overheated geographical markets (like the comparably affordable condo markets in some major cities, since there’s been so much construction).
Why would rising interest rates in the future make it bad to buy now? I was planning on a fixed rate.
Yeah, the crash might be an issue. Apparently it’s restricted to the ludicriously expensive upper end around here.
Two reasons:
-
Because the cost of borrowing will increase, so people will only be able to carry smaller mortgages, which will put downward pressure on pricing. Once fewer people can afford to pay as much, it’ll crash the housing market, since prices are currently absurdly based upon cash essentially costing nothing to borrow.
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Coupled with the first reason, unless you’re paying a big chuck as a downpaymet and are not carrying a mortgage larger than 75% of what you paid, if you buy now and have a 5 year term (not amortization period) on your mortgage, at the time of its renewal, your outstanding mortgage principal may be greater than the fair market value of the house – requiring you to put up additional security or sell your house for a loss. That happened to a lot of people in the crash after the late 80s, and we’re overripe for something similar to happen.
That really depends on his intentions, though. If he plans to stay put for a good while, then now might be a good time to buy anyway, so he can lock in a good interest rate. Especially if he doesn’t have a large downpayment (which I assume is the case, since he was considering an FHA loan), since that’s just that much more interest he’s going to end up paying. He only loses money if he sells, after all. Housing prices will go up again, even if this bubble bursts. My parents’ house dropped in value some not long after they bought it, during the 80s, but since then it’s gone up again and is currently worth nearly three times what they paid for it.
If he doesn’t think he’ll be there for very long, well, that’s another story.
Stay the fuck away from anything offered by Windermere. That company made it big in Seattle by hiring pretty women to sell the expensive homes to incoming Californians, and not by actually doing any work. Most of the homes they offer are priced at least 15% too high, and they never deal with properties offered by competing realtors.
One thing you absolutely must splurge for: a quality home inspector. When interviewing prospective inspectors, ask to see an example of an estimate they’ve provided in the past. Ideally, this sucker should be 30+ pages with hundreds of lines. You want someone thorough. The first home I purchased I went with a cheaper inspector who failed to find a couple of major defects. Don’t make that mistake.
Check the neighborhood. Are there a ton of other homes for sale near the one you’re looking at? Best to find out why. Could be there’s some unpleasant construction about to occur, or worse, maybe they all found out one of their neighbors is running a meth lab…
Remember, it’s better to buy the worst looking house in the best neighborhood than the best looking house in the worst neighborhood.
One thing to remember - your first home purchase will not be perfect. It will be a learning experience. Invariably, you’ll forget to ask for something important you’ll have to deal with later.