I’ve had people on this very community argue with me that purchasing a condo was exactly the same as owning a house, and it was a great alternative…
This was literally my counter-argument. Not glad that it happened to these people, but glad to see my viewpoint vindicated so quickly.
Maybe close if the house is in an HOA. I sold my house a few years ago and bought a condo. It’s definitely not the same as owning a house. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different.
I’m not sure why their insurance isn’t paying for it.
But what if I want to live somewhere dense and walkable, but still want to build equity?
It’s a 7 year old building. Why are they not chasing after the builder to repair it?
The counterargument to your counterargument is that this could happen to a SFM. For a condo you really want to focus on the balance sheet and cash flow as if you’re buying a business so you’re less likely to wind up with an HOA that can’t fix a disaster without a monster assessment, but for a house you’re kinda the balance sheet and if you realize your foundation is fucked you might wind up spending 200k having your entire yard dug out
The difference is is that if you’re not responsible for screw ups that were caused by the HOA anywhere near the degree you are in a condo.
May I please introduce you to children and spouses? You can still be liable for some other idiot’s screw up.
If you bought a property in an hoa, YOU are the hoa. Why do so many people have a hard time with that? YOU are the hoa and the hoa elects a board to represent you. If you aren’t voting and aren’t participating, YOU are the problem
With a house, since its yours, it’s pretty easy to get a home equity loan and deal with that cost over time.
Can you equity loan a condo?
With a single-family house, you can also choose to DIY (especially since the scale is typically smaller), or make cost/quality trade-offs without having liability to your neighbors or being beholden to their opinions on what to do.
Weird to say but yeah you can do unpermitted and subpar repairs with more ease on a property you are sole owner of. Harder to pull that off in a multi owner unit.
That’s not what they said at all. You can DIY stuff and still get it approved by the city/county.
Yes it is. Grue is talking about quality trade-offs. Literally sub-par work
Or cost trade offs, not necessarily sub-par.
I can do fantastic siding and tile work personally and would be exceptionally hesitant to pay someone to do it. My FIL has done concrete work for 30 years, why would I pay someone to do it?
Yeah, it’s property just like a house, you can definitely slather some more debt onto it in the same manner as a house. It’s a little more involved because the underwriters will be as concerned with the HOA’s financial footing as they are with the owner’s financial footing, but it’s doable (and also another reason why a sound HOA should be considered non-negotiable when looking into buying one)