I've heard from a lot of people that buying a condo is a big mistake. People say they don't appreciate in value as much as houses because you own a unit and not the land its on, you have risks of building repairs causing causing HOA fees to skyrocket, etc.
But I'm comparing owning a condo to the alternatives. If I wanted to rent an apartment similar to a $100k condo in my area, it would cost $1,200 to $1,400 a month.
If you look at the cheapest SFHs in the same area, they go for $200k+, with decent ones being $250k+, and they carry $5,000 a year in property taxes at a minimum. So your monthly costs would be nearly double because of taxes, insurance, and mortgage payments being twice as high, the only savings being HOA costs.
A condo just seems like the cheapest option, at least in my market. With a 15 year mortgage @ 4%, it's $740 mortgage + $260 HOA + $100 insurance + $200 taxes = $1,300 a month. And once it's paid off, closer to $500-600 a month.
I guess I don't see why it's such a bad choice if you don't need the space? Yeah the HOA fees can get high, but they usually cover a lot of costs of owning a home directly like roofing repair, some types of utilities, etc. What's the catch?
Submitted February 09, 2019 at 10:12PM by skilliard7 http://bit.ly/2WVoYmL
