I'm single with no kids, so I don't need the space of a SFH. I also like low maintenance properties, so a condo is perfect. When I turn 55, I'm thinking about moving to a one-level townhouse or SFH in a 55+ community that offers a lot of amenities, like this property that sold last year for $782,000 in Sterling:

https://redf.in/Nj6ba7

Anonymous wrote:Even with incredibly high condo fees? Help me understand why…

They need somewhere to live?

Home cost in same walkable urban area would be several times higher.

Condos are popular in urban areas, better location, lower cost, often walkable to most things, less maintenance, less furnishings, less wear and tear, less cleaning, lower utilities. You can easily lock up and go on work or leisure trip without worrying about security or lawn mowing etc.

Because a condo is all they can afford

Anonymous wrote:We're looking to buy a condo when we retire in 3 years. I've never lived in one. What are the most important questions to ask to ascertain whether the building is well managed and to anticipate potential future problems?

First, choose a real estate agent who has a reputation specifically for buying and selling a lot of condos in the neighborhoods you are targeting. An agent that does a ton of condo transactions will know the good and bad of each building. They will even know which condos are well-run, which ones have had a lot of condo board issues, etc.

Second, you need to think more about noise when shopping for a condo. Some condo buildings are well built and have good soundproofing; others are not. It can be very hard to tell when you do a quick 15 minute tour of a unit, because it might be quiet just because the upstairs neighbor is out grocery shopping during your tour. Then you move in and it turns out you can hear every step and phone call through your ceiling. To avoid buildings with poor soundproofing, A) be very specific with your real estate agent that this is important to you (the ones that do tons of condo transactions will know which buildings to target for good soundproofing), and B) try to tour at busy times such as a weekday at 6:30pm when most people are home cooking dinner and making noise, not at 12 Noon on a Tuesday when many residents are away from the building.

I love my townhouse. Way less maintenance than a SFH, not as close to neighbors as condo. I don’t mind not having my own yard because the city has awesome parks 5 min walk away

Well, we owned one for 6 years and made $150k off it. But I would never buy one not in a central, walkable part of a great city.

We're looking to buy a condo when we retire in 3 years. I've never lived in one. What are the most important questions to ask to ascertain whether the building is well managed and to anticipate potential future problems?

I cannot wait to buy a condo

My MIL recently sold her SFH and bought a condo. She is at her beach house or in Europe for half the year and felt it was easier to lock the door and leave. Building staff handle her mail and she doesn’t worry about something going wrong in her absence. It is more walkable, she feels safer living alone (widow), and she made a nice community in the building. She also wanted to purge her clutter and belongings after my FIL passed and have a fresh start. It seems to be working well for her!

No cutting grass or shoveling
Views
Someone else do maintenance
Elevator no steps
Pool
Amenities
More neighbors

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO "yard maintenance" it's an excuse to ditch boring suburbia for the more urban fun walkable areas and feel young again. When people are no longer tied to school districts they gladly go back to the lifestyle they had before kids. I am not buying that whole "being tired of yard maintenance" when people literally desire to live in SFHs and do this for decades and manage to pay for it or do it themselves. They don't suddenly get tired of having private outdoor spaces, not sharing walls with others, easy parking, not smelling other people cooking/smoking, etc. They either never liked suburban lifestyle in the first place but felt like they had to give their kids this experience, or they were too broke to outsource any yard/home maintenance in the first place, had a rundown property, they felt bad about, or barely afforded their house (house poor).

These are the main reasons people go to condos.

Even if you had money to outsource these things there’s still the mental energy of finding the people to do it, monitoring their work, staying on the schedule etc. meanwhile when I lived in the condo everything was just done when it was supposed to be done.

If you have money then you don't need to expand much mental energy to find providers. Just use your neighbor's providers who you think do a good job or ask friends (you can see the results). Often providers solicit the neighbors with their fliers or even visits to the door when they come in to work on neighbor's homes. The only time one must spend significant mental energy to the point of pain, is when money is really tight and you need to find the best deal, afraid to overpay even by a little, and try to find the best bang for your buck.

The reality with condo associations is that they won't always find the best providers of services either. They can get scammed or overcharged just like private home owners, and you won't even be aware of it, you just realize you are paying more in maintenance fees that you have to. Some corruption is also possible where decision makers (condo board) make contracts with their relatives or those they know, or get kickbacks. Not sure how frequent the latter situation is. But the fact that condo associations can overpay for mediocre services doesn't go away.

If you have the funds it is pretty easy and stress-free to outsource lawn care, gutter cleaning, snow removal, exterior painting, etc.

But there are other things that are more complex on a SFH. Like the flashing around my brick chimney will need to be fixed up soon because I pay attention to it and can see it separating. Many people wouldn't even know to look at that stuff occasionally; they would just wait until water starts coming into their roof.

What do you do in a condo when your window starts separating from the wall or warping? This happens, and you may not be even allowed to fix it and get a new window if condo determines it's a problem with enough units and decides to do mass window replacement. Then you are hit with a huge assessment every month until all this work is paid for. In the meanwhile it's not immediate fix, because you don't have rights to do things even to your own condo, so you have to live with it. This also happened to me in a rental where the frame started warping from the moisture coming from the side wall. I had to jump through hoops (it was a large corporate LL) to get it fixed and it took almost 2 years. I kept getting inspector after inspector to prove there was trapped moisture and metal parts that warped and rusted had to be replaced. So much bureaucracy.

Anonymous wrote:Conventional wisdom is that SFH is the better option, but the maintenance is nonstop. There could be constant issues with condo life also, but I don't know it because I haven't experienced it. The grass might not be greener over there where I'm not mowing it.

Outsource it all. I lived in many types of situations (condos, rental apartments, rental house, corporate housing, dormitory for students, dormitory style housing for families, urban rowhouse, exurban tract subdivision, suburban SFH) Grass is always greener because every single one of these has bad things you have to deal with and pluses and minuses.

Conventional wisdom is that SFH is the better option, but the maintenance is nonstop. There could be constant issues with condo life also, but I don't know it because I haven't experienced it. The grass might not be greener over there where I'm not mowing it.