I'm in the process of buying my own place. A first for me...and its terrifying. So my finance/lender guy knows all of my dirty little (financial) secrets. That was fun....I'm not a good one for keeping personal paperwork (I shred things fanatically). But now that the pre-approval thing is under control...now we look at places that are within my price point.
yay
So here's a list of my criteria that my brother (we live together) and I have. Must have two bedrooms. Must have at least two full bathrooms. Must have laundry capability/hook-ups in the unit (not sharing with others). So not that bad when it came to criteria. Bonus points for carpet in the bedrooms, gas range in oven, and HOA fees that aren't completely unreasonable.
#1 : Nice bedrooms and the full bathrooms were good. Kitchen good. Attached garage good. Really bad living room. Too expensive. HOA too expensive
#2 : Bedrooms were ok. Bathrooms were ok. Too much road noise. No garage. Washer & dryer within one arm's reach of stove...boo. Good price. HOA was ok.
#3 : Smelled like a cat had pee'ed all over the place. Huge square footage. Mostly good kitchen, but the fridge was in a weird place. The stairs to go up to the bedrooms were seriously narrow (how do I get stuff up there?) Master bedroom good sized. Master bath ok. Other bedroom was completely trashed (all walls would have to be redone). Other bedroom had a "European" shower, or a wash pit as I called it. Total deal breaker. No garage, but assigned parking spaces in a structure that basically says "rape me" just by parking in it. Price was ok (huge size vs trashed. Good HOA.
#4 : Good location with views of the canyons (either yay when normal or scary when on fire). Looked as if two of the Golden Girls lived there. No garage or parking spaces. One bedroom was seriously small. Small but relatively ok kitchen. Great price. Ok HOA.
#5 : Decent location (too close to road with noise). Great floors throughout. Good kitchen. Good sized bedrooms. Living area is nice. Ok patio. Detached 1 car garage, with a work bench/area for tools and such. Assigned other parking spot. Good guest parking. Decent price point. Bad HOA.
Ok...so there isn't too much else that's on the market for the area that I want to live in, and is within my price point. My pick so far is #5.
We'll see. Talking it out makes me feel a little better...however I'd rather not be so poor as to only have the condo, and be able to do...well, nothing else. We'll see. Thoughts?
~Jeordam
Congrats! It's all about figuring out what tradeoffs you're willing to make (which it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on). I wouldn't be okay with the total picture of any of the ones you described. I would put 4 ahead of 5 since cosmetic stuff is so easy to fix and the location and price are both better, but no parking space would be a concern for me (unless it's a communal lot and a situation where you would always have a spot, it might just be a couple spaces down from your door instead of right in front of it). Covered parking is necessary in a lot of areas but I don't think that would be a deal breaker for me in SD (if I'm remembering correctly that's where you are). Is your brother concerned about how small the bedroom is?
For me, road noise would not be something I'd want to contend with if I could avoid it. Combine that with a high HOA, and 5 sounds like bad news. I'd rather pay a slightly higher price up front combined with lower HOA (and remember those can always go up) because you have to consider not just what your total monthly payment ends up as but what that gets you/where it goes.
All that to say I kind of agree with beet above; I wouldn't jump on any of these if you aren't in a situation where you have to buy soon. I'd consider widening the area I'm looking at or holding off for other properties to hit the market (or waiting for ones that are currently outside of your budget to come down enough to where you could make an offer at the high end of your desired price range).
"The trophy problem has become extreme."
- 14/01/2015 03:12:50 PM
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