Julian's Heart to Heart, Condo Or No Condo
by Julian on Mar.02, 2009,under House Purchase
It was time to sit down and decided if I was really willing to spend money buying an apartment.
...
What I liked about a condominium was the outside was someone else's responsibility. And my yard working skills were never honed. I could turn a plastic plant brown. And having to feed and weed to get something to grow, just so I could mow it down.... really didn't make sense to me. I actually took a serious look at installing an artificial lawn.
The condo's I found had some really nice kitchen setups. I looked at one place where the square footage was not listed. It was priced right, had a patio, nice kitchen; unfortunately that was all it had. I found out later that it was about 500 Sq ft.
I read an article where there were some Condos on 85th in Greenwood (Seattle, WA) where buying them would be cheaper than renting. So I looked at some Condos on 85th in the Greenwood area. I figured the purchase price at about $300K. One has two options for a loan, 0% down at 5.5%, or 20% down at 4.5%. Monthly payments respectively are $1703 and $1206. Then one needs to add the taxes, about $2400 per year and then those pesky HOA dues, about $300 a month. So your monthly payments become $2200 and $1706. Dang! Apartments must be expensive in Seattle. ...I'll stay in Tacoma.
One of the problems with looking at Condos is that the listed price and payments do not take into account the HOA dues, taxes and insurance. It adds about $300 - S600 to the monthly payment. Most of what I found in looking at Condos was that I was basically buying an apartment, it cost more per months and there are still shared walls, and the noise there of.
Living at Courtyard North Apartments the building was basically quiet, but there were about four people that liked to blast their stereos. And there was one tenant that liked to scream at Jerry Springer in the middle of the night. So much for opening my windows for a relaxing cool nights breeze.
One other thing I wanted was a place where I could do what I want when I want. I work night shift and keep the same hours on my days off, i.e. I stay awake doing things from 1400 until about 0600. I usually go to sleep at around 0600. Watching Top Gun at a soft volume level, just really doesn't work. I lived in another place where a new tenant moved in with a dog that barked all day while he was at work.
Then I have to address the noise that I generate. You see, I'm a drummer, a DJ, learning the guitar and I have a synthesizer (Yamaha DX-7). I have a real cool stereo along with 18" bass speakers. And to be honest, I'm a little tired of having to listen to Pulse with the bass turned all the way down, and head phones make my ears hurt after about 4 hours. Plus I miss that squeal of the tires as my 747 glides onto the runway followed by the wall rattling roar of reverse thrust.
After a lot of thinking and consulting with friends and family, shared housing was removed from my list. No condos, du(multi)plexes, townhouses, etc., for me. It was going to be a single family home.
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