I had a long conversation with my realtor tonight. The house I fell in love with is a short sale. It has an offer into the bank and a back up offer as well. The bank has been considering the first offer for 6 weeks and isn't close to a decision yet. Since I want to move in at the end of September, I'm going to make a trip up there next Sunday and Monday to see if I can find another house I love. My realtor assures me we will find several. He's going to begin checking to see about which houses are short sales and if they already have bank approval. If not, I'll not make an offer. I don't have time to wait for a bank to decide whether or not to accept my offer.
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While I'm disappointed, I'm very comfortable with my realtor. I know we will find something. He also wants me to consider condos, and we talked about the pros and cons of those tonight. It would be nice not to have to worry about snow removal, lawn care, and other exterior maintenance. I'm excited about going up and finding our next home.
2 comments:
Condos are generally a poor investment. They're much harder to sell than detached homes and the construction is generally not as good. Plus, you're living stacked next to or on top of other people and cooking smells, noises, etc., tend to travel through the tissue paper thin walls. Things may be different in your part of the country but here in the NY metro area condos are generally a second choice for people who can't afford a single family home.
I've never lived in a condo; hubby and I have always been home owners. We know people who used to live in one and they didn't care for it. Yes, there are nice things like walk-iin closets and extra half baths but often there are no garages and parking becomes a problem. Plus some condo associations are very picky about small details like forbidding wreaths on doors and flags on balconies -- things that give your home some individuality.
If snow removal and lawn care is an issue you can hire somebody to do it for you. We've had the same landscaper/gutter cleaner/snow removal guy for years.
Thanks for your wisdom. I would never consider a condo such as you have in NY-- I don't want an apartment. I asked the realtor about soundproofing and such, and explained that Daughter can get rather loud when she's mad. He said that the condos that were built in the last 15-20 years in that area are basically single family homes built side by side.
He assured me that there is no problem with noise travelling between units. Many of them have attached garages. The ones I was looking at last night were rather small-- I'm not going to go back to 1,000 square feet (or less). There were some a little further from my desired area that were beautiful-- large, and looked out on wooded nature areas. I also asked about association fees, and he acknowledged that they do go up, but generally not by more than$5 to $10 a year. In that state, condo associations are required to put some of the fees into a longterm maintenance account, which means assessments for roof replacements and such are not as likely. I'm still not sold on them, but will consider them. I'm definitely going to do some more research as well.
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