Single Family House vs Condo vs Renting

[powell556]

I've been a lifelong renter because I moved regularly for work. I'm settling down and would like to consider home ownership. I've been doing an enormous amount of theorycrafting and research over the years and would like input from the forum members.

First, I don't think renting is "throwing money away" so no need to go into that point. Maybe I'm wrong, and it is throwing money away, but for purposes of discussion I'm interested in purchasing something to improve my quality of life, not as a financial situation. If purchasing will not increase my quality of life, then I'd rather continue renting.

My main problems with renting are noisy neighbors, cigarette smoke from neighbors, my apartment manager has a key and access to my home (albeit for emergencies only, in theory), I can't customize security features of the home like strengthening the door, I can't store survival supplies like a few hundred gallons of water, there's uncertainty on how long I'll be able to continue renting there (or if they want to jack up the rents).

I have come up with three possible buying solutions that may improve my quality of life. Each one has pros and cons that I've considered. And I'm writing this post because there's pros/cons that I haven't considered that you all have experienced in your lives that I can learn vicariously from.

OPTION A) Buy a single family home, HOA-free, in the city I currently live, just outside of the downtown area. I refuse to own a home with an HOA, it defeats the purpose of owning a home. I like the idea of burying a 500 or 1000 gallon water tank in the ground. Possibly a deisel fuel or propane tank. I don't own a deisel vehicle yet but am considering buying a pickup truck. Propane may be able to run a generator for emergencies.

Downsides are that I would be responsible for everything and I am a massive tweaker (not of meth, but of customizing things). I fear my entire life may turn into projects such as re-plumbing and optimizing the hot water heater and researching optimal paint color patterns for rooms based on scientific light analysis of natural light. I get obsessive into things like this and at some point, the house owns me.

Other downsides are that the lots are pretty small (About 0.20 acres) and my neighbors would be pretty close. So I might hear barking dogs, playing/screaming children, and may smell chain smoking neighbors over my fence. But, if I want to live in the nice part of town, close to downtown, I am stuck with a small lot.

OPTION B) Buy land in a rural part of town, 30 to 45 minutes out, 1 acre, and build my "Dream" house. I don't want anything huge, a 3/2 1500sq foot would be plenty for my needs. Obvious downside is driving distance to do anything. If I want to go anywhere it becomes a mission. There's shops and businesses (like gyms) in that rural part of town, but I don't think I'd like them compared to the ones downtown I'm used to. The land isn't big enough to put my own shooting range in the backyard (per ordinances).

This is the most expensive option. Even though the land is a lot cheaper, building a custom house is expensive. When a developer builds 100 houses in the city, they have economies of scale. Me building one house is a lot more expensive.

The other downside is that much like the single family home, I will become obsessed with optimizing it. Both during the build phase and once it's complete. And since I have more land to play with, there's more optimizations I can do.


OPTION C) Buy a condo downtown. The location is perfect for day to day living, but terrible if TSHTF. I'm not a crazy prepper, just a reasonable one, and would rather structure my life around what's likely to happen, rather than what probably won't happen. So I'd rather live downtown and enjoy day to day, then live out in the sticks and feel secure if TSHTF.

Downsides are HOA fees forever. However, Condos are reasonably priced compared to houses. My math is such that if the monthly HOA fee multiplied by 300 PLUS the cost of the condo is cheaper than the single family house, then the condo is cheaper overall. For example, a condo might be $200k with $250 HOA fee. take $250 times 300 and get $75k. This is because you'd need $75k up front in a bank account to pay $250 HOA fees (adjusted for inflation) forever.f

So if the Condo is $200k with $250 HOA fees, that's about $275k costs and houses in the area might be $400k

I could potentially drop $30k into sound insulation in the condo and be ahead of buying the $400k house. No backyard chickens for me, but maybe condo life means I can focus on fitness and dry firing, rather than figuring out how to bury 1000 gallon tanks of water in my backyard.

I know there's special assessments that drop in condos but the same happens in a house, it's just called "the roof collapsed" or the "hot water heater broke".

I am not keen on condos nor HOAs, but the more I analyze it, the more it seems to make sense to me. I'd rather not discuss the exact area I live or want to live but the numbers above for the houses are about accurate. Building a custom home on 1 acre in the rural part would probably run $500k.

[Lester Polfus]

Hey bud.

I'm about to walk out the door for 2 hours of animal tracking, woods walking and meditation on my own property, so I have to keep this short:

Where does your life happen? Do you "live" at home? or is home just a place where you sleep most of the time in between going to other places where you do the things that are really important to you?

[Joe in PNG]

Hey bud.

I'm about to walk out the door for 2 hours of animal tracking, woods walking and meditation on my own property, so I have to keep this short:

Where does your life happen? Do you "live" at home? or is home just a place where you sleep most of the time in between going to other places where you do the things that are really important to you?

One can add that one's general habits won't change a whole lot because one moved to a different area. Thinking that moving to a place with lots of outdoors will change one from an indoor person into an outdoor person can be mistaken.

[powell556]

Where does your life happen? Do you "live" at home? or is home just a place where you sleep most of the time in between going to other places where you do the things that are really important to you?

This is a really great and interesting point that I've struggled with. I like walking around the urban area near my home. Because it's a nice urban walk that has good people watching, I tend to do it often. Usually 4 to 5 days a week for 90 minutes when I'm in town and not working in another state.

If I moved to the rural land area, I don't think I'd enjoy a 90 minute walk near that land. It's hard to describe without giving away too many personal details, but it's not quite rural, it's semi-rural. There's a lot of houses, they are just spread out more on 5x more land per plot. And it's not really designed for walking around. So I'd have to drive somewhere to walk.

I have resistance to walking sometimes, because it's easier to be lazy and watch YouTube or surf the internet especially after a day of work. That's why I only walk 4 to 5 days a week instead of every day. If I lived in the rural spot, then I'd cut my walking down a lot, because now there's greater resistance because I'd have to get into my car and drive maybe 10 minutes to a park to walk (and not have as good people watching as I do now).

Also, doing BJJ or boxing will be hard unless I drive somewhere or if I accept the coaches in that rural area that might not be as good. So I envision if I moved to the rural spot, I'd probably change my life dramatically and make twice weekly 45 minute drives down to where I currently live to do things like go to the gym, walk around, shop at the grocery store I like, see old friends, etc. And I'd pack a cooler and make it a "day trip" of sorts spending 5 to 7 hours down there to justify the 90 minute round trip driving.

I don't really want to reshape my life around living in that rural spot, which is why I've been rethinking the condo situation.

I guess what I'm asking through a long drawn out pair of posts: Do condos suck as much as I'm worried they might? Some problems I forsee:

A) Special Assessments for crazy stuff I have no interest in. They decide to build a tennis court and I'm paying a $20k special assessment. Or one of the families has a kid in a wheelchair and sue the board, and now we all have a $30k special assessment to build ramps everywhere. Or even just non-crazy stuff like roofs. I've heard HOAs are always underfunded because they don't like raising the monthly fees, and then eventually it's so bad everyone needs to chip in $10k in a one time assessment.

B) Overzealous HOA managers who upset me. Maybe I want to replace my windows with double pane, noise blocking windows and they give me a hard time. Like take 6 months to give me permission to do that. Or I put velcro black out material (that shows white on the outside) on my bedroom window to sleep and they demand I take it down. Even though no one can see it, there's one person who gets off on walking around looking for violations and ruining my life. Maybe they demand I can't back into my parking spot (as some apartments I've lived in have made "parking rules" saying head in parking only). Sounds silly but it's a big deal for me to back in for several reasons, including safety because I can contol when I back in, but I can't control when I back out.

C) Air ventillation systems that leak a neighbor's cigarette smoke into my home. I've read people complain that this can happen if the air systems are shared. And the HOA can do nothing about it, and I'd probably have to move or maybe drop $10k to $20 on an whole home air purification system to put in my own vents. After waiting 6 months for the HOA to approve this install, of course.

D) HOA fees will rise over time. What if they rise far beyond inflation? What if people decide to convert it into a luxury condo, as are popular these days in my downtown area, and the HOA fees double to support a door man or some other stuff I have no interest in.

E) I might not be able to do the security upgrades to my home I want. The front door probably has to look the same as everyone elses so I can't replace it with a solid wood door. I can probably upgrade the frame around the door to make it more kick-resistant. I have only started researching security upgrades. It doesn't seem paranoid because we spend so much effort on learning to use guns that fortifying ones home against burglary or home invasion (which may simply be burglary gone wrong because I was in the shower and thought the home was unoccupied). The nature of a condo will restrict me, but to what extend, I don't know.

Basically, I'm afraid I'll be miserable because of the HOA on an emotional and financial level and that's what's pushing to either spending far more on a single family home that's just outside downtown on a small lot or consider the rural larger lot custom house.

[Darth_Uno]

Option B, that’s what I did. Got 2 acres between three smallish towns. Close enough to drive, far enough to not be bothered. People don’t drive down my road unless they have a reason to be there.

I’m also a general contractor and build homes for a living so feel free to pm me with questions, but what’s normal (for both cost and building code) can vary quite a bit depending on location.

[littlejerry]

Condos are a terrible investment; even more so at the peak of the market. First things to lose value will be condos, second are homes in "transitional" neighborhoods. Last are homes in established communities with good schools. When the market turns the % drop in value is also not the same. Condos lose the most value.

Depending on the city you are in I'd hang tight and keep on renting. As interest rates climb prices will fall.

Special assessments are also a real risk for properties not well managed. The HOA should maintain a fund to cover normal and expected maintenance (like a roof). Special assessments happen when they piss away money on stupid stuff and act surprised when the 20 year old roof starts leaking.

Buying a home doesn't have to be an investment if it's truly a 20-30 year purchase, but that's rarely the case with a condo. Most people sell them in less than 10 or even 5 years.

[powell556]

Depending on the city you are in I'd hang tight and keep on renting. As interest rates climb prices will fall.

I'm looking at waiting another year probably for this exact reason. It probably won't be market bottom, but timing that will be difficult. But I don't want to wait too long because this home purchase should increase my quality of living, so if the value drops $20k in the first year, but I plan to keep the place for 20+ years (or until I die maybe), it won't matter too much to me.

But right now, we're only maybe 3% to 5% off the market top and I suspect we'll shed another 10% over the next year.

[TGS]

A) Special Assessments for crazy stuff I have no interest in. They decide to build a tennis court and I'm paying a $20k special assessment. Or one of the families has a kid in a wheelchair and sue the board, and now we all have a $30k special assessment to build ramps everywhere.

I had written a big response to address, sympathize and assuage some of your concerns, but god damn dude. I couldn't get past this, especially given your recent callous comments with disregard to the possibility of fellow humans suffering GSWs in a pistol class. If you need to put out some cash to help the community you live in be a better place, like the HOA installing ramps so a disabled kid can get around, then maybe not be a piece of shit and just put out the fucking cash with a happy heart.

Jesus, dude, you could've picked so many examples, but what would bug you out of anything is whether you'd have to help put out money so that a property was ADA compliant so a family with a fucking disabled kid in a wheelchair can get around?

@Lost River was spot on. You're a fucking piece of work, guy.

[peterb]

A single-family house does minimize neighbor issues, but comes with all the maintenance issues. Mow the lawn? Rake the leaves? Fix the leak? Repaint? Replace the furnace? It’s all on you to do it yourself, or to manage and pay for someone else to do it.

When you rent, your weekends are wide open. When you own, there’s always a chore list. Always.

Be realistic about what that tradeoff is worth.

I rented for several years, have owned for many years. Owning has meant having the space and freedom to do things I couldn’t do in an apartment. But sometimes I look at my to-do list and think back to the rental days when I could wake up on a Saturday morning and only think of what I wanted to do.......

[camsdaddy]

I think if I were in your position I would continue to rent. I cant see moving 30-45 mins out if my idea of a house on some land was only an acre. I don't see the benefit outweighing the cost of inconvenience. I just dont see enough gain to justify buying anything. If you buy a condo you still live in an apartment.