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The housing market needs more condos

• teluride5 5y ago
• more_corn 5y ago
  Because people don’t Like condos?
  • thisrobot 5y ago
    I think people think they don’t like condos. I currently live in a condo I own and while not without challenges overall I like it. I think people have unrealistic pessimism for hoas. In Seattle there are a ton for town homes being built, split lot and connected, most without any hoa. When they need work I bet you’ll see a lot of neighbors suing neighbors to fix and replace shared elements. I would never move into shared living space that didn’t have some sort of hoa to manage any the shared space.
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      That’s why I will never buy into shared anything, not why I will warm up to homeowners associations. You are at the mercy of the average members of your group and the average person let’s things decay until it falls down around them.
      • thisrobot 5y ago
        As someone living in a condo with and hoa I completely disagree. I get yearly budgets, bi-yearly building inspection reports. The hoa has a fiduciary responsibility to the building and is required by law not to let things decay. Without the hoa communal living wouldn’t work, and not everyone can have a single family home, especially in urban centers.
        • MattGaiser 5y ago
          I think this heavily depends on your local regulations. My grandparents had a condo once and because the people in the association didn't want to pay, they endlessly deferred maintenance until it was 40K a unit. All because they didn't want to fix leaky windows 10 years beforehand. My home city is filled with examples of this kick it to the next year approach to maintenance. Most people are that way. They view a bucket as a solution to water dripping in through the roof.
    • mdorazio 5y ago
      Do you have kids? Among my friends group there was a very stark change in home-type preference between when people were childless and when they had kids.
      • thisrobot 5y ago
        I do not. But I have neighbors who do. My wife also grew up in a condo. Every living situation has different trade offs. Maybe condos don’t work for some people. I think for most people, particularly young people they make a great first home.
    • dvtrn 5y ago
      I think people have unrealistic pessimism for hoas I dunno, while I'm in no real rush to paint them all with a broad brush, there's certainly some validity to the some of the ire towards HOAs that the HOAs themselves rightly earned. The one I'm under certainly has. They wont be missed.
    • bozhark 5y ago
      Moved into a condo in the area last April. The water line is not only shared, but they had been piping hot water to their fridge line since the 80’s. Apparently no one cares enough so we ate the cost of re routing. Fuck HOA’s
      • thisrobot 5y ago
        Cool. So that really only leaves single family homes if you don’t want an hoa. I don’t think it scales.
        • sidlls 5y ago
          Plenty of single family homes are in HOA developments. It’s not impossible but it’s not exactly trivial to find non-HOA SFH in the Peninsula.
          • Rebelgecko 5y ago
            Which peninsula?
            • sidlls 5y ago
              Sorry: the Peninsula in the Bay Area
    • HideousKojima 5y ago
      My wife and I live in a townhome and we hate it. The noise through the walls, especially if you have inconsiderate neighbors, is a huge pain and you have essentially zero control over it.
      • asiachick 5y ago
        I've lived in "soundproof" condos and in paper thin floor condos. I'd blame bad building construction on noise more than neighbors.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • Ekaros 5y ago
          It is surprisingly easy to mess up things. In "condo" I rent, noise is from balcony or the hallway. And the renovated bathroom. All other walls perfectly decent for most of the time... Ofc, occasional loud situations, but that is no different from monsters that have parties outside their house.
      • thisrobot 5y ago
        I think a lot of modern construction sucks. My condo was built in 1980 and I almost never hear my neighbors. It is also a fairly well designed building where both vertical and horizontal neighbors have aligned spaces for sleeping eating and living. Along with side shard walls being used for closets and bathrooms.
        • HideousKojima 5y ago
          My townhome is actually an old WW2 military hospital that got gutted in the 90's and turned into townhomes. I can hardly hear anything from outside since it was apparently built to survive bombing, but the walls between units allow a ton of sound through.
        • Gigachad 5y ago
          My apartment (what Americans would call a condo I think) was built in 2019 and I never hear a sound. Have tested playing loud music and I can’t hear it at all from the hallway. It just depends on how much the developers cared when they built it.
    • jokethrowaway 5y ago
      Trust me, I do - I have experience of living in a condo and it's subpar to a detached house. Don't get me wrong, I've been living in condos for the last 8 years in various places and it's doable - it can even be nice. But I'd never buy a condo: I'd just spend more or move to a cheaper location where I can afford a detached house with a large plot. Having a private garden is great, not crossing people when getting home is great, not hearing people around you is great, not having to deal with the useless administration is great, not having to pay them fees is great. The thing that bothers me the most about where I live is that even detached houses don't tend to have big plots (makes sense in a developer driven market: buy a ton of land and cram as many houses as you can in there), so you're still too close to other houses. I understand it's a luxury but it's one I'm happy to put all my money in
    • toast0 5y ago
      Shared living spaces require more coordination with neighbors, either directly or through an HOA. I don't like coordination, so shared spaces are not my preference. Having to run important repairs through a consensus process makes things take longer and become more expensive. If you can't coordinate with your neighbors directly, and resort to the courts, you're likely to end up in the same place when you can't coordinate with your neighbors as HOA. Although, sometimes, having established procedures can smooth things over. Single family detached homes without an HOA may not scale (probably doesn't), as you say in another comment, but that doesn't mean we only think we don't like the options that would scale. I haven't lived in a condo, or in an HOA, because I have had choices and I'm not going to pick a choice I've got enough information to determine I'll dislike.
      • matsemann 5y ago
        > I'm not going to pick a choice I've got enough information to determine I'll dislike. You've been duped by the loud anti-HOA crowd and their scary stories, then. For most people, living in a condo is hassle-free. It's cheaper to be many when doing repairs. And someone else coordinates everything so one doesn't have to think about maintenance.
        • toast0 5y ago
          > And someone else coordinates everything so one doesn't have to think about maintenance. Is that someone else going to move my stuff out of the way when the repairmen come to fix the ceiling under the leaky roof? Will that someone else actually let me know when they'll be swinging by? Will they use a quality repairperson or their cousin? Will it take them so long to get someone out to fix the roof, that more rooms need ceiling repair? How are we paying for this coordinator's time? Oops, I wasn't supposed to think about this.
          • matsemann 5y ago
            Roof will probably not leak nearly as often as in a house, as stuff is being actively maintained. I've never had to think about the roof or the walls, the heating, the water, garbage, etc. So one still comes out way ahead. But yeah, no one can stop you from dreaming up weird scenarios in your head. Doesn't mean you have a point, though..
  • lkxijlewlf 5y ago
    Two reasons I hear most for this: 1) They don't appreciate like houses do (and depreciate faster than houses do). 2) A lot of "condos" are converted apartment buildings. This sucks because the construction is much worse (hardly any sound dampening, etc.).
    • R0b0t1 5y ago
      #1 is circular: they don't appreciate because people don't like them. People don't like them because people like the space a house and yard gives you.
  • Rebelgecko 5y ago
    I like my condo. Even though part of why I live in one is cost, another part is that I hate dealing with maintenance. I think it would've been a big transition to go from apartment living, where none of that is my problem, to a house where I'd have to coordinate roofers, gardeners, pool guy, etc. By living in a condo I can outsource a lot of those problems to the HOA, and (in theory, maybe not in practice) benefit from economies of scale
  • closeparen 5y ago
    Exorbitant prices beg to differ.
• twalla 5y ago
  A lot of people have a big chunk of their net worth tied up into home equity because it's sort of the "ordained" path to building wealth for the middle class - condos don't see similar appreciation, get hit harder in downturns and are one of the last types of properties to recover in value afterwards. Start incentivizing treating housing as, you know, a place to live rather than a financial instrument and you'll see plenty more condos.
  • Victerius 5y ago
    > condos don't see similar appreciation, get hit harder in downturns and are one of the last types of properties to recover in value afterwards. This is fine. I don't buy a condo with the hope of recouping my money. I buy a condo to have a roof over my head. I couldn't care less if my condo loses 80% of its value. It would lower my property tax bill in fact. I don't expect a ROI > 0 for the furniture either. For my retirement, I contribute to a 401k and a Roth IRA.
    • massysett 5y ago
      If all you want is a roof over your head, why not rent? It's less risky. You may well find yourself caring if your condo loses 80% of its value if you need to sell it and you can't repay the loan.
      • oldsecondhand 5y ago
        Because rent would hurt you really bad when you're pensioner.
        • HarryHirsch 5y ago
          Old-age poverty is indeed a policy problem, but housing policy isn't really the way to address it. (Meanwhile you look at places like the Villages in Florida, where you are required to own a car because nothing is within walking distance, no social club, no grocery story, no physician, there's going to be a huge amount of pain in the future.)
• mslate 5y ago
  Sounds like the real estate developers are making the rational choice here--we could make these deregulations that the Urban Institute are pushing for but they never stop to entertain the possibility that this is probably a symptom of the American wealth inequality curve. While it would be nice if more people could get a first foothold in real estate ownership & wealth-building by buying a share of a condo building, they just aren't quite there yet on the wealth curve.
• sidlls 5y ago
  No, it doesn’t. Or at least it depends on where. What the Bay Area needs is more genuine family housing, not small 2BR condos. If the condos were majority 3+ BR I’d have a different opinion. But they aren’t: it’s very hard to find good quality condo housing suitable for a 2-child family that isn’t roughly the same as or more than my 7-figure net worth in cost.
  • thisrobot 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s possible to get more single family homes. So the only option is condos. I agree more spacious one would be awesome as an option.
    • matsemann 5y ago
      Just need strong regulation. All house builders want to make lots of small apartments, as that often gives a higher price per square meter of flooring. But the local government should aim for it being a mix.
      • refurb 5y ago
        Regulation to what? Force builders to big bigger condos? You realize that just makes them even more expensive?
      • epistasis 5y ago
        The only reason it gives them a higher price per squarefoot is that building is so constrained. If there were adequate built space, the smaller apartments wolud be less desirable and maybe even go for less per square foot. It all does come down to strong regulation, but instead of strong regulation to limit building, we should have strong regulation to prohibit hoarding and underuse of land.
    • neelc 5y ago
      Unpopular opinion: IMHO single family homes are an idea whose time passed, at least in big urban areas. While the "American Dream" is to own a home with a backyard, it is logically easier if everyone lived in highrise condos and apartments in urban areas. Homes would be cheaper, since you could scale up and not just out (e.g. avoid urban sprawl). Not to mention lower gas costs and we don't need to cut down as many trees to build homes. My mom owns a home (which I rent the downstairs, it's cheaper for me), and it has a big backyard. That in expensive Seattle. Combine that with tens of thousands of homes (if not hundreds) and you have a lot of wasted land. A lot of the housing problem isn't Amazon or Big Tech, its single-family zoning. Today's cities need high rise buildings to accommodate everyone.
• ameminator 5y ago
  In my country (with a birth rate approaching 1.00), we have allowed an excess of immigrants to make up for the difference. As a result, we have a deficit of an estimated 1.2 million homes. The price of housing ain't going anywhere, especially since most Western democracies seem to have lost total control of their economies, in terms of supply chains and inflation.
• tdeck 5y ago
  The housing market also needs more row houses. Those have fewer of the disadvantages of condos but unfortunately they're illegal to build in most (almost all?) parts of the US.
  • trhway 5y ago
    Absolutely. Americans have very low skills living in close neighbors conditions like condos, and row houses would be a reasonable solution.
  • jeffbee 5y ago
    Absolutely. It's a great form. Permitted in some places in California, such as these recent neighborhoods. https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0148717,-122.2775613,3a,75y,49.42h,91.98t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKBcAeT0tcuSBPtyLYKd-bg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0148717,-122.2775613,3a,75y,...
  • thisrobot 5y ago
    In Seattle there are a ton for town homes being built, split lot and connected, most without any hoa. When they need work I bet you’ll see a lot of neighbors suing neighbors to fix and replace shared elements. I would never move into shared living space that didn’t have some sort of hoa to manage any the shared space.
    • tdeck 5y ago
      I'm not sure what you're describing but a traditional row house doesn't share any elements or living space. It's on a small rectangular lot facing the street and has its own walls that directly about the walls of houses on each side with no setback. Shared space like the street and sidewalk are owned by the city. (Edit: there are also of course row house duplexes that would share a roof, front stairs, etc... But many are single family homes).
      • dec0dedab0de 5y ago
        The only row house's I know of share side walls. Because they're all built in a row.
• whiddershins 5y ago
  Any housing you purchase but has a HOA is suboptimal, in my opinion. Once you have an HOA you don’t own your home in the way you would otherwise. At that point I would start doing the math carefully about buying versus rent + investing. Renting has the huge luxury of being able to leave with minimal hassle, and not deal with any maintenance.
  • jopython 5y ago
    The math is clear. You don't gain any equity by paying rent.
    • nly 5y ago
      The math is far from simple. Let's say you have a 3% mortgage and the interest component on your loan is 20% lower than the rent you're paying on a similar property. Sounds like a no brainer, until you consider the opportunity cost of carrying the repayment part. It's earning (really saving) you 3%/yr instead of the 5-10% you could earn long term in the stock market. Sure if house prices rise just 1% a year, the equity you're building is nice, but that is not guaranteed going forward, especially when you're buying in to an area where median house prices could already be 10x median earnings.
      • notfromhere 5y ago
        Most people are bad at saving and investing, so housing acts like a forced savings account. People won't be investing the difference between rent and their mortgage, they'll be using it for other expenses. Especially for anyone that's at the median or below, you're not making enough to actually save much, so the mechanism here is effective. The most important thing is that a mortgaged house is a hedge against rent inflation, as it locks in a flat housing payment for the next 30 years. Then when you're paid off and you retire , you only have to worry about maintenance + property tax, which is cheaper than the mortgage ever was.
• rdtwo 5y ago
  And they have a ton of costly defects that builders don’t want to cover
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • brewdad 5y ago
    So do tract homes (every major subdivision built in the last 20 years).
• AcerbicZero 5y ago
  Eh, maybe I’d do a townhouse, but I’m pretty burned out on condos. They’re just apartments with a bunch of extra liabilities attached.
  • thisrobot 5y ago
    In Seattle there are a ton for town homes being built, split lot and connected, most without any hoa. When they need work I bet you’ll see a lot of neighbors suing neighbors to fix and replace shared elements. I would never move into shared living space that didn’t have some sort of hoa to manage any the shared space.
    • Dracophoenix 5y ago
      As someone with an interest in the Seattle market, I'm wondering if one should consider Mercer Island preferable to Seattle to rent or purchase a residence. Do you have any insight?
      • thisrobot 5y ago
        Very different places. Lived downtown for 15 years. Never been to Mercer island as it pretty much only residential and hard to access. Those can be good or bad depending on the person.
• matsemann 5y ago
  Lots of FUD in this thread, but I guess it depends on where one lives? My experience with things mentioned here: My condo is noiseless. The codes in my country are strict on this. I got families with children all around me, only hear them when sitting on my balcony during summer. And codes in general makes sure that buying a modern condo is safe. Here it's 5 years where the builder has to fix stuff that's not as it should. (Just avoid buying from small shell companies, but that goes for houses as well) Not having to care for anything but the inside is nice. Pay a small amount each month that takes care of everything. No crazy HOA stories, actually never heard of things like that here. Being 100 families in this block, actually gives us lots of power when it comes to negotiation, the fixed start-up costs for repairs etc are split over so many. My parents spend at least 10x the amount of money I do caring for their house, while I don't even have to think about it. Price of condos here has increased much more than houses, as it's central and not possible to build that many more. Can't see why a condo inherently should appreciate less than a house? If there is demand there is demand.
  • ST2084 5y ago
    Wait until you have a special assessment. Not fun.
    • acomjean 5y ago
      There is some overhead in a condo. But the shared common stuff is much cheaper. Roofs and heating systems. He had a special asssement. $1500 for a new boiler (35 units) My friend in a house replaced theirs for thousands because it was old being and some of the pipes and everything needed replacing.. Plus its easier when the management company deals with it, but you pay a bit for that.
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    > Can't see why a condo inherently should appreciate less than a house? If there is demand there is demand. Probably depends on city maturity. In most North American cities, there is plenty of room for more condos. In your case, it is not possible to build more condos either.
  • 5y ago
• Wonnk13 5y ago
  I'm in the process of moving to Boston and it's utter insanity. Housing here is like something out of Kafka novel. Now I empathize with my friends who lived in SF pre-covid. Build, Build, Build!! I do think it's important now more than ever with remote work to build more duplex / 3 bedroom condos. I'm 33 and I have no desire to move out to the burbs, but marrying and starting a family in a 2 bedroom condo isn't totally appealing to me.
  • DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    > starting a family in a 2 bedroom condo isn't totally appealing to me. I think the main issue is not the condo itself but where the condo is. From my experience living in an apartment but with walkable area around me and several large parks within walking distance felt very much equivalent in life quality than now living in a house with a garden. If anything large park areas are usually a lot more interesting for kids than your garden. I do think urban planning should incentivize "village" building. For x square meters of construction you must build y square meters of green spaces and z square meters of local commerce. Otherwise you just get Truman show suburbs.
    • Wonnk13 5y ago
      completely agree!!
• jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
  I am going to buy 100 acres and close myself off from the world. Bye bye! You can keep your dense living.
• dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  Condos have all the downsides of apartments and home ownership combined. They're the trolley of homes. Where the trolley has the downsides of the train and the bus combined. With a condo I pay to own it, but also pay a monthly HOA fee forever, and I can only do approved modifications, but I'm also responsible for anything that breaks. If I own property I should be allowed to install a giant mailbox on a whim, or break a whole in the wall because I dreamt there was treasure in it. If I have to pay monthly and follow someone else's rules, I shouldn't have to finance and organize maintenance on my own. As for the trolley analogy, it gives up the capacity of the train, but can't drive around an accident like a bus.
  • sofixa 5y ago
    > As for the trolley analogy, it gives up the capacity of the train, but can't drive around an accident like a bus. A trolley(bus) is just a bus with overhead wires for electricity. It's more eco-friendly and cheaper than buses ( in the long term), and it requires drastically less infrastructure than trams or other forms of rail because there's no rails to build and maintain. Oh and it's close to silent. Said in another way, it's useful in certain scenarios where you don't need the capacity of a tram or heavier method of transportation but still don't want to pollute/depend on fossil fuels. Battery-powered buses are starting to change that equation but i have no idea which one is more interesting ( in price vs flexibility ( the batteries need to be charged, and replaced after some time; overhead wires need little maintenance)).
  • Gigachad 5y ago
    It’s all the benefits of living in an a great area at a low cost without the negatives of renting. You don’t have some asshole coming in to inspect every x weeks and complaining that the stove is slightly blackened. Don’t have to worry about having to move if you don’t want to, can hang pictures / TVs, get to put your monthly payments in to an asset rather than someone else’s profit, etc.
• rdtwo 5y ago
  Condos have wired risks like you can’t rent them out due to hoa so in in down markets you can’t move or are forced to liquidate. You can get assessed large amounts when stuff breaks and you can get hit with huge hoa dues if your neighbors aren’t paying.
• tamaharbor 5y ago
  I recall when a younger person wouldn’t be caught dead having to pay ‘The Man’ every month.
• vondur 5y ago
  Plenty of condos here in SoCal and they do just fine with appreciating.
• fartcannon 5y ago
  The housing market needs to ban investment properties and heavily tax multiple homes. It's a place to live, not a ponzi scheme!
• trinovantes 5y ago
  The housing market needs to deregulate zoning and let the free market decide what gets built Not everyone wants to chose between a 2000sqft McMansion or a 500sqft shoebox in the sky
  • nicbou 5y ago
    The free market lets actors choose what's best for them at the expense of the group. For example the recreationally remote are bankrupting American towns, and using up far more land and resources than sensible. This also have an environmental impact, but that argument tends to fall on deaf ears among free market proponents.
    • trinovantes 5y ago
      While I acknowledge absolute free market may result in tragedy of the commons in many scenarios, you gave a pretty poor counterexample American towns are going bankrupt because federal/state subsidies (e.g. the Highway Act) allowed them to make inefficient decisions like creating financially unsustainable suburbs instead of intensifying urban areas
  • pydry 5y ago
    The problem is that free market is deciding and it's deciding that returns on providing stores of wealth to the very, very, very rich are greatest and as such that crowds out investment in places to actually....live. If you're looking for a wealth store fungibility is a net positive. McMansions and standardized condos are known quantities that can be valued accordingly.
    • trinovantes 5y ago
      The free market is simply reacting to the artificial scarcity caused by zoning laws, which is the exact opposite of a free market Make it legal to build more supply then speculation will move onto other assets
      • pydry 5y ago
• closeparen 5y ago
  The article gets into some technical rules consequences that are fresh and interesting relative to the usual zoning and NIMBYism discussions. I think they would apply to markets where developer interest, rather than a planning commission, is the limiting factor. - Condo projects are uniquely sensitive to credit availability for first time buyers. Shifting credit towards established buyers naturally shifts housing starts towards SFHs since that is what established buyers want. I would imagine this would also be at play in the disappearance of starter houses. - Developer warranty encourages HOAs to become involved in litigation right as the building starts to be occupied. You can’t get a mortgage in a building with ongoing HOA litigation. Once the developer has sold enough units to generate a lawsuit but not enough units to cover his costs, he gets stuck in limbo squatting on inventory until the lawsuit settles. You could imagine ways of fulfilling both intents without such an unfortunate interaction.