Condo Conversion Craziness
 

“Congratulations! Your apartment will soon no longer be an apartment – you are currently living in a future, over-priced condo!”

That wasn’t exactly what the legal notice I received said, but I remember my exact response was “aw, fuck!” Thankfully, they’re going to let me ride out my lease, but I really doubt that the asking price will be anywhere within my reach and so, for the fifth time in as many years, I’ll probably have to pack up and move, again. Joy.

The condo conversion is another disturbing sign of a growing problem in Tampa and that is that Tampa is looking more like Orlando with each passing day. Many of my friends that have lived out there for some years find themselves hopping from one complex to the next, only to find a sixty day “buy it or get out!” notice tacked to their door shortly after they move in. The result is that renting in the city currently number one for condo conversions is that renting is extremely difficult and finding a place to live involves looking in other cities a great distance away. Escaping thirty, forty, or even sixty miles away can still lead to the same result. So if you live and work in Florida, you know that buying a house on a normal salary is nearly impossible. If you already own a house, here, your taxes and insurance have or will soon skyrocket.

Of course, it’s fun for the people that are causing the problem. New Yorkers and people from California are flooding the area, having sold their inflated properties to live as a permanent snowbirds. Investors continue to buy properties and hold them, empty, for months, even years. Even without an immediate buyer, they’re still going to profit because, someday, someone from the North is going to be drawn into the tempting swamps and hurricane-prone areas. It seems to be an unwritten rule and with more than 1,000 families moving into the state a day, it doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.

I’m convinced that within the next five to ten years I will be priced out of living in this state. I’m tempted to break the rental cycle and purchase something, anything, to at least start “riding the escalator”. As of now, buying a house is out of the question, so I’m curious: is purchasing a condo really as much of a nightmare as it seems? There is currently a glut of condos, but they aren’t falling in price because they’re purchased by people who plan to “flip” them. Should I just stick to renting and wait it out? Should I dump all of my savings and bite the bullet? Does anyone have any experience unloading one of these owned apartments? I’m really frightened that, in the future, selling might prove really difficult for a number of reasons, but that buying might be even more of an impossibility.

My condo association is also flipping apartments into condos, but luckily I'm in a unit that was already a condo.

Rent money is down the drain. If you buy, you are building equity, and in a growing housing market your equity grows faster than your savings probably would. If it grows fast enough, you can then do what the snowbirds are doing, and get a house in a cheaper market. Of course, living in hurricaneland, you do get some risk with ownership, so you'd need good insurance.

My condo has tripled in value in six years, but I'm too stubborn to move out to the boonies to take advantage of it...

It might just be my snowcentric world-view coming into play but I had no idea there were differences in Florida's cities. I always assumed that outside of St. Augustine it's all strip malls and theme parks. Maybe I should get out more...

No, you're right. They are all the same. I'm living in a Strip Mall Theme Park right now.

There was an article in a not too recent issue of the Kansas City Star about a pair of investors who have been buying up apartment complexes and converting them here in KC.

Now, most of these properties were run down shitholes when purchased, so the upgrades are obvious improvements when they're done. However, they are by and large still in marginal neighborhoods with on-street parking. And no matter how refurbed the buildings are, they're still small apartments in a marginal neighborhood, only now, you can pay more and perhaps sort of own one someday.

Not my cuppa.

Must be a popular month for that sort of thing. I just got my "we're going condo" packet last Friday.

Having lived in this apartment for as long as I have, I am quite amused at the frankly obscene amount of money they are intending to charge for it ... and that's my special "You've lived here forever" buy in rate. Sale price to the general public will likely be around $300K, for a 25+ year old townhouse. I am not interested in the buy in at this point. The inconvenience of the prep work they have to do for the condo conversion is going to be extreme, and could include the complex owners having all of my shit placed in storage and moving me and a suitcase into an apartment temporarily while they "fix up" the place ... which in this case means replacing all the windows, putting in a water heater (there is currently one massive water heater which serves the whole building), ripping out all of the flooring (which is rumored to contain asbestos) under the carpet, replacing the carpet, replacing the bathroom fixtures and tile, replacing the kitchen appliances, counters, and cabinets.

I knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when. One thing that was interesting was the the complex was underoccupied for a very long time, and this blocked the sale from the previous ownership to the condoconversion guys ... so they ran all kinds of specials, started allowing pets, etc., etc. ... bingo, full occupancy ... and THEN the condo conversion was announced to all the new residents, who hit the roof. The new neighbors started complaining to me about it ... they became most unhappy when told that everybody else has known the conversion deal was in the works for the last two years.

This isn't the first time I've been subjected to this. The year I graduated high school the place my family and I had been living went condo. That's when we came to this complex the first time around.

I need to start saving boxes.

Kit, come to Fresno. We are probably the only city in the largest 100 of this country which is actually building just as many really nice rental units as other housing units. Don't know how we got it right, nothing else here ever seems thought out.

You definitely don't want to live in a condominium development if you can help it. They are universally governed by Murphy's Law: If anything can possibly go wrong, it will. Condos also attract incompetent and demented people who get themselves elected to the Homeowners Board due to the apathy of the majority of the residents and seem to be permanently installed, right where they can do the most harm to the most people. Your own home will become a prison, unless you surrender your mind and any ambitions you might have had for beauty, justice, and fiscal responsibility by the people you are forced to hand over your monthly dues to :worried:

I'm sorry - I googled this and still can't work it out. What is a condo? Is it a name for an apartment that you buy instead of rent?

Pretty much. "condo" is short for "Condominium" which is Latin for "Small rowhome you paid too much for and have bizarrely restrictive rules regarding what you can plant near your door."

I found this amusing/sad, because I just found out that my complex has switched back, but only halfway: 50% sales, 50% rentals. Thankfully, this means I don't have to move and I no longer feel pressured. So, what happens if you purchased a condo and get bitten when the rest don't sell?

Ah, this is about to get all sorts of entertaining!

Atlanta is going condo BIG TIME. Even our famous Post Properties, dozens and dozens of overpriced apartment complexes, are converting. Lofts and lofts downtown too. You want expensive? I live in an apartment in a leafy subdivision of 60s and 70s ranch burgers. I have a great deal; it a day-light basement apartment, good landlord. About 5 years ago, a developer who lives in a replica of The White House nearby (true), started tearing down the perfectly nice ranchers to build his McMansions. Dig this: the ranchers are usually split-levels and one across the street sold for 235K. This developer dude just tore one down and built two McMansions. I picked up the flyer yesterday. Gulp. $1,199,000.00 That's for one. The other one located about 15 feet away is probably the same. I don't know who these people are that buy these things.

Hey Kit, sounds like you're in the same boat as me. I would go for a small house, but that's just me.

http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/a...whitehouse.jpg
The developer lives in this replica of the White House

http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/archives/McHuge.jpg
These are the "beautiful" homes he builds.

I was looking into that since prices have started to drop, here, but insurance is up so high (from ~$700 to close to $3,000 and still rising) and interest rates are up enough to make it really difficult. I'm comfortable renting until I leave the state or a second income enters the picture.

Ugh. I remember the brick blocks up there. Always ugly and they tended to sit atop really tall hills with a crumbling cliff overlooking a major highway for a backyard. Classy.

What's that huge almost windowless section? A regulation basketball court?

It's a regulation. All new McMansions must have a totally useless and huge windowless section so the little ranch house next door, the one that was not torn down, can have a nice, sunless view of a brick wall:

http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/archives/Mcwall.jpg

I've found that, other than the initial down, buying a small house is much cheaper than renting. But I live in a smaller city in FL. Renting has never made sense to me. Condos neither, you just never get the equity for the money you are paying out, but with rent there is no equity, just jack down the drain.