Low condo reserves- deal breaker for small building?
lamarons21
8 years ago
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lamarons21
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Small Kitchen Layout - Stacked Condo
Comments (123)TeatimeAnn - So nice of you to remember my little condo kitchen. Thanks! No physical progress, but some of the HOA issues have been resolved... (Sigh) It has been quite a process. We have been working with the Home Owners Association board since February to determine the scope of our project. To make a very long, sad, story short... we will be able to accomplish a lot of our remodel, but we will not be able to add certain "common area" (read as inside the walls and ceiling) items. For example, no recessed lights, no gas line for a range, no exterior kitchen vent for the range etc. I am in California, so no recessed lighting might be a challenge to meet title 24 requirements. We are just now getting copies of all the required contractor documents for the HOA and will hopefully be able to start the demo soon. I've stopped holding my breath. Once the walls are open, then we get to reapply with the HOA and see what they approve for the remodel. Then it will be off to the city to see what they have to say. What a crazy, disappointing process....See MoreShould a crawl space under a New England home be a deal breaker?
Comments (11)Pros and cons. Please comment to add to or correct what I list here. edited: I just saw that the house has a crawlspace. These can vary greatly in usefulness. Pros for basement. Provides Storage area Utility area Maybe provide additional living space. Easy access to plumbing, etc.for repairs or to make changes which are lower cost than a slab. Heating has more options, easier (not sure) Cons for basement More expensive to build/buy Any others??? Pros for slab. Lower cost to build/buy Any others??? Cons for slab. No storage No possible additional living space Heating options limited/higher cost (not sure) Changes or repairs to plumbing are expensive For my DH and me the main concerns would be the easy low cost access to utilities. We've fixed broken pipes and added/moved sinks, etc all without much cost. Also have run electrical and cable lines through the basement. Also the storage. I just estimated that we would need a 500 sf addition to make up for the loss of our basement. It would include a woodshop, storage for seasonal items, camping and hunting equipment, laundry, utilities such as furnace, hot water tanks, etc. The basement is much cheaper than an addtional 500 sf of living space. Write up your own pros and cons. This post was edited by debrak2008 on Sun, Dec 15, 13 at 11:32...See MoreNeed ballpark costs of soundproofing a small condo
Comments (12)I do not want to do this as a DYI project. I just wanted a ballpark price range of what to expect contractors or a handyman to quote to do something like this so I can recognize a too high or unrealistically low price. It will be a small 1 bedroom ground floor condo that will likely be under 800sq ft total and only some of the walls and only the bedroom ceiling would be soundproofed along with 1 slider and maybe 2-3 medium sized windows. I would hope that since the materials such as QuietRock are deigned for this purpose, they would be made out of materials that do not violate fire ratings or any other building codes. Needing an architect consultation to replace interior drywall sounds overs the top. However, even if a quick architect consultation plus building permite were needed, the cost of this plus cost and materials and labor added to the cost of the condo should still be a fraction of the cost of a single family home in the same area. The cost should be worth it since I plan to live in the condo for decades and even if I don't, it will probably be either one of very few, or even the only condo in the complex that was soundproofed beyond minimum code requirments and that should be a selling point at resale. There is not really a "common" wall between units. There should be a space between each unit with each condo having their own separate interior drywall, so replacing my drywall will not touch theirs. If necessary, the ceiling can be done without attaching anything to the upstairs neighbors subfloor, but it will not be as effective if that step is skipped. This will not be a high rise building. It will be 3 stories max and likely only 2 stories. A single family home will cost much more than the cost of a 1 bedroom condo plus adding soundproofing and does not guarantee silence unless you have acreage. I live in a single family home know and my neighbors still cannot play loud music or people 2 or three houses away will hear and feel the bass. I could hear a neighbor's teenage child playing bass guitar despite being across the street 2 houses away and having all the windows and doors shut at my house....See MoreDid you buy small or build small?
Comments (57)We're selling smallish to buy smaller (and cheaper) in a less-nice town. DH just changed jobs because the stress was affecting his health, but the financial impact is pretty massive, so we're going to try to get the house on the market in a couple of months (the delay is for the "Designed to Sell" routine, as it would show quite poorly at this point). We've been told it may actually not be easy to sell our house because it is "so small" for a family house (4BR/2.5BA if we fix up the powder room) at 1900sf especially where prices are so high in my area. People think "if I'm going to pay this ridiculous amount (say $350k) for a house I want this and this and this and this" even though that amount of money doesn't get you a whole heck of a lot in this town! It's a mental block. The average 4BR/2.5BA here has half again more square footage than this house. It's a very good thing that I don't need/want more space because there's very little even as big as we have now in our price range. Everything I'm looking at is about a third smaller; call me a space hog, but I doubt I can hack any less than half the space we have now even though there would be some lovely houses for the taking. When DH and I had a 900sf condo we were constantly in each other's hair, we had use of 1200sf of the house we rented and that was just right. We both need our privacy and when we do fight we both need someplace to go to get away from each other without leaving the house, we both have major emotional baggage about leaving the house during a fight. We also live on different schedules, I am a "night owl" and he is a "lark", and in too-tight quarters we wake each other up. I am hoping for fewer, larger rooms than we have now so that our furniture actually fits into them properly; the rental house had big open spaces so the scale of the furniture had to be bigger, and we couldn't afford to just ditch it because it was too snug in this one. I'm actually looking forward to having the EXCUSE to ruthlessly prune our possessions, get rid of some of the CRAP we have accumulated. We're not even acquisitive people! But the Law of Storage is that "stuff expands to fill all the available space to store it"... LOL It'll be mortgaged, of course, I don't know ANYONE who could buy a house without a mortgage. (Considering a freakin' trailer can bring a quarter of a million dollars in my town...) But I need to be able to make the mortgage payment without hyperventilating....See Morejlhug
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