Investing in a Condo or House [closed]

Question

I am a single male and I live in Atlanta, Georgia.

I am contemplating whether to invest in a house or a condo.

As a lifestyle, a condo suits me better because I am single, I do not have any kids and I prefer not to do any maintenance work. However, after searching online, I learned that condos associations fees are not fixed and will increase which is the main reason preventing me from wanting to invest in a condo. Also, I learned that it is very hard to sell your condo when you're ready to purchase a house.

My question is, are the risks in purchasing/investing in a condo worth it or should I just purchase a house instead since it is the safer investment even though you will spend a lot more on a house than a condo?

Answer 1

It depends on the house and the condo. Both have different problems, but if you are considering them as an investment then you need to project your expenses and look at how you expect the value of the particular property and neighborhood to change over time.

Condo associations create risk because you always have one guy or faction that never wants to spend the money to do something that needs doing, and the association may put restrictions on what you can do in terms of changes to your unit, and the like, but they also give you someone else to handle maintenance.

But it also costs money to maintain a home, and if you own your own home you're not sharing that cost with anyone, and you become the responsible point person for managing the home maintenance. (Unless you hire someone.) You have more autonomy and choices in what you do, but you also have more responsibility and there's nobody to split the costs with when a big project like replacing a roof comes up. You also probably have a much lower chance of getting into or having to pay for litigation, although it can certainly happen. Replacing a roof, or a septic system, or part of a foundation, or cast iron plumbing can all be big capital projects.