All Forum Posts by: Brian Tsang

I know little about Atlanta. Condo is a choice of lifestyle, which certainly costs money. Condos in many markets have been harshly beaten and now the price level can be attractive even for investment consideration. Among condos, I personally like newer and larger ones. Since the fee is collected from each unit, larger ones can offer more services.

Brian Tsang

I've bought SFH, MF, and condos. I have mixed feelings about condos.

I like that the exterior maintenance and exterior building repairs are taken care of by the condo. I like thta the grass is being cut, the snow shoveled and the exterior looks in great shape. The down side is the costs. Around here a low condo fee is $100 and high fee is $400 per month.

I had a new roof put on one condo and new siding put on a condo, and the parking lot repaved, but the condo didn't have enough money so there was aspecial assessment to pay for these improvements. Jus this year one of our condo projects got a brand new roof. Thankfully without a special assessment.

Besides the costs of owning the condos, which we own for income, the other downside is the rules and restrictions. In one condo we have you can't have your trash cans outside, you can only have one pet 40 lbs or less, no sat dish on building.

Some condos limit or prohibit renters. If you buy a condo as an owner occupant and later decide to move on and rent out the condo, you may be restricted or limited on renting. The condos think renters are substandard occupants and cause problems. In addition there are limits for owner financing in the complex if there are too many non-owner occupants.

So be careful and consider both the upside and the downside of condo ownership. I have several beautiful units for sale right now.

Brian, seems to me like it's more of a choice between higher down payments (low down FHA for the whole thing in a duplex/triplex vs. low down FHA condo + 20% investment down payment the other way), and privacy issues. So, if you are comfortable with both situations financially, it really depends on your priorities, privacy or less money required for investment.

Just my opinion, but I would go with the multifamily FHA and plan to live there at least a year or two, as you can gain landlord experience while purchasing a future investment property for the smallest down payment allowed these days, and if you really decide you don't like the lack of privacy, move out in a year, rent out the whole thing, and find another low down owner-occupied loan. It would be much easier to find a cheap owner-occupied loan than a low-down investment loan later on.

Starting out I would buy a duplex and live in one side and rent out the other. Or I would start off with one property that is easy to manage. The tough thing with a multi family is the multi work involved. The tenants are more needy and you spend a lot of time dealing with issues. If I buy a mulit family property I would probably have an on site manager. Good luck.

Condo's I do not like the HOA and special assessments you can get hit with. If you try to sell down the road and too many units are investor owned or rentals you run into other problems as well.

I don't like investments where my outcome and success is dependent on outside forces I do not control.

Living in one unit is great if you want to go that route. I wouldn't want people knocking on my door all the time but that is just me. If you want turn key then you will need an onsite manager and a maintenance person but that is for larger unit properties.

I want to create investments for myself and NOT JOBS. If it is a job then I pass on it because my full time job is helping commercial clients close transactions. Anything that takes away my time from that in a large way is non-productive which is why the investment has to go on it's own with little oversight.

Hi Brian,

What size multi-family property are you interested in buying? A good strategy for you may be to purchase a smaller multi-family property (i.e., duplex, tripex, etc) and live in one of the units. Then collect rent from the other units. You would also only need to worry about one mortgage payment, one roof, etc. Plus you wouldn't have to pay HOA fees.

Brad