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Buying a condo in Florida
06-29-2012, 07:22 PM
Can you email it to me?
thegmanifesto at yahoo dot com
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Buying a condo in Florida
06-29-2012, 07:49 PM
West Palm Beach is, ironically, terrible for beaches. Pretty much all private.
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Buying a condo in Florida
06-30-2012, 09:54 AM
Believe it or not i'm hearing stories of Condo Associations in St. Pete giving condos away for free to good candidates to pay the monthly fees so the can afford to keep the places up/running. These places have higher fees around 300 or more per month.
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Buying a condo in Florida
06-30-2012, 10:22 PM
My long term plan is to go this route. I'm operating on a pretty big assumption (condo prices in FL will still be low relative to most other places in 5-6 years time), but we'll see how it goes. Right now my plan is to finish undergrad, head to grad school, and hopefully secure decent employment after that. I'm thinking that if I live below my means for the first few years of employment, I'll be able to afford to buy a decent condo in Boca Raton/West Palm/etc (or even a small home in Ormond Beach or a similar place) outright with a cash payment. They're going for as low as $25k right now. Then I can relocate my mother down there allowing her to retire a little earlier than she planned with next to no living expenses. Then we can rent out our current place here in New York for a little passive income.
Later on I can relocate to be a little closer myself (if not Miami, then Atlanta). It'd be a convenient move-better weather, and Jamaica is right next door. Win-win all around.
Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.
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Buying a condo in Florida
07-01-2012, 11:47 PM
If possible, please post more info on those pre-construction Santo Domingo condos. I have a vague wish of wanting to buy a condo in the DR for a vacation home. I was thinking Las Terrenas. Is there a good beach within 30 minutes of Santo Domingo?
I used to live in St. Pete Beach a mile from the Don Cesar... are the condos on the east or west side of I275?
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Buying a condo in Florida
07-02-2012, 12:00 AM
Quote: (07-01-2012 03:54 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:
[quote='Big Nilla' pid='230836' dateline='1341170052']
I would like to see more specifics too.
Condo fees of $300 is cheap as hell for Southern California.
A quick search on Trulia for Condos in Daytona Beach, West Palm Beach and Boca Raton seems to show that most monthly association fees are in the $250-450 range. The priciest ones I saw were in West Palm, and those were still under $500.
Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.
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Buying a condo in Florida
07-03-2012, 06:10 PM
Yes condos sound incredibly cheap. In reality there is so much overhead in running these 55+ retirement style communities that the condo fee should be more of a consideration than the purchase price. My pops bought a condo in Boca well inland where you might say the working class retirees live. Kind of depressing, but he's always looking for a deal. Paid 18k in late 2010 and just sold it for 23k without doing anything.
Sounds like a smooth move, but the condo fee was around $430/mo and this place was by no means glamorous, also an apartment not a side by side. $430 x 18 months = $7740. So he made a 27.7% over 18 month return on the purchase price but still wound up forking over a little dough, still not a bad deal.
Today, a $430 monthly payment should finance you about 100k in purchase price give or take.
Moral is efficient management of the association is likely a more important investment factor than price.
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Buying a condo in Florida
07-03-2012, 06:43 PM
The condo fee on my parent's place is $345. As far as I know, there is no way to buy a condo that is not subject to a fee. Apparently they have a full time guy doing maintenance, whereas some other associations have part time people, which I think results in lower quality maintenance.