Real Estate

For ten years my c/t community was mis managed(I arrived on 12/10). As a result, needed repairs were not made on some buildings(ie roofs), and the general fund is now insufficient to meet what is required. Townhouse owners currently pay 135HOA fees/mo, and the condo board wants to raise HOA fees on condo owners(currently 105.00), to 135/mo, to cover costs. Beginning this January, a new Board, and Management team was installed. That is their solution. Is their another one(short of putting my condo up for sale)?. The condo board does not want to borrow any more from the townhouse board, than it already has. If you need more info, I will try to provide it. And, thank you for your help.
Memo to Someone: There must be other alternatives to a spike in HOA fees. I mean what is the point when the spike will only cause added delinqiuncies, and further sales of condos.
Would borrowing from a local bank be a good idea?

They could do a one-time special assessment rather than raise the fees in perpetuity to cure the shortfall, but the simple fact is that costs increase over time and you must have funds on hand when higher cost items such as roofs need replacement. Would you rather get socked with a $1000 special assessment or pay an extra $30/month? Either way, delinquents are going to be delinquent and it’s likely the special assessment would blow out more people than a 30% increase would.

Your question illustrates why people need to be involved in their condo boards and understand that reserves must be accumulated to deal with common element expenses BEFORE there is a critical need. Self managed associations tend to be the worst offenders since they will seldom vote to take money out of their own pockets until there’s a critical shortfall. It comes down to whether your board is proactive or reactive.

I have a condo unit that have not been able to pay, I have kept up with assessments. I recently put it up for short sale and am usually working but I think the bank is trying to serve me with court papers. I have received a first notice already but not a second. How much time do I have before i need to move out. And can i get in trouble if I am not home to receive second notice

if you had asked this 4 yrs ago, you would have been given the DEFAULT answer, as it was
a "mechanical, fast process." Today, with the fed told by the president to not foreclosure unless
the bank HAS too, it is advisable to work on paying off the loan.

If you can pay 25% of the normal payments, this will help you immensely. WHEN you are
working FT again, at a pay rate at least 75% of what you used to earn, start making payments
2x a mo. IT is VERY feasible that you will NOT lose your condo at all!!!

It is very feasible that you need only to get back to normal payments within 6 mo and
no problem will occur with the lender.

YOU did not state if you have any equity or how long you have owned the property; it does matter.

Available to guide you, free

I’m looking at a $39,000 condo for sale and it says potential short sale. Can anyone tell me what does this mean? Thanks.

It means that the asking price is $39,000 and implies that anything less than that would be a short sale, so it would mean lender approval.

Short sale means a house is selling for less than the outstanding balance with the mortgages. The lender would have to approve the sale price because they would be taking a loss. Hypothetically, if you love the place, offering *more* than the short sale price means there would not be lender approval, and it would go smoother. Of course, your (future) home would have to appraise enough for the loan.

Good luck!

Because they steal our stiff.. A couple of them came up here from down south a couple weeks ago And stole our chainsaw @@ least to say they’ll probably not last too long in ni before they get attacked because we arent soft.. EDIT: RACISM are you frigging foreal? Do you even know what racism is? LOL i think your pathetic and you need to get yourself sorted out before somebody beats you up. Especially if you ever come to northern ireland. Seriously you’ll never get about with that attitude you have it STINKS.

I am considering either a new car or used car. I am considering a new Nissan Altima 2.5S ($19,500) or a 2008 Infiniti G35x fully loaded w/ 88k miles ($16500). If you had to use the car you bought for 5 years (driving about 15k miles- 75k miles over 5 years) which would you do?

After 5 years:

Altima
-5 years old
-75k miles
G35x
-8 years old
-163k miles

Infiniti Pros
-AWD- i live in Pittsburgh, and i will visit family in CT several times a year during college vacations so it will be snowy
-When going home and back from school, it is a 500 miles trip one way. The built in Navigation system will help (without needing my phone’s GPS
-Luxurious features- leather, navigation, LED Tail lights, Xenon headlights, alloys
-Already depreciated significantly from new… I can prob still get around $8k when it is 8 yrs old ($8500 depreciation)

Infiniti Cons
-A more expensive car, so it might be a target of vandals
-Premium Fuel needed

Nissan Pros
-New car smell with new car warranty
-Regular fuel needed

Nissan Cons
-"regular" car
-No luxurious features
-ugly hub caps vs alloys
-Not a lot of HP
-FWD
-No built in Navigation
-More Depreciation (i can prob. sell for $9k after 5 yrs)
($10500 deprecation)
I’m not considering Accord or Camry right now… they are nice cars, but my mom has an Accord and dad has a Camry… I just don’t like how they drive…

I will pay off the car over 2-3 yrs. I’m not looking at Lexus because i really have my heart set on a Nissan product (Infiniti & Nissan are the same company)

Quite frankly, the Nissan’s pros and cons outweigh the Infiniti’s. You can purchase an excellent GPS for $200 or less and even add some "decent" rims a little later. You’ll have a factory warranty on the Nissan versus no warranty on the Infinity. You’ll also save about 25 cents per gallon on gasoline.

I’m just wanting to know more…is it better to buy a condo or a town house? I used to think Town houses are terrible to try to re-sell or hard to sell for a gain…

Is it smarter to buy a town house?
Or a Condo?

I live in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Minnesota if that makes a difference

I don’t know the Minneapolis area, but town homes are usually more desirable, a little less like an apartment. But they could also be more expensive to rent and sell, limiting potential renters / buyers. A real estate agent in your area should be able to answer this for you pretty quickly. Good luck

I thought they had cozy homes to go to where the normal Libyans used to live so it’s there’s for the taking now yes? DOH! They trashed the place. But why trash their new luxury homes bit weird innit?

In fact why did they originally ride into Libya and trash any of it to begin with if they lived there not very discrete is it?

And Why does trashing the place make things nice and homely for them, they must surely feel foolish now?
They are making me scratch my head a bit.
So what should they do? A) more street improvements or B) some homemaking?
……. Nah let’s march down the street chanting and acting like weirdoes.

Hey – I finally figured out what all that shoot’n in the air sh!t’s all about
They’re shoot’n out all the street lamps that don’t work anymore anyway.
If I was a rebel I’d being havin me a BBQ next to some loyalists pool (for drink’n water) before everything in the fridge goes off.
The BIG question is where they all be a poop’n now that the sewers don’t work.

True they were tricked and coerced but the poor dumbasses just rebelled themselves back into the stone age.

Chaos is what the western allies were after and they’ve succeeded in spades..

RScott

My condo has been listed as a short sale since march what kinds of things can i do to speed up the process or am i just waiting for the price go down again like my agent said?craigslist?sale ads?This is the final option and i am okay with it.

If you are trying to speed up the sale of your home it has to be aggressively priced. A shortsale means it is already underwater. Reduce the price further and have the bank approve the short sale.

Two months ago I received a "save the date" card for a wedding the end of Sept. I later received a shower invitation for July, and purchased gifts for both the shower and the wedding from their gift registry. Recently I learned by chance that the wedding has been changed to a family-only wedding in the Caribbean for the first of Sept, with a "reception" the end of Sept., with the bride wearing her wedding gown. I feel like I have been "dis-invited" to the wedding, and the "reception" is only to collect gifts.

The couple have been living together for a few years, and have virtually everything they need, including most of the items on their gift registries (which people have already purchased). The mother of the bride is wondering if there is a polite way to let people know that they really could use money to help buy their first house, instead of more gifts.

Is this the new etiquette?

I’m so old that I remember when people gave the couple gifts to set-up a new household, not to finance luxury items and new homes. Am I behind the times?
The "save the date" card also said "Invitation to follow". I took this to mean that I was invited to the wedding. There was no later contact saying that the wedding had been changed.

Contrary to what some of the other answers say, if you google a bit you’ll see that this IS becoming a new trend and is (at least by according to some peoples’ etiquette) acceptable… sadly. For instance "The Knot", a major wedding website, has a page on this very question at http://wedding.theknot.com/wedding-planning/destination-weddings/qa/home-reception-after-destination-wedding.aspx and their "expert" writes:

"Then when you get home, send out invitations to a party "celebrating your marriage" where you can show slides or photos of your ceremony. It will be as if they had all been there with you after all."

… to which I reply, "NO IT’S NOT!". What people don’t understand is that many of us guests want to witness the ceremony – the walk down the aisle, the vows, the first kiss as a married couple – and it’s not the same if we don’t. People can have the intimate wedding or the big wedding, but they can’t have both, it’s a contradiction.

I would politely decline to attend.

p.s. I’m guessing there was no change of plan, this was the plan all along.

Five years ago nobody cared how much the top 5% were paying in taxes because everybody was too busy enjoying their new swimming pools, BBQ’ing steaks bought with credit cards, cashing out the tens of thousands in equity from their homes to take exotic vacations, and driving around in their new luxury SUVs! So why NOW is a 36% tax rate on the rich is so horribly unfair? And why is Obama trying to make it sound like people with private jets and yachts are the one’s that quadrupled the deficit and added $4 trillion in national debt instead of him?

Yes, he pits the people against each other so they don’t watch him so closely.