OK – I want anybody who reads this (whether you know me or not) to pipe in with your opinion in the comments section below. I’m completely frazzled.<\/p>\n
I looked at a condo in Somerville<\/strong> yesterday (my first time seeing it):<\/p>\n Positives<\/strong>: walking distance to Porter Square subway, countless restaurants\/shops in immediate area, 10-minute walk to work, new bathroom and new-ish kitchen, not on ground floor, largest space of all units I’ve seen, corner unit, quiet side street, includes parking (which I’d rent out or use for guests), best price.<\/p>\n Negatives<\/strong>: exterior is ass-ugly, some minor improvements needed (replace carpet, paint) to make interior charming, no view, building went condo two years ago and prices haven’t gone up (they’ve not gone down, though).<\/p>\n I also looked at a property I saw last weekend in Cambridge<\/strong>:<\/p>\n positives<\/strong>: midway between Central and Harvard Square subway stops, restaurants in immediate area, 15 minute walk to work, entire interior is brand new, corner unit, Cambridge address is more desirable than Somerville (for resale value)<\/p>\n negatives<\/strong>: condos are tiny (but well appointed), prices are higher (there are numerous units available), occupancy won’t be until June 2007, only units I can afford are ground\/basement, there is a long mazelike hallway leading to the condo units.<\/p>\n Obviously this has got me thinking (and stressing). Between the two, I’m leaning toward the Somerville property since it’s larger and I can “gay” it up to make it charming with a little paint and new flooring. But in my thought process, I’m asking myself the following questions:<\/p>\n 1 – What are the risks here? The real estate market is settling…could this go down in value? Will things be even cheaper next year, as some predict? I suspect this unit is at the lower end of the spectrum for affordability and wouldn’t go much lower. I think it’s the mid-priced and luxury places that are going to drop a lot.<\/p>\n 2 – Buying the condo will result in me spending approximately $300 more per month in living expenses. Am I ready to sacrifice enjoying the fun things (travel, clothes, living downtown\u00a0etc….) that I only started getting to enjoy less than two years ago?<\/p>\n 3 – Or would it be wiser to continue renting and stashing that $300 into savings\/investments so that I can afford to buy an even\u00a0nicer place in the future?<\/p>\n 4\u00a0– My long-term goal is a long-term relationship with somebody. If that person comes along in the next year or so and we decide to move-in together, will this have been a wise investment? If I sell in\u00a0less than two years I’d be stuck with capital gains taxes. If I sell after two years, it could be tough to coordinate selling my place, selling his place and finding a new property we can both move into at the same time. If I’m renting (and my current lease is month-to-month) it would be easy to transition into a new place.<\/p>\n 5 – Since the units in the Somerville building haven’t seemed to have gone up in the past two years (when the building went from apartments to condos), will they likely not go up in two or so years when I’d likely sell again?<\/p>\n So, EVERYBODY, please click on the comments button below and guide me. I’m too overwhelmed to make a logical decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK – I want anybody who reads this (whether you know me or not) to pipe in with your opinion in the comments section below. I’m completely frazzled. I looked at a condo in Somerville yesterday (my first time seeing it): Positives: walking distance to Porter Square subway, countless restaurants\/shops in immediate area, 10-minute walk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}