Advice on high rise condo purchase.

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silviasol

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Awhile ago I started a thread about condo's and townhomes. I wound up buying a townhome 6 months ago. Seems many people here have bought a few homes in their time. https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=74401
My main concern was sound. Well all my fears about it happened. The renting neighbors behind me bang things on walls the sound of throwing a basketball on it or something, cabinet doors slamming(they do not understand to put new bumpers on them), low murmer of tv running in master bedroom until midnight or later. Startling sound on the floor of what sounds like atleast 100 pounds was dropped on it from feet in the air. It is ridiculous, like they intentionally try to be jerks. They are renters, not owners. And to top it all off the association will do nothing about it other then send a few letters to the owner, not renter, then tell me to #$% off if it still continues. So word of advice if you buy a townhome make sure they do not allow renting. Or take extra advice and never take the chance or make sure there is concrete walls separating the neighbors. Do extra extra homework.
So when the market goes up hopefully next year I am going to sell and look for a high rise condo with cement walls. After some research high rise condo's, 4+ levels, are the only kind that are made with cement and after researching more not all have cement walls, some have only cement ceilings/floors then steel beams to hold everything together. For example here is one that was just recently built near me.
07432069768a8960115bd6feeee920c2_f105.jpeg


So trying to figure out how to spot out a condo that is made entirely of cement and not just cement floors/ceiling and metal framing to hold the structure up. I know they are made because I read google reviews on some buildings, just need to figure out how to spot them out rather then taking a stud finder on a ton of showings to see which has them and which doesn't, lol.
Anyone lived in a high rise building? If I could just find a place that is quite, and I know neighbors will never bother me, I could be happy for the rest of my life. :D
 
How much is your condo fee?

If I were you, politely ring their door bell everytime you got an issue. If they are jerks, then you play ball with them and knock the walls late at night and ring their doorbell as well. Maybe they have no idea that the walls are that thin. If it continue's then you have to contact the owner. But continue on with the condo board, there are bylaws after all.
 
Where are you?

Buy a single family house.

You looking for concrete. Not cement.
con·crete
noun

1. a heavy, rough building material made from a mixture of broken stone or gravel, sand, cement, and water, that can be spread or poured into molds and that forms a stonelike mass on hardening.
"slabs of concrete"
Click to expand...
 
There is a bad side to owning a condo whether it be apartment or townhouse or duplex. I have seen many apartment buildings converted to condo's in Calgary AB and I cringe. When something goes wrong like the foundation and the condo board blows through their reserve, everyone has to pay cash upfront, if you got no cash they put a lien on your property. Its more common then you think. I personally see no value in owning a condo, the older buildings often require a $300/m or more condo fee (depending on square footage of course). More commonly I see fee's upwards or $400/m and its not uncommon to see $500/m. When you think about per $100k you pay $600/m for a 3% mortgage, there is no value in that. Retirement owners love it because there requires no work like shoveling the snow or mowing the lawn. Also exterior, windows, and plumbing are covered in most cases.
I recently went through a $20k floor replacement that the condo board paid for because the plumbing over the years had a leak and pushed up a little bit of the hardwood.

Neighbors if they are renters dont care unless the owner takes action.
Condo's bylaws - My condo rules state we can not even wash our cars in the driveway, which is no big deal. When I lived in an apartment condo, we werent allowed to even put our vehicles up on blocks in the parkade.
 
markz said:
How much is your condo fee?

If I were you, politely ring their door bell everytime you got an issue. If they are jerks, then you play ball with them and knock the walls late at night and ring their doorbell as well. Maybe they have no idea that the walls are that thin. If it continue's then you have to contact the owner. But continue on with the condo board, there are bylaws after all.
Click to expand...
.

My fee at the townhome I am at is 170. The condo fee's in the city are very expensive, 500 to 800, but they include internet, cable, air, heating, water, everything but electricity. The two I found from google reviews that are all concrete are 800 a month so I guess that is a sought after thing.
I don't need to meet them to know they are jerks. Anyone who has a brain would know they are being rude with what they are doing. 100% sure they are just ignorant jerks. I know they have been here a few years. Hopefully they will move out after their lease is up this year.

marty said:
Where are you?

Buy a single family house.

You looking for concrete. Not cement.
con·crete
noun

1. a heavy, rough building material made from a mixture of broken stone or gravel, sand, cement, and water, that can be spread or poured into molds and that forms a stonelike mass on hardening.
"slabs of concrete"
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Minneapolis. What I like about it is the largest in the world skyway system we have here. I can just walk thru it in the winter to deliver my daily mail to any of the three post offices, plus it cuts down my shipping time by a day since it goes strait to the main sorting facility. Didn't really understand home loans before but now I do. Even though I would pay 1700 a month for morgage, taxes and rent, it all comes down to about 250-300 extra a month wasted money in association fee and mortgage(once I sell). I can live with that with the convenience of a short heated walk to the post office thru the skyway plus I can get actual food at the farmers market then the junk at cub foods.

My other plan is to get a foreclosed home. Just saving my money right now and kind of 50/50 on living in the city with a loan or fix up a foreclosed home with a very small loan.
 
Melbourne property pricing is absurd. But I am still at the point of not wanting any form of shared property, for similar reasons. No matter what you do, the least obnoxious occupants get screwed by everyone else.

Welcome to ridiculous mortgage life and poor value for money when buying a house.
 
I have seen condo's in my area go for $180/m in condo fee's with heat and elec included, very small condo though 750sq.ft. Calgary has a pop of just over 1 million. The average house here is $350k-$400k in a decent neighborhood, crappier duplexes are $250-300k, some condo's are $150k but most are $200k.

For mortgages I always thought I take the cost of the house, minus 5% down payment times by 3% which is 0.03 and I always thought that was the monthly cost. But its double because there has to be some that pays off the principle. That rate also includes property taxes of 0.5% residential and nominal utilities which do flucuate.

You never know your neighbors may be clueless, even perhaps hard of hearing. I have really bad hearing and my TV was always loud, lived that way for a year before a neighbor came to me and talked to me about the noise. I had no clue, but the walls were thin in that rental.
 
A solid concrete construction is no guarantee of sound proofing. First unit we bought was 220mm floors with double brick interior, so we thought it'd be pretty good. Nope - could hear everything. Phone calls, people showering, footsteps, TVs, the lot. Was so bad, we got an acoustic engineer in for a consult, who said that the building had a two star rating - the lowest that would pass the building code. Turns out that a combination of air vents, thin internal doors, and badly fitted windows was lowering what should otherwise have been a four star building.

Worse still was the old lady across the corridor. She was on the executive committee, and was convinced everyone else was being obnoxiously noisy, when everyone else could hear her every phone call and she always had the TV up load. The worst was that she had a security gate fitted. Had neighbours tell me that 3 apartments away, her closing her security gate at 5am would wake their kids - and she was absolutely convinced that all the complaints against her was just "retributive" because she enforced the noise laws against the "real" noise makers.

We stayed there 4 years until we could afford a free standing home. Cost us close to a million (About $750k USD), which is actually about mid range in Sydney, but damn, was it worth it.

So, all I can say, is if you're buying for sound, don't just do the normal building checks. Get an accredited acoustic engineer to give you a report. Talk to the neighbours. Our building would have been bad, but tolerable, had we not had the exec committee member next door convinced that she was quiet as a mouse and everyone else was just being mean to her.
 
You should have sold it sooner. I wouldn't personally own another condo, next is a house and getting into the renovation business. Here if you stay in the house for 9 months or a year, then the flip pays less taxes on profit.
 
Thanks man. You've just confirm exactly what I suspected... back to looking for a house rather than sharedish accommodation. So, so, so hard to find decent property!
 
It is funny. I tested my walls in my own house. My big screen dlp tv is with large speakers and subwoofer is directly by the wall, behind it is the wall for the garage. These walls are not double drywall like the party walls are. I set the volume above what I would ever use in the larger living room space, like maybe one day I want to have it loud for an action movie or something. Could not hear it hardly at all in garage. Now in my bedroom, where the problem is, the sound is so loud they would have to have the tv just blaring compared to the sound test in living room/garage walls which is 2 sheet or drywall vs 4 sheets party wall drywall. These neighbors are just batty. I think they are doing it just in spite of me.
 
There is an acoustical drywall on the market. I think the norm is whatever is cheapest, or whatever they can get away with by lying and over stating the ingredients.
 
markz said:
There is an acoustical drywall on the market. I think the norm is whatever is cheapest, or whatever they can get away with by lying and over stating the ingredients.
Click to expand...

That is quietrock. Basically is two sheets of drywall with green glue between them. You can save your money and just get the green glue and two sheets of drywall. However the green glue is still expensive and it seems the quietrock must have a machine that applies the green glue perfectly. To apply it yourself you just freehand it onto the drywall and the pressure of screwing the drywall together is suppose to evenly disperse the green glue which I think is absurd. The green glue is basically like a computer thermal paste like stuff that catches the sound waves.

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Oh, poor you, luckily they’ve moved out! For our family we were going to buy property in Barcelona https://tranio.com/spain/catalonia/barcelona/, already found an apartment, but turned out that the neighbors were some young constantly partying students, and the apartment belonged to one of them, we couldn’t risk that much and cancelled the deal at the last moment. So thankful we found it out before it was too late! :|
 
It really baffles me that all the mid-rise apartments and condos going up like mushrooms all over my neighborhood are stick built. Not only is it a fire​ hazard (one structure, but 200 times as many chances to start a fire), but it condemns tenants to dealing with each other's noise for as long as the building stands. I know they can build with concrete, because the parking garages are all concrete. But the habitable areas are like cardboard boxes by comparison.
 
Chalo said:
It really baffles me that all the mid-rise apartments and condos going up like mushrooms all over my neighborhood are stick built. Not only is it a fire​ hazard (one structure, but 200 times as many chances to start a fire), but it condemns tenants to dealing with each other's noise for as long as the building stands. I know they can build with concrete, because the parking garages are all concrete. But the habitable areas are like cardboard boxes by comparison.
Click to expand...

Mid rises are so terrible. I looked at one and just awful. No sound isolation. It is all wood and thin walls. Downtown cities have better places converted from industrual or business buildings with concrete flooring, and I hope thick walls.

BTW the neighbors are back banging on the walls again. Looks like they took a 2 month leave somewhere then got the owner to rent to them again. My guess was jail. Wish it would have rented to someone else during the month or so he had the zillow ad up.
 
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