Is like/dislike of townhomes regional/generational

[kwynn]

In a few neighborhoods, the only thing I can afford there is a townhome.

I think a townhome would be easier to rent out in the future, especially if it's in a good school district. However, it may be harder to sell it in the future. I am undecided what I want to do in, say 8-10 years.

I'm not in town, so I had my parents look at a few of the places to narrow things down.

They live in Pittsburgh. While they liked the one place, they can't fathom paying X for a townhouse when it is basically like an apartment to them, you have someone telling you what to do with your exterior/yard, it's attached to ppl, it's basically like an apartment, no basement/attic, etc.

"For X, you can get a real house" is sort of their sentiment.

But X is a house that needs work. Plus a townhouse has less maintenance and less utilities because it's smaller.

I don't see a townhouse as "lesser" but rather a choice--smaller but possibly higher end for the quality.

Could this thought be coming from a generation where row houses were not something particularly desirable---they carried a "packed in rental" connotation? There are not a ton of TH's in Pittsburgh (especially in the older suburbs) but the ones that are there are much newer. Could it be regional?

Or is this a thought I really haven't entertained---that townhouses are looked upon as lesser/lower class/not as desirable for many people? (That would affect resale/rental and I'd want to know upfront)

I'm currently in an area with MUCH more newer construction and my late husband and I often talked about buying one, so I kind of am clinging to what he liked too. At first, when he mentioned it years ago, I was unsure, but he pointed out the advantages to me a few years ago and I started to see the townhouses as great for our lifestyle and a good starter place.

[kateross]

I owned a TH back in my 20's.

Cons:
The biggest pet peeve is the HOA. And it can increase every year. If the association gets sued/don't have enough reserves, you would have to pay for the assessment fees. Do your due dilligence. Google the association, read the CC&R's, etc.

You also have limitations on what you can do with your house (paint colors, what you can put in your patio, etc.).

Shared walls, I learned; was not my thing.

Resale is definitely harder.

We have a large dog, and yard space is a must.

Pros:
I would not hesitate buying them again during retirement age because of the easy maintenance.

Price is attractive. And it's the norm in the HCOL places.

[Deleted]

I think it's more about how urban your area is and how readily available and affordable SFHs are. I would not buy a town home in an area where I could get a SFH for roughly the same price or marginally more, even if it was an older SFH. In some markets though a town home is the best you can get and I would buy one there.

I don't think it's generational or even regional outside of cities. I feel like town homes are more desirable in urban areas though, where your alternative would be a condo as opposed to a SFH.

[sporklemotion]

I think it is regional.  In my area (outside of Boston), townhomes are really common and a lot of the new construction or gut rehabs end up as townhomes rather than single family houses.  We have some of the negatives that PPs have brought up, but I think that many people looking in my area will at least consider a townhome because they're frankly nicer than the single family homes in my city (more likely to be renovated/have nice amenities, etc.), at least for the money.  To get a nice SFH for a similar price, you would generally have to sacrifice proximity to Boston.  I think a lot of people do leave my city for remoter suburbs as they have children, etc., but it doesn't seem like they have trouble reselling their homes because the location attracts the next generation of buyers.  I don't know if this is the case where you're looking, but if it is, I wouldn't worry as much about resale or rental.

When I first moved into my current home (split triple decker), my mother had the same reaction that your parents did to townhomes.  She had grown up in a triple decker (I realize this is different from a townhome, but I think the feelings were the same) and associated them with being packed in, not being able to afford your own home, etc.  So I do think it's somewhat generational because of the way that many cities used to be set up.

[Deleted]

I'm in NJ burbs and townhouses are really popular for the reason mx stated- they are 250-350k instead of 500k.

Plus I live in an area with a lot of big pharma companies and people living here temporarily. They're easy to rent out and sell quickly.

A lot of retirees choose to live in them as well.

Unfortunately we do have an HOA, which is our biggest gripe.

[cricketwife]

Older row homes in an older city, I think are nice, have character, and have resale value. Where I live, all the townhomes are "MCtownhomes." They are easier to get into than a house because they are cheaper but hopefully you want to stay forever because they are very hard to resell.

[Deleted]

I'm in the same general area as Cosmos and agree with what she said.

We live in a TH and I have no complaints. We live in an end unit and rarely see and hear our neighbors. We work full time and MH has a long commute, we didn't want to spend our weekends doing yard work. We're not handy and didn't want to deal with maintenance issues. It's just the two of us and we didn't want a giant McMansion. When we were looking the mid-sized homes (1500-2000 sq. ft.) SFH in our area that were updated were out of our price range $500k +. Those that were in our price range, were in need of $$$ renovations and/or repairs. THs in my area start in the high $200s and go up to the low millions.

We have a large dog and she does just fine without a fenced yard, she gets a long daily walk and trips to the nearby dog park to run.

[Deleted]

I owned a town home once. I was in a "smaller complex" with multiple floor plan layouts. I think if all the town homes are cookie cutter it would be hard to differentiate when you go to sell. Many people live in town homes for multiple reasons: cost is less, don't want yard maintenance, want to feel more secure, etc. 

I wouldn't discount a town home but I also wouldn't pay over 300k for one. HOA fees could go up and I would want to look at their financial records to see what's in the acct and what the money has been used for in the past. I do recommend, if you buy a town home, try to get on the HOA board. You can control/steer decisions much better. I was once president of an HOA and we had a big expense coming up -- we could raise monthly dues 200 a month or do a one time fee -- I really wanted the one time fee b/c once dues go up they never come back down and that is not a great selling feature for future sale. 

Good luck, it can get overwhelming trying to buy a place. 

[ddi741]

My first house was a townhouse. I love the concept. It's the perfect idea for a first house.
However, our HOA sucked. They made life in the complex a living hell for anyone under 50. They wanted it to act like a 55 and older community even though it wasn't. Plus their bylaws made it almost impossible to rent.

I would never buy one again. I'd get a small house and a gardner.

[tacokick]

I live in Baltimore and we have rowhomes. No stigma and most have yards and no HOA. That said, we did buy a single family home in the city because we wanted to avoid sharing a wall with neighbors.

The neighborhood we lived in was "transitional" when we rented a rowhouse and some neighbors were awesome and some were awful. Here we have a large yard and some distance which we like.

[RoxMonster]

I don't mind townhouses and it was something we looked into. We could've gotten much newer upgrades and what not in a TH for not a whole lot more than we bought our house. It's also attractive to have someone do snow removal and yard work, which we are spending a ton on in the house (we do our own yard work but pretty much had to replace all the landscaping).

However, for us we wanted more privacy after living in apartments for years. We wanted a large yard so we could get a bigger dog. And we got so much more space in a house for a lot less money. We lucked out in getting a fairly good sized house that was updated on the inside for a good price.

My parents are actually looking into downsizing to a townhouse and also not wanting to do the snow removal stuff as they get older. Later in life, I wouldn't be opposed to one.

[Deleted]

In my neighborhood, some of the very fanciest homes are townhouses, and they sell for many, many millions of dollars!!! But everyone else lives in apartments that are generally much, much smaller than the townhouses.

Where I grew up, there definitely was a stigma against people who lived in the townhouse community on the edge of town -- that was the other side of the tracks (and to make matters worse, they had mailing addresses in the adjacent town that was DEFINITELY the other side of the tracks). But this was a fairly snobby town, there was only that one complex, and I think the perception was shaped by the fact that people were living in townhouses when they had middle- and high school-aged children -- so they weren't still just starting out at that point.

If I lived in the suburbs, I would much prefer a townhouse over a house I think. Lawns and shoveling seem like complete bullshit, and I don't require much space.

There was also a rental stigma growing up, and I know that it is prevalent among my husband's friends because their parents have always told them that owning means you made it, and rent is throwing money away.  But I'm very happy to be a renter, and I do not see it as the sign of being poor or whatever that Long Islanders apparently do.

[Noblegirl]

I'm in the Pittsburgh area, and we're currently renting a townhouse while we build. My parents balked at townhouses too (although agreed that it was better than an apartment), but I grew up on a farm in a town without townhouses.

I do think they are harder to sell, but if your intent is to rent it out in the future, I think that they're easy to rent. When we were looking, there was definitely a shortage of rentals in the area (we also have a large dog which caused some issues).

Our particular townhouse was built in the 80's and tiny for a family of 4 with a large dog, but I have friends who recently built a townhouse and it's very large and nice. We haven't had any issues with the HOA--but our landlord deals with all of that. With that said, many of the developments in this area, townhouses or single family homes have HOA's so looking for a single family home won't necessarily solve that problem.

The townhouse isn't for us long term (we're building on 10 acres, so obviously we like our space), but I think it would be a great option for people looking for easy maintainance who don't require their own dedicated outdoor space for something like a large dog or an abundance of extra parking.

[pamela]

I lived in a rental townhouse with roommates when I was single, but it was in the suburbs. I can see both sides of the love/hate. Personally, I'm more comfortable with the lifestyle where I have a large yard of our own, space between homes, no shared walls, and do my own lawncare. However, especially if you live in an urban area where space is at a super premium, they really make sense. And if you don't want to spend your weekends outside taking care of a yard, bonus points to townhome. To me it's not even so much about home size because our house now is actually smaller than my townhouse was (it had an extra living area and a half bath). But if it was in someplace with access to parks where DS and the dogs could go, that could work as well (except for the one less than social dog, we'd have to work more on that).

But overall I think it's a regional/lifestyle difference.

[imojoebunny]

I think this is more of a function of available space. Some cities have a lot of available space to build town homes, that makes the values hard to maintain because they can tear down 3 single family homes and slap up 20 town homes on the same space. In places like Boston, and New York, obviously, that is not possible. I would not buy a town home in Atlanta because they can always make more. Much of the value here over time is really in the land, not the structure, which is why rental property structures are allowed to be depreciated. The other problem with town homes is that you can't tear them down when they become obsolete, leading to blighted complexes that cannot be redeveloped, as apartments would be. Only in areas where land is very tight, can they be a good investment, otherwise, developers will just build more nearby, causing the other complexes to lose value, unless they are in unique locations where more cannot be built due to either codes, historical preservation rules, lack of reasonable land or a combination of these things.

I would love to live in a town home community near our house. It is beautiful and very well done, with outside space, also cheaper an our house by about $100,000 with more space and nicer finishes, including dettached garages with legal rental apartments, but in ten years the values have not gone up, verses our house has gone up, even with the bad market, by about $50k.

It is a lifestyle choice or a way to get into a neighborhood you cannot otherwise afford, not really the best investment, unless you buy one in the situation described above. My BFF is trapped in one she bought 12 years ago that has lost half of its value. She would tell you to run the hell away, and now wishes she had bought the fixer.

Also keep in mind that some of these communities limit the number of rentals you can have at anyone time, depending on how the development is set up, so you might not be able to rent it out when you want to.

[Deleted]

It definitely depends on your area. In NYC, townhomes/brownstones are some of the most expensive pieces of real estate on the market. My friends bought a $1.5 million brownstone and had to ADD another $500K in renovations on top of it and it's in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. In Tampa, townhomes weren't that popular b/c people could live in brand new or almost new SFHs for the same price or less. Here in ATL, it all depends on which part of metro area you look.

DH and I are looking into townhomes now since we really don't want the maintenance and headaches that come along with a SFH. However, we live smack in the middle of the city and know that there are plenty of students and young professionals who would rent it out once we want something else or we have to move again for jobs.

[ECB]

Feb 6, 2013 7:21:30 GMT -5 tacokick said:

I live in Baltimore and we have rowhomes. No stigma and most have yards and no HOA. That said, we did buy a single family home in the city because we wanted to avoid sharing a wall with neighbors.

The neighborhood we lived in was "transitional" when we rented a rowhouse and some neighbors were awesome and some were awful. Here we have a large yard and some distance which we like.

Ditto most of this.  I grew up in a rowhome and my parents still live there.  No HOA.

Now- newer developments in the suburbs may have HOAs.  I don't know.  But I personally always find it interesting to read these posts where townhomes automatically = HOA.  That's not the case in Baltimore.  That aspect might be regional.

[Kore]

I don't think there's a stigma here. They're not super common, but not totally foreign, either. I'd guess the majority are rentals vs. owner occupied.

We bought a SFH so we'd have a yard for our dogs. As it turns out, we hate outdoor maintenance. I wish we lived in a TH.

[partiallysunny]

I vote regional.

[RitzyHeifer]

Feb 6, 2013 6:03:04 GMT -5 @iheartcosmos said:

I'm in NJ burbs and townhouses are really popular for the reason mx stated- they are 250-350k instead of 500k.

Plus I live in an area with a lot of big pharma companies and people living here temporarily. They're easy to rent out and sell quickly.

A lot of retirees choose to live in them as well.

Unfortunately we do have an HOA, which is our biggest gripe.

Change this to small-town midwest and university faculty instead of big pharma and it's the same.  The rental inventory here is mostly student-oriented in terms of condition and location except the townhouses.

There are a few townhouse communities here and they are almost exclusively new faculty who want something cheap and retirees.

[julygal]

Our parents were surprised we went with a TH. We like our TH. I like not having to worry about the yard. I like that our building just got painted, and I didn't have to get the quotes, pick the painters, etc. I like that when our exterior decorative shutters blew off, I just called someone and they were replaced by the HOA. Not all THs operate like that though. Ours neighborhood operates as a condo. We are the end unit, so we only have neighbors on one side, and our neighbors in our building are great. We do not feel like we live in an apartment.

That being said if we were buying now we would get a SFH. When we bought in 2007 we could not get a SFH at our price point. We found our TH was bigger than the SFHs we looked at, had nicer finishes, and actually was less than we could afford which meant we wouldn't be house poor. Of course, home prices continued to fall. Now we could get a nice SFH for a marginal increase to what we paid for the TH. SFH prices are increasing faster than THs, as families are buying those while investors are buying THs to rent out.

This is regional, but I have to laugh at a lot of people mentioning HOAs as a negative to THs, because our area almost every neighborhood has a very active/controlling HOA. The neighborhoods that don't have HOAs tend to be less desirable and don't hold their value. My friend owns a SFH in a different neighborhood than me, and her HOA bylaws state that she can't choose her paint color for the exterior of her home, as it has been assigned to the house and there is no changing it. I think her HOA actually seems more restrictive than mine. Also, most neighborhoods down here have a combination of SFH and TH mixed together.

[kittycatlove]

My first house was a townhouse. They are very common here in suburbia as the more affordable option. I loved mine for the non-maintenance factor. It did have a HOA, but it wasn't too bad and had plenty of reserves so we never had any special assessments. I did have some neighbors that weren't the best at times but overall it was a good experience.

The one thing I would check into about renting. I know with mine, it had to be cleared through the HOA and there could only be a certain percentage of renters in order to keep the value of the homes up. So if they were already at their max, you could be turned down.

[Susie]

My bias against THs stems mostly from a really crappy rental experience.  I was desperate for some physical separation from neighbors.

For people who aren't big on yardwork or landscaping I can see them being a great compromise between apartment living and homeownership.

[kwynn]

Feb 6, 2013 8:50:24 GMT -5 Noblegirl said:

I'm in the Pittsburgh area, and we're currently renting a townhouse while we build. My parents balked at townhouses too (although agreed that it was better than an apartment), but I grew up on a farm in a town without townhouses.

I do think they are harder to sell, but if your intent is to rent it out in the future, I think that they're easy to rent. When we were looking, there was definitely a shortage of rentals in the area (we also have a large dog which caused some issues).

Our particular townhouse was built in the 80's and tiny for a family of 4 with a large dog, but I have friends who recently built a townhouse and it's very large and nice. We haven't had any issues with the HOA--but our landlord deals with all of that. With that said, many of the developments in this area, townhouses or single family homes have HOA's so looking for a single family home won't necessarily solve that problem.

The townhouse isn't for us long term (we're building on 10 acres, so obviously we like our space), but I think it would be a great option for people looking for easy maintainance who don't require their own dedicated outdoor space for something like a large dog or an abundance of extra parking.

Hey, a fellow Pittsburgher!

I was curious as to where you are building and your opinion on neighborhoods.

My number 1 choices right now (based on school districts for rental/resale and property taxes) are, in this order: Norwin, Franklin Regional, Jefferson Hills, Bethel, South Park, Elizabeth.

Do you have any opinion on those areas? Or are you more in the Cranberry corridor?

[pitterwoo]

I think your parents comments are in line with how many people will think out here. I don't actually agree with them, but I think a lot of people when looking to buy will filter out THs so I think there is a cap on how much it would increase in value. Personally, I think they are a great choice and like you said you can get something that is of better quality.

Most of the homes in the area are old and have been run hard. I rarely see homes in listings that don't need a ton of work. And again with the age of homes the heating expense is a huge one. I would never look at a TH and compare it to a SFH of the same price and think that the SFH is a better value.

I would buy the type of home that suits you now. If a TH and not having a yard and projects is what you want don't let anyone push you into taking on more. Just depends what living situation you are looking for and what you want to do in your free time.

[kwynn]

Feb 6, 2013 9:49:01 GMT -5 pitterwoo said:

I think your parents comments are in line with how many people will think out here. I don't actually agree with them, but I think a lot of people when looking to buy will filter out THs so I think there is a cap on how much it would increase in value. Personally, I think they are a great choice and like you said you can get something that is of better quality.

Most of the homes in the area are old and have been run hard. I rarely see homes in listings that don't need a ton of work. And again with the age of homes the heating expense is a huge one. I would never look at a TH and compare it to a SFH of the same price and think that the SFH is a better value.

I would buy the type of home that suits you now. If a TH and not having a yard and projects is what you want don't let anyone push you into taking on more. Just depends what living situation you are looking for and what you want to do in your free time.

Yes, this is how I feel.

I wanted either one of two things: an old house with character or a newer, less maintenance place. I don't particularly want a 1950's or 60's style rancher in a further out suburb that doesn't have great schools and needs work. But, that's what I can afford.

The great older houses with character are generally in rougher, older areas in my price range. The newer stuff is further out but less maintenance costs.

I love talking with fellow Pittsburghers and I appreciate you weighing in and helping me with your opinions on the area.

Would you mind sharing, very loosely, what you think of the areas I posted above? Or would you recommend the community/part of town in which you live (unless it's something way out of my price range, i.e. Shadyside, Fox Chapel, Summerset, etc) Those are gorgeous little areas though.

[mbcdefg]

People in my area often go for townhouses and condos. They're oftentimes more affordable than a SFH. We were looking into condos and THs at first, but we wound up finding SFHs that were in our price range, and that appealed to us more than not having a yard and sharing a close space with neighbors.

My mom grew up in several rowhouses, and to her renting moreso than the actual house was always a stigma. She and my dad always pushed me to live at home as long as possible to save up and buy my own place, whether it was a SFH or a condo/TH. The brownstones where she lived were considered very lower-middle class in her time, and when my grandmother finally moved out in 1997 the neighborhood was awful and her apartment was crawling with roaches.

Then the hipsters moved in, and now the same 1BR/1bath unit rents for probably $2-3k a month. My parents said that the whole building was on the market for $6k in the 1980s.

[Deleted]

My only aversion to townhomes comes from having an HOA. I have no desire to put in the time to be on a board, but I don't trust other people to sit on the board and not screw up the finances. And I don't like people telling me what I can and can't do with something that I own. I'd have no problem doing an HOA-less rowhouse in D.C.

[Deleted]

We made the choice to buy a nicer townhome in a better school district when we could have afforded an ok SFH in a not as good school district. Our townhome community is in the city and is pretty nice. The SFHs in the neighborhood around us are very nice and go for about 5x the cost of our townhome. Our townhome neighbors are mostly young professionals/young families, though there are some older people living there who, from what I can tell, could probably afford a nicer SFH but choose to stay in the townhome. Like you, I see it as a choice to live in a better school district for the money, and also to not have to worry about yard upkeep. But we do recognize that it will probably be more difficult to sell than a SFH.

[pitterwoo]

Feb 6, 2013 9:54:00 GMT -5 kwynn said:

Feb 6, 2013 9:49:01 GMT -5 pitterwoo said:

Yes, this is how I feel.

I wanted either one of two things: an old house with character or a newer, less maintenance place. I don't particularly want a 1950's or 60's style rancher in a further out suburb that doesn't have great schools and needs work. But, that's what I can afford.

The great older houses with character are generally in rougher, older areas in my price range. The newer stuff is further out but less maintenance costs.

I love talking with fellow Pittsburghers and I appreciate you weighing in and helping me with your opinions on the area.

Would you mind sharing, very loosely, what you think of the areas I posted above? Or would you recommend the community/part of town in which you live (unless it's something way out of my price range, i.e. Shadyside, Fox Chapel, Summerset, etc) Those are gorgeous little areas though.

I live closer in than the places you are looking, but I'll give you my impressions.  I know a lot of people love the South Hills area, and I can see why when you are actually there.  However, in my opinion getting to and from the South is really annoying.  So for that reason I like your East locations better.  I think they are a good value and more easily accessible.  Most of what you listed all has a similar character of the suburbs except for Elizabeth which has its own downtown with a lot of historic character.  It's rundown, but I'd say improving.