Hoboken Condo For Sale - Comes With Its Own Transients!
Categories: Design, For Buyers, For Sellers, Hoboken Condos, Hoboken New Construction
They’ve Got To Be Kidding!
I saw an interesting Hoboken condo property yesterday. A 10 unit building was gut renovated and all the units were for sale, a few already under contract. The building was your typical Hoboken 5 story walk-up with the staircase in the center and a ‘right’ and ‘left’ unit on each side of the building. If you’ve ever seen them, you know that these units can be very long and narrow. The location wasn’t bad - the 300 block of Grand Street. That’s between 3rd and 4th Streets, on Grand. Remember that for later.
We went into one of the units listed as a 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath for $439,000. The unit was 670 square feet - pretty small for a two bedroom. In fact, just knowing the square footage makes you wonder how two bedrooms could possibly fit. Most two bedrooms in Hoboken condos are closer to 1000 square feet.
Two Bedrooms and No Living Room
Squeezing two bedrooms into 670 square feet takes a bit of doing. If you design an open kitchen with a 2 seat breakfast bar, the area on the far side of the breakfast bar is your “living room”. A very tiny living room but you could theoretically fit an Ikea love seat and coffee table into the space. Forget about having a real sofa. Given the space (or lack thereof) what would make more sense would be to treat the second bedroom as the living room. Perhaps even remove the wall between the ‘living area’ and bedroom or open it up with pocket or French doors. But then you’ve got a $439,000 one bedroom. At least you’d have a reasonably sized living room.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Open the Kitchen Drawers
Let’s consider the kitchen. It has about 6 cabinets total, 3 uppers and 3 lowers. My favorite was the cabinet between the sink and refrigerator. In order to open one of the few the drawers, you must first open the refrigerator door. That’s right - you must open the refrigerator door - all the way - in order to open the drawer. Otherwise the drawer just hits the refrigerator, eventually denting the stainless steel. The corner cabinet beneath the drawer was essentially wasted space since the door only opens about a third of the way. Since corner base cabinets are where one would store things not used very frequently - like big pots, the door’s inability to open renders the whole cabinet sort of useless.
What Does That Glossy Brochure Say?
There were very fancy, clearly expensive brochures in the condo. The very first page touted “attention to detail“. Inside it, I was stunned to see the “Neighborhood” section with a full page photo (the only full page photo in the brochure) of the Elysian Cafe. I guess if you consider all of Hoboken your neighborhood the Elysian is in the neighborhood of 3rd and Grand Streets. The Elyisian is uptown at 10th and Washington Streets. Not exactly the same neighborhood as 3rd and Grand. Nice try, though.
My Condo Comes With a Transient?
Even more unbelievably was the page of the brochure that listed the condos’ features. Among them was “glass transients and doors“. Someone doesn’t know the difference between a transom and a transient. A transom is the horizontal glass window often found above doors in Hoboken properties with high ceilings. They would be opened up at night in the old days to allow air to circulate through the long, narrow apartments. A transient is something fleeting, like my respect for the intelligence of the people who wrote this brochure. The property is listed with one of the largest brokerages in the US. Don’t they have proofreaders?
Given the obvious lack of attention paid to quality in both the design of the units and the promotional materials used to sell them, buyers’ interest in buying these Hoboken condos are going to be pretty transient, as well!
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Hoboken Real Estate Sells for $116 Million.
Categories: Hoboken New Construction, Market Analysis
Hoboken Developer Tarragon To Sell Prime Property at 1000 Jefferson Street
According to CNNMoney.com, the publicly traded real estate development company, Tarragon Corp. announced the sale of their recently completed rental project at 1000 Jefferson Street for $116.2 million. Tarragon was responsible for the development of The Upper Grand condominiums, in Northwest Hoboken, and is currently involved in two more residential development projects in Hoboken. The buyer is an unnamed major institutional investor. Good to know there are buyers for Hoboken real estate out there.
Hoboken Gets Parks, a Pool, Community Center and a Movie Theater?
The article goes on to quote the President of Tarragon Development Corp., William Rosato, saying “With this successful transaction, Tarragon looks forward to continuing its role in the redevelopment of Hoboken where we and our partners control almost 20 acres of land proposed for development of rental and for sale housing, a public swimming pool and community center, parks, a multi-screen movie theatre and retail uses”. We shall see what use they actually make of their holdings.
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Get Rid Of Condo Special Assessments Once and For All
Categories: Finance, For Buyers, Hoboken New Construction
What’s the Maintenance Fee?
It’s interesting that when shopping for condos with buyers, the buyers are always attracted to condos with low maintenance fees. What is not often considered, is that maintenance fees can be too low. What does that mean? Well, the maintenance fee should be high enough to fund the ongoing operating expenses of running the condo (things like the management fee, if professionally managed, insurance, utilities for the common area, cleaning the common areas, etc.). In addition, there should be some ‘left over’ each month to fund the condo’s capital account which is used for long term improvements and repairs. This account is for items with a long useful life, like the roof, heating system for the building, elevator, brick face and so on.
Let’s Make Up a Budget
Often times, when a condo is built, the developer, in order to make the property seem more attractive and easier to market, sets the maintenance artificially low. Since there is no history, the budget is just made up. There are no past year actual figures to use in order to have a realistic budget. The building is ‘transitioned’ to the unit owners when the developer no longer has a controlling interest in the condo. The transition is supposed to happen soon after the majority of the units are sold and a new condo board elected. At that time, the new board ought to look very carefully at the proposed budget and make adjustments where needed. Having maintenance fees set too low will usually result in a deficit in the future. Without an adequate reserve fund, special assessments are required to pay for building operations and repairs. Most owners prefer to know what their monthly obligations will be and don’t appreciate getting hit with an unexpected assessment.
Show Me The Money
When a condo is sold, the buyer has the right to see the financials of the condo association. The buyer’s attorney should review these documents on the buyers behalf to see if the building is in good financial standing. Sellers of units that are in condo associations where the numbers are good, meaning there is an adequate budget and decent reserve fund, should let potential buyers know that.
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