Where is the new place, exactly, AdC? Back down towards Tsawassen?

Yes. It's a place called Boundary Beach, which is separated by a large park/wildlife reserve from the rest of Tsawwassen. It's right on the US border — which is at the end of our road.

Beautiful place, AdC. Is tat mount Fuji?

Mount Baker. We'll get a brilliant view of the eruption when it happens. Which, if we're lucky, will be after the floods but before the earthquake.

Femme Folle wrote:


Does your HOA/board put up these improvements to a vote? Do you have regular meetings?

Our HOA only meets twice a year, and I realize that the other people who go are completely nuts. There's one old lady who puts her own potted plants and little potted trees out in the common area, and gets pissed off when the gardeners water them and trim the trees. She's been told numerous times if she doesn't want that to happen then to not put them out in the common area, but she turns around and talks about putting them out for the benefit of all of us, like she's doing us some huge favor by putting them out there.

She also suspects one guy of letting his dog out to take shits in the common area without cleaning them up. I always see the guy out walking his dog on the street, and picking up after it. But she has a grudge against him, and at the last meeting she was complaining that the gardeners weren't cleaning up the dog crap, and then out of the blue turned to some other woman and said "I know you probably don't mind if it doesn't get cleaned up, but I think the rest of us do." All of us were just like "WTF?"

Another person wanted the HOAs lowered until the "economic climate" improved. We already have low HOAs compared to other places in the area, especially considering that we have nice grounds.

And we found out that one of the unit owners who rents out their place asked for a lower HOA (it's based upon your square footage) because she was trying to sell her condo. The HOA agreed a while back. It turned out that her dues were higher because she had an upstairs unit, with a storage unit below it, and the dues were even higher because her unit technically had two doors to the common area, which is factored into the calculations. So the HOA agrees to lower her dues...she wasn't able to sell the unit, but then turned around and illegally subdivided her condo so she could rent it out as two one-bedroom units, rather than a two-bedroom unit. And on top of that, she rented out the storage area below as an office to someone who doesn't live here. The last meeting was in part about how to tell her to knock that the fuck off.

Inca - Our board meets once a month and things are put to a vote, but there are things that need to be done (like upgrading the elevators--they're painfully slow and inefficient and have gotten worse since I moved in here). I think they might be the original elevators from when the complex was built in 1975.

The good part is that having over 1,000 units to share the cost helps with the individual burden on owners. Our maintenance is based on square footage also. The fees here are very high, but they include all utilities, plus the amenities, like two pools (one indoor, one outdoor), tennis courts, gym, spa, 24 hour security and concierge.

Our place is a complex of two-story buildings that were converted from apartments to condos (with most units having washer/dryer inside) about 5 years back. They're in a row on the street, each one with a different address, and all of the fees are basically for landscaping and earthquake insurance. We don't have any amenities, which we don't really care about.

There's one building nearby, in Marina Del Rey, that was built at the height of the real estate insanity. All of the units that did sell are now completely underwater on their mortgages, and the HOA dues are over $900 (tennis courts, pools, gym, spa, security, valet parking). Everyone is losing money in the building, I have no idea what they're going to do with it.

That's rough. I'm sure there are owners here who are in the same boat. The couple I bought my condo from lost money on the sale, but they needed a bigger place. They had a baby (who was 18 months by the time they moved out), so a one bedroom wasn't working for them any more. They had the unit on the market for several months before they had to reduce the asking price.

So we got one offer yesterday, and another family are bringing their contractor round for a second look this afternoon. Which I guess means they're serious too.

Negotiation time. In a multicultural place like this, the differing styles are fascinating — and really easy to stereotype if you're not careful.

That's a stunning house, Amor. That building on the left of the image...is that a studio or a granny flat, or am I looking at it wrong?

Reed John wrote:


St. Clair and Christie. About the same distance west of downtown as I used to be, but well north.

Near the university?

WOM wrote:


It's described as a "cottage." But essentially it's one bedroom separate suite.

Incandenza wrote:

*Transatlantic Translation Failure Alert*
I thought that condos were apartments.

Yeah I was going to ask if that was just a change in legal structure or something else.

A typical apartment is multiple units owned by a central landlord. A condo is multiple units owned by their individual occupants. Common elements, and the liability for said, are jointly owned.

Incandenza wrote:


$900/mo condo fee is completely insane. If you add up property taxes you probably get a good fraction (over half?) of the actual rent. I really hate the idea of vallet parking, but it also must cost a lot to have someone there in addition to the security guy to handle this.

I wonder what the condo situation is going to be like here in Montreal with around 4,000 new units about to come online in and around the downtown area within the next two years.

The difference between an apartment and a condo is simply that you rent the former and purchase the latter.

If you think $900/mo is insane, then I won't tell you that mine are even more than that.

Femme Folle wrote:


Plus in a condo you can make whatever internal improvements you want (appliances, cabinets, paint, etc.) and you're responsible for maintenance of things inside the unit. Living in an apartment, if you get a clog in your sink that you can't easily fix, you can call your landlord and they have to fix it. In a condo you have to pay for it.

linus wrote:

We're due that number in Harrow town centre too. Madness.

The ticking timebomb of condo ownership, though, is when it comes time to replace major things; parking garage structures, glass curtain wall, elevators, pools, etc. Those costs have nowhere to go but the unit owners.

If your board has been diligent in building reserve funds, you're in clover. If not, you're fucked. Hopefully your local bylaws are tight enough where the board doesn't have the leeway to squander funds on magic beans, but I'd bet it varies widely.

Femme Folle wrote:


Does this include your property taxes, utilities, etc?