I find the biggest beneficiaries near me are able to get cheaper rent through individual room rents.
Whole homes split into 5 or 6 individual rooms that are rented out separately really keeps the rent low.
My neighbor, before his home was sold to a developer, who rented his entire home, wasn’t paying crazy low rent. In my opinion was paying more than he should considering the condition of the home.
The biggest problem I see, the homes once for rent are being sold by landlords to developers, and then put up for sale instead of staying rental property.
You make a good point. Renting individual rooms in a shared house has been a market solution for decades. I always had roommates when I rented early in my career. In fact, I never had a rental to myself. I’d think that developers could rent 3/3’s all day long if all three bedrooms were treated equally as “master bedrooms” with private bathrooms. This would be a market rate affordable solution for many early in career professional singles.
So, maybe I’m completely out of touch with the market, but I’m having a really hard time aligning to the price of this tiny condo being built by Wake Med. While it’s technically ITB, it’s not walkable or urban, and I just don’t understand what justifies its cost other than being new construction. Is it me or does the living room seem to be similar in size to the bathroom? Also, this is the cheapest of the units. If you want that unit on the upper floor, it will cost you just shy of 200K.
Frankly, it seems like more of a crash pad for surgeons or ER doctors who may live too far away from the hospital for their shifts.
Being one of those WakeMed docs, most actually live as far away as Chapel Hill. I’m probably the closest in with only a 10 minute commute. That being said, it’s a bit steep for the area unless you consider it being a quick commute downtown without having to fight the highway traffic.
If you go to the upper floor, it’s $385 a foot! Also, there’s no balcony or patio either. If this were in the heart of DT, I could process the price, but there???
For comparison, (much nicer) micro-studios on the periphery of downtown Durham are costing between $396 and $523/sf. So it seems like something comparable in downtown Raleigh would be more expensive than the Poe Drive condos.
My biggest issue with the price is location. While the location might not be far from DT, it’s a stretch to even connect this site to DT in any practical/experience way. Even as a suburban location, it’s nothing special for that price point.
If the project were nearer Raleigh Blvd, I’d be able to wrap my head around those prices.
I don’t know, I’m bullish on that area. It’s already got a huge anchor with WakeMed and various other offices and medical facilities, it’ll be along the BRT corridor, and I believe there’s an historic overlay protecting most parts of the BRT corridor east of Raleigh Blvd., which means development pressure might go out this way instead. This area has all the ingredients to blow up, and hopefully there will be some more dense development that has some good pedestrian connectivity to not make this building stick out like a sore thumb. That said (and since this is the Affordable Housing thread), east Raleigh is one of the last pockets of affordability ITB so seeing these price points in that area is quite surprising.
If people are willing to pay the price, then what difference does it make to the rest of us? Obviously they feel like they will sell at that price point.
I’m factoring HOA costs at both places. Longview looked like it was about $200/mo. The extra $300 comes from the higher mortgage. Those were rough numbers. My point is that at a certain point in my life I would have considered Longview, but at that same point I wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy anywhere downtown. These appeal to a niche audience.
I’m not even going to start clicking all those links. I wasn’t comparing these to other edge of downtown condos. My response was to someone comparing them to middle of downtown.
Edit: on mobile it looks like 100 links. Clicked the first one and think that’s a much better deal for a condo. The idea of a small condo being appealing is I don’t spend time in it because I can do other stuff around me. Cameron village is great for that. East Raleigh is not. Maybe the BRT and whatever else is in the plan will improve that.
I live ~ 2 miles north west of there, and the housing market over here is really strange. The new stuff is all around $500,000 SFHs, and the cheapest old SFHs are in the $215,000+ range. We bought for ~$310,000 and the $215,000 homes are half the size and about 50 years older than our house, but they seem to kind of get bid up because people who can only afford ~$200,000 see them as the only option to get into the neighborhood.
Not saying that is 100% what is going on here. But while per square foot for location you are right that the price is A LOT. If you can only spend $200,000 and want something new. This is easily the only game ITB. I was thinking about the location as you brought it up, and it is not that the location is so good (agree with your thoughts there), but it is more that there are not $200,000 new condos that are in better locations. Lol. Which is so silly.
There are some homes form $514,000 to $545,000 being built next to me and if you look at what you get per square foot the $545,000 ones are a way better deal. Feel like 25% more home and detached garage. But, you have to be able to pay $545,000 to get to that deal.
Here’s the thing with new condos and HOA dues, they ALWAYS go up after you close and the homeowners takes control of it from the developer. I know because I’ve bought 4 new project condos (3 were presales) in my life and it’s happened every single time. Dues are kept artificially low to entice buyers.