Having started my real estate career in heavily built South Florida I am very familiar with condominiums and the pros and cons of living within an association. Living in a town home or condominium is very similar in many ways.
Here in Central Florida we enjoy a lot more open space in general but there are still plenty of condominiums and town homes and depending on what phase you are in in life, living in a town home may be the right decision.
In most single family communities the maintenance of the home and up keep of the individual property and yard is up to you the owner. You can do the work yourself or outsource it to others. If the roof needs repairing then you call contractors and have it repaired. When it is time to paint the house you can paint the house yourself or call in a contractor.
Many new homes are built in associations, which means that there could well be rules and regulations regarding both the appearance as well as HOA fees to cover common facilities such as pools, tennis courts communal landscaping, gate fees etc.
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| Gated for those who prefer |
In a nutshell living in most new construction communities comes with some type of HOA fee. The fee for town homes often appears much higher. However the fee includes more services. Generally money is collected up front for repairs to be done in the future and the landscaping and maintenance are handled by the association.
The town home has shared walls and takes up a smaller footprint than a comparable new home, however the owner of a town home can simply lock the doors and go on vacation and not worry about the home whilst away. I remember well a trip we took and in anticipation of rain we forgot to set the irrigation system, which wasn't working properly anyway. When we returned the lawn and shrubs were scorched. In a town home the home would have been taken care of by the gardeners.
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| Switching up the design Courtyards at the front |
It takes time to take care of a home. Not everyone wants to cut the grass or weed the lawn. Sure there are services that will take care of these tasks, but when you start paying for companies to do your landscaping and yard work, the cost really starts getting similar to the HOA fee.
In a town home generally a part of the insurance is covered by the fee too. You may only have to pay for some additional insurance as well as of course insurance for your personal property and belongings.
Generally town homes are more affordable than single family homes. The same amount of space in a single family home of the same age and style will generally be more expensive.
Modern town homes are however far from cramped. The designs are spacious and generous. Many builders allow you to upgrade features and many homes already come packed with features like granite counter tops, spacious closet space and master baths similar to those found in single family homes.
Retirees or Empty Nesters may feel like it's their time to give up on maintenance and work and have free time to spend with their family. Younger buyers may still prefer to be away from home a lot and have a carefree lifestyle too. Busy executives might want to be able to shut the front door and go on business trips with nothing to worry about whilst they are away.
Here in the Lake Nona St. Cloud area there are numerous builders building both single family and town homes in the same community. In St. Cloud you could consider
Turtle Creek or Anthem Park. In Narcoosse, there are the Lake Shore at Narcoosse town homes currently under construction and in
Laureate Park and Eagle Creek various builders are building town homes in their communities.
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| Two car garage and carefree maintenance |
The LR Group is happy to assist buyers navigate their way through the new construction developments and point out the differences in the various communities.
Tel: 407-593-8234
