lower price home + higher (hoa+mello) vs lower (hoa + mello) + higher price home

[villiagepeople]

higher priced house...

pro...

once the house is paid for, your monthly should be less

con...

the higher price means, a larger down payment... when you sell will that limit your potential buyer pool?
hoa can always move up... nothing says the lower hoa amount will not balloon past the other property with 2 hoas now.
higher price means higher base prop tax rate (but negated a little by more tax deduction)

lower priced house...

pro...

lower based priced house means a potentially greater buying pool

con...

you pay the dual hoa after the house is paid for
having to deal with two associations/board/management


am i missing anything?  thoughts?

 

[usctrojancpa]

HOA will amlost always keep going up while Mello Roos will be fixed.  Property taxes can only increase by a max of 2% per year (per prop 13).  For me, I choose the higher priced home with the lower HOA (which means I'm probably being a detached SFR versus an attached or detached condo which is another plus in my mind).

 

[villiagepeople]

which means I'm probably being a detached SFR versus an attached or detached condo which is another plus in my mind

would you still vote for the higher priced home if both of these were zoned the same... say these were both new, detached condos?

 

[usctrojancpa]

which means I'm probably being a detached SFR versus an attached or detached condo which is another plus in my mind

would you still vote for the higher priced home if both of these were zoned the same... say these were both new, detached condos?

Yes, I would vote the same way....I don't like high HOA MORE than I don't like high Mello Roos. 

 

[davenlei]

Or just buy in Laguna Niguel and do away with the Mello Roos line item. 

 

[venkat]

I voted for lower HOA/MR.

The poll should have been with homes priced "farther" than "close" (560K vs 530K)...For e.g

$650000 Price
$50 HOA/Month
$100 MR/Month
$500 Tax/Month

Vs.

$550000 Price
$350 HOA/Month
$400 MR/Month
$500 Tax/Month

All things being equal (SFR, Driveway, Location, Schools, Year Built etc.,) - which one would you prefer.

I prefer the former, since I believe paying HOA and MR is like paying rent to the home you own ~ money down the drain!

 

[qwerty]

all of this is factored into the price, when the sales price is set, the main driver is what the monthly payment is going to be.  if a new home construction development does not have mello-roos but a nearby neighborhood does then they will price the house to where the payment is just as much as the "all in" payment of nearby neighborhood.  You think if new construction in irvine didnt have mello roos the home price would be the same? heck no, they would jack up the price. any way you look at it, RE is priced to fleece as much out of you as possible.  If

 

[waitin4ever]

Depends on type of HOA. our high HOA for our attached home covers the HO6 insurance .
Also it pays for the external maintenance stuff. Don't know what it would be if at all. I
assume it will atleast account for 20-25 a month over next 10-15 years.

So the higher HOA does give back a little. But like USC says it may go up in future
so who knows. at the end of the day the +/-100/- per month should not cause you to
make such big decisions in life, when you are dealing with 600K+ prices.

So i would still base it on some other features of the house.

higher priced house...

pro...

once the house is paid for, your monthly should be less

con...

the higher price means, a larger down payment... when you sell will that limit your potential buyer pool?
hoa can always move up... nothing says the lower hoa amount will not balloon past the other property with 2 hoas now.
higher price means higher base prop tax rate (but negated a little by more tax deduction)

lower priced house...

pro...

lower based priced house means a potentially greater buying pool

con...

you pay the dual hoa after the house is paid for
having to deal with two associations/board/management


am i missing anything?  thoughts?

 

[akim997]

i dont understand all this stuff against Mellos.  If you don't like the monthly payment, just pay it off up front...  that's best way to gauge the difference...

 

[akim997]

oh, i should add...  even if you pay the mellos, you can still owe residual payments based on the CFD... i think for like police depts and ongoing service allowances or  something like that.  This is based on a lengthly conversation I had with a city of Orange project manager recently. 

 

[villiagepeople]

The poll should have been with homes priced "farther" than "close" (560K vs 530K)...For e.g

the numbers are based on 2 new developments in irvine with a similar location and house size.

 

[villiagepeople]

i dont understand all this stuff against Mellos.  If you don't like the monthly payment, just pay it off up front... 

if i'm not mistaken, i remember someone claiming (on an old ihb forum) they tried to ask if they could pay off their portion of the bond (not sure who they asked)... and they said that it was not possible.  are you saying that you can actually pay off your portion of the bond in one lump sum? (i'm assuming you would therefore save on the interest)

 

[irvinehomeowner]

Yep... you have no idea what your HOAs are going to be. I think in Irvine, some of the older HOAs have doubled in the last 10-15 years.

Mello Roos have a set amount and time span... and I think they can go down, but not up (don't know this for sure... never seen MRs go up but I recall someone saying one of the newer Irvine communities had their MRs (or CFDs) reduced).

 

[waitin4ever]

Yes it was reduced for portola springs around the same time when 2010 collection came on board.
IT is still >4000/yr. used to be 6500/yr.

Yep... you have no idea what your HOAs are going to be. I think in Irvine, some of the older HOAs have doubled in the last 10-15 years.

Mello Roos have a set amount and time span... and I think they can go down, but not up (don't know this for sure... never seen MRs go up but I recall someone saying one of the newer Irvine communities had their MRs (or CFDs) reduced).

 

[irvinehomeowner]

So the people who bought in PS before the reduction also saw their tax bills reduced? Or was it only for the people who bought AFTER the reduction?

 

[davenlei]

So the people who bought in PS before the reduction also saw their tax bills reduced? Or was it only for the people who bought AFTER the reduction?

That's a good question.

 

[waitin4ever]

From what i know it was for everyone. Because when we bought at monterey, the brookefield
folks told me about it because we were discussing about their left over few homes at the paloma tract.

But i may have misunderstood too. Hopefully some resident of Portola can chime in.

So the people who bought in PS before the reduction also saw their tax bills reduced? Or was it only for the people who bought AFTER the reduction?

 

[shokunin]

Mello Roos have a set amount and time span... and I think they can go down, but not up (don't know this for sure... never seen MRs go up but I recall someone saying one of the newer Irvine communities had their MRs (or CFDs) reduced).

VoC (both Square and Grove) had MR subject to 2% increases based on CPI.  When we look at Ciara in Columbus Grove looong time ago, I said no effin way with $9,000 in MR.  Seriously what did they do that needed that much in infrastructure.  A nieghbor of mine moved into the community and he mentioned the taxes were going to be lower, I hope he read the fine print because it had MR far higher than any of the other villages (selling at the time), with Portola being the next highest.

 

[IndieDev]

Neither.

Buying a TIC stucco box in this economic weather is the equivalent of buying a $52,000 2011 Honda Civic when the parking lot is full of 2010 models that have yet to be sold.

 

[villiagepeople]

Buying a TIC stucco box in this economic weather is the equivalent of buying a $52,000 2011 Honda Civic when the parking lot is full of 2010 models that have yet to be sold.

i may agree with you on the overpriced part... but i disagree about on "the parking lot is full of 2010 models"...

as i've mentioned before and usc-cpa has confirmed that there aren't a whole lot of newer detached condos or sfr <600k.  i think even you agreed on another thread that it's not that the new homes are overpriced compared to resale it's that ALL of irvine is overpriced... but that, remains to be seen.