Price Skyrocketing--Should I Buy A House OR A Town House?
04/30/2002

Californian stats in the month of March 2002 indicated that the medium price for a residential house is over $300,000.  Townhouses also rose to an average of $250,000. 

The following article and comparison chart will hopefully help the buyers to make the right decisions in choosing their house.

When you buy a property you first try to decide between a town house and a house.   The two have significant differences in prices of course.  The house is a single house on a single lot.  As compared to town houses, a house has the following advantages:

• ¨      Bigger space—its own front and back yard
• ¨      More privacy—single house on its own lot, quieter
• ¨      More freedom—the owner can change anything inside the property

 

Town houses have some advantages too:

• ¨      Easy to maintain—workers will be hired to maintain the outside appearance of the house
• ¨      Safety—with neighbors to the left and right

  If it’s the security and safety that you are looking for, then you should choose the town house.  If you are really busy or don’t have a lot of time to maintain your yard, then you should choose the town house too.  If you like it quiet and private, don’t like socialize too much, or you love to change your yard, your house… then you should definitely consider a house. 

Of course, affordability is also an important factor. 

The following chart is an average over view of the surrounding cities’ house pricing and the town house pricing.

Please note that most houses are 3 to 4 bedrooms, and most condos are 2 bedrooms, and some are 3 bedrooms.  Walnut and Rowland Heights didn’t have enough town houses for the number to be statically important. 

Also note that two bedroom houses usually won’t make a good deal, due to the fact that most two bedroom houses in the area are over 40years or older. If you don’t build a new house on the property it’s hard to be satisfied with your home.  In comparison, a new, two bedroom town house will be much better to live in.  From the three bedrooms, it looks like a house is more expensive than a town house for about $50,000 to $10,000. 

The best deals are the West Covina’s 3-bedroom townhouse for about $160,000 and the Chino Hills 3 bedroom house for $247,000. 

The newest real estate report indicates that houses priced below the medium price are sold faster.  Also according to the reports, the percentage of the population who can afford the medium priced house decrease to 29% (a drop of 5% from last year).  This phenomenon had resulted in many first time buyers resorting in buying a town house instead a single house.  Townhouses then rose 38.5% of its market value since last March.  The single house value only rose 13.1%.  However, from a long-term investor’s angle, buying a house is still a better bet. 

A suggestion to all home buyers: choose a house or a town house first, then match how much you can down to the list down below.  (down payment is usually 20% of the total value).

If you need any further assistance, welcome to call  626-712-9088 or write to hsiungbobo@yahoo.com Or log on www.bobohomes.com.

Article written by Hsiung Bobo, Century 21 King Realtors

 

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