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This is an error you don’t want to make.
Key points
- I recently purchased a new home that was less than one year old.
- The people who sold it to me lost money, even in a competitive market.
- They made a big mistake that led to them being forced to sell the house quickly.
A few months ago, I purchased a new home. The house had been built in 2021 and it was just eight months old. The home had a lot of nice custom touches that looked nice but didn’t add a ton of value to the price of the property.
Because the sellers had upgraded features to make the home their own and then sold it shortly after buying it, they ended up losing money on the property even though the real estate market was a seller’s market. This is especially true after factoring in the fees they paid to the realtor as well as the closing costs and transfer taxes.
Now, you may be wondering why people sold a house so soon after building it and spending extra money to customize it, which meant taking out a larger mortgage.
The reason this ended up happening to them is because they made a big mistake when they built their property. And it’s a mistake every home buyer needs to be absolutely sure to avoid if they don’t want to end up unhappy in their property or forced to sell it quickly under circumstances that aren’t ideal.
Make sure you avoid the big mistake these home sellers made
The big mistake that the people who sold us our home made was they weren’t fully aware of the homeowners association rules that applied to the property when they decided to build a home in the neighborhood.
See, the property we bought is in a planned golf community with tons of amenities — and many detailed rules governing homeowner behavior. Since we only spend part of the year there and the property is a vacation home for us, these rules and restrictions were fine with my husband and I. We were willing to accept them to gain access to the community benefits such as a lazy river and small toddler water park.
But the prior homeowners obviously weren’t familiar with the restrictions. And it ended …….