Thank you for the caution. I’ve only started running numbers on properties, so I’ll continue to practice with that. It’s easy for me to fall in love with places and that’s probably what got me interested in REI initially.
I have 81 more properties to see before I reach the “100” number.
I’ll trace the deed back to when it was turned into a condo and see if there are plans there. I did see the condo conversion record for another condo, but it only had written descriptions and no drawings.
I will be careful not to buy emotional. Thank you.
There is a condo for sale, however I missed the open house. When I did check out the building, someone was moving on the same floor and was very friendly, showed me his unit, raved about the management/super etc. I became interested in that unit instead. I thought I remembered the number correctly, but it doesn’t seem to correspond to anything I can find at the Registry of Deeds or the asessors.
Hopefully, the unit for sale has not sold and I can go to the open house and find the number of the unit not for sale. In the meantiime, the asessor’s office told me I could go to the Inspectional Services Department to see plans. When I got there, the man said before I could do things like see the plans for a certain floor of a building, but that is no longer possible due to the Homeland Security Act. It looks like I just missed it. I was hoping a layout of that floor could guide me to the correct unit number.
Does anyone know what I can do? At least I was able to get started looking at permits for the building (still allowed to see those) which is interesting on it’s own (all new to me). Because the building is very old, I was told the Boston Public Library might have some floorplans for it.
For some reason, the asessor’s office has one address, the lobby and mailing addresses are another, and the inspectional services department knows the lot by a different address. It’s funny.
These ancient buildings/old hotels divided up and changed to condos are fascinating to me. This studio is an old small hotel room and not has a kitchen on one wall. It’s a huge hulking building and the windows look into a large airshaft/courtyard space across into another apartment in the same building. There are so many hallways. It seems very cool and I hope I can find more buildings like this.
Here in Oakland, CA, and other cities in Oakland, when a building was turned into a condominium, there were plans drawn up and recorded in the recorders office. Perhaps the same thing happened in your city? So you could look at the plans to figure out which unit the fellow you talked to owned?
I worry about you, however. From what it says, you are emotional and might buy on impulse. I worry about that kind of buying. You don’t say whether you are trying to buy an investment or for your own use. If for your own use, being emotional in making the buy is understandable. If you are buying for investment, I worry that you might not make a very good buy if you buy emotionally.
It can be difficult to make money with investment properties, especially in high-priced areas, as I assume is the case there in Boston. I hope, if you are buying for investment, that you are studying up on the investment business so you don’t end up making a mistake in your purchasing.