Condos: Are they good first investments for a young family

[Stephon C.]

My wife and I are considering using capital from a home sale to put a down payment on a condo with the idea of renting it out in a few years. We have a young family so we're not 100% trill with the idea of buy a fixer multi-family and then house hacking. Any thoughts? Has anyone done this before? Anything to be aware of? Thanks!!

[Jaysen Medhurst]

Hi @Stephon C., condos can be tough as investment properties. The challenges are:

Condo association may not allow you to rent them or only allow for certain amount of time.

Association fees eat into your cashflow and if they get raised or there is a special assessment there's nothing you can do.

If there's a problem with the tenant and they break one of a hundred association rules, you're caught between them and the association.