149 Steamboat Condos w/ 2+BR for under $400K

I’ve got clients coming into town this week from Texas and we’re trying to pare down what they are going to look at during their two-day stay. It’s not easy.

With a requirement of a minimum of 2 bedrooms, for under $400,000.00…well that gives them 149 choices.

Do they want the hassle (and/or opportunity) of dealing with a bank-owned property, because there are 5 of those? Or the even more nebulous affair of undertaking an attempt at a short-sale purchase? There are 13 of those babies to gnash your teeth on.

A Garage, Anyone?

How about a garage, or even two? You’d think in this land of  lots and lots of snow, and where minus 30 degree temperatures are not unheard of, that garages would be mandatory for the sake of our cars. Not to mention a place to store the snowblower, the garbage cans that otherwise attract bears, the skis, the bikes, the golf clubs, the river tube, the backpacks, the fishing waders, the rock climbing ropes and the jogging stroller. But NOOOO. How many of these 149 condos offer a garage? Fifty-three. A little more than a third.

How about bedrooms? They want a minimum of two. But how about four? There are three of them, all in the Eaglepoint Subdivision, between the ski mountain area and hopping downtown. And these even have a garage. Three-bedroom units? There are eighteen to choose from, with the remaining 128 units all having two bedrooms.

And low HOA’s please

My clients are buying the condo for their own use, not to have it as a nightly rental unit with a management company to make income, so they don’t need the fancy amenities that attract nightly rental users like pools, hot tubs and shuttle service. they want to keep their HOA dues down. If I cut the field of 149 condos down to only those that have annual HOA dues less than $5000.00, I’m left with 85 condos for them to choose from. 

Of these 85 condos with low HOA fees, only 33 have garages, and only 3 of these have two-car garages.
Of those with one-car garages, what’s the least expensive:

1. Four-bedroom condo? $369,000.00
2. Three-bedroom condo? $289,000.00
3. Two-bedroom condo? $264,900. 00

Of the three with two-car garages, two have three bedrooms, and one has tw0 bedrooms. And two of these are short sales (boo-hiss; they are such a nightmare!).

The one that’s not? I think for sure I’ll suggest my clients look at that one, although it’s not as close to the ski mountain as the one with only the one-car garage. And, since they are only using it as a vacation home, they don’t need the two-car garage as much as a local family would. But that’s up to them.

We’ll need our flying shoes

Regardless, I think we are going to be pretty busy the few days they are in town. I’d better get my running shoes on. Oh, yeah, except that in Steamboat most homes require shoes to be left at the door (you know- part of the whole snow and mud season thing), so slip-ons are the shoes of choice for house viewing. We might as well have hummingbird wings to flit from place to place. Okay, I’ll settle for flying shoes…

Tags: buying bank-owned condos, Buying Steamboat Springs real estate, condos with garages, real estate short sales, vacation homes