It's Just An Investment

I’m of the personal opinion that non-resident owner-investors are a pain in the ass. They don’t want to be your neighbor, they don’t want to break bread with you, and they don’t want to make the tough decisions regarding the well being of our home.

They simply look at their unit in the association as an investment. Not a home---an investment and they treat it like one.

The only time they seemingly come out of the woodwork is when assessments are going to be raised or to vote down spending any money for improvements in the building.

Like I said, pains in the ass.

Unfortunately for us, our association has had four such people already own several units in the scant time we’ve been in existence. As of this writing, three of the non-resident owner units are in or have gone through foreclosure.

I shit you not.

I alluded to the foreclosures in a previous post but now I need to give you the real skinny so you completely understand the situation.

This calendar year our association has had a total of four units foreclosed upon. Three of them were owned by non-resident investors and the last one is owned by a guy who simply stopped paying his mortgage. The three individual owners were the second generation owners of those units. Our developer wanted to get rid of the last of his stock and sold three units to a single investor who after a year sold it to the three other individual yahoos who are presently being foreclosed upon.

Did I happen to mention that when the first owner sold his units, he neglected to pay his back assessments upon closing? Or at least that’s what I was told by someone who was on the board at the time. Then of course no one could prove any financial wrongdoings since we don’t have complete financial records or bank statements for any year that our association has been in existence except for this year.

But I digress…

I’m sure you’re asking yourself how in God’s name could one association have the stunning bad luck to have so many foreclosures? How could people just stop paying their mortgage?

Well folks it gets better.

Not only did these knuckleheads not pay their mortgages, they also didn’t pay their assessments. These four individuals combine to owe us over four thousand dollars in back assessments.

Four large, four g’s---anyway you put it; it’s a lot of money for a cash strapped condo association.

Repeat after me, “Investor owners are a pain in the ass.”

The new wrinkle in this ongoing soap opera is that several of my neighbors are going to potentially get married and now want to either sell their units or rent them. Most don’t want the hassle of renting their units and managing tenants but our recently discovered electrical problem (don’t ask---you’ll find out soon enough) means that the units will be all but impossible to sell.

While I very much understand their plight, it leaves us with a great big riddle that no one can seem to solve. How do we keep our association from being overrun by rental units by owners who won’t or can’t sell because of the defects in the building?

I can’t believe I’m not in AA yet.