Central Pennsylvania Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Townhome/duplex owners
DH and I are meeting with a builder tomorrow night about a townhome in our area. He builds duplex townhomes with two stories. What have been your pros and cons about living in one. I'm kind of excited if this is the way we are going to go because DH can do most of the exterior work on them since that is what him and his dad do and it will cut the cost down on us purchasing one. If you think about it please pray for us! This house stuff gives me anxiety because of the money and the big step. I had a good feeling though when we went through the model home yesterday.
Re: Townhome/duplex owners
I lived in a townhouse for many years. Pro's: no outside maintenance, snow plowing was usually very good. You can usually get a newer home with more modern features for less than you would pay for a single family home with similar square footage.
Cons: Home owners association fees, Neighbors...because you are sharing a wall with someone, at times it's not as private. My mom lives in a townhouse and can often hear her neighbors dog barking. Also, parking was more limited. Visitors would have to park in designated areas and sometimes those would fill up.
We live in a townhouse, mainly because of the area and the cost. It would not be my first choice but it is a good first home. Pros for our were the cost for a 2000 sq foot home that was in good condition.
Our townhouse still requires some outside work, especially on the house. We have a driveway, sidewalk, and yard in the front and back that we need to mow, it's just less than SF so that might be beneficial to you.
Cons for me are how close we are to neighbors and having the lack of extra space, especially with only a one car garage and still need tools, lawn mower, etc. Also, there is limited parking and a lot of people close together, despite having garages, often some people will want to park elsewhere.
I live in a rowhouse, so it's the same basic idea, so I figured I could answer
The most important pro for me (and probably everyone else) is cost. You're pretty much always going to pay less for a townhome/duplex. Another small perk is that shared walls can help keep energy costs down somewhat.
The main con for me is that you have to be a little more concerned with what your neighbors do. If they're noisy, you're more likely to hear it. If they're slobs, you're more likely to have to deal with an infestation. If they're careless and burn their house down, you're more likely to lose your house too. Not that there's a whole lot you can do about your neighbors no matter where you live. It's mostly just the luck of the draw and it's not worth worrying too much about.
I love our townhouse. It's 3 bedrooms and just the right amount of space for us right now. It's only a few years old and in very good shape. We don't do any outside or lawn maintenence and DH and I both love that.
The HOA can be restrictive. We had to get approval to install a storm door and then there was only one approved brand and style storm door. The monthly fee is something to consider. We have good neighbors and despite the fact that we have toddler twins on one side and a chihuahua on the other, we only ever hear the dog on rare occasions when it's really quiet in our house. Like pp said, parking is limited which is a pain when we have company.
Overall though, I love, love, love it! Great first home.
Ditto. We live in a rowhouse, and it helps to have the extra insulation on both sides. Other pros were the cost, the small yard (we didn't want to have to do a lot of upkeep), we really like the neighborhood/location
Cons: No garage and we have loud neighbors on one side that have parties often.
We also live in a townhouse and when house hunting I found that for the price paid we got a lot more features, newer, larger square footage house, better layout, and bigger room sizes than we would of gotten in a single family home in the same price range. At that time the market was very competitive and SF homes on the market then were old, smaller, poor lay out, etc.
We're an interior unit so are utility bills are very reasonable and since it's a newer development they are pretty energy efficient to begin with. Our monthly HOA fees cover common areas, lawn, and snow removal (when its more than 3 in.). I like that we don't need a lawn mower, etc since there would be no where to store it except our garage. We do re-seed our yard,etc because that is not covered. The negatives are definitely in how strict your HOA is, our walls are solid so we rarely hear our neighbors, parking can be a pain when neighbors have parties. We have one neighbor across from us who has a lot of parties and they have 3 kids and obviously not enough space but other than that most of the neighbors are really nice and respectful.
I think with townhouses/duplexes you just have to really look at what features you are getting for the money, assess the area it is in for resale value, etc. I have no worries about our house in resale because of its close proximity to Hershey/Hbg so I knew the area was good to buy in.
Good luck with your meeting!!