The Home You Buy Today Has to Work for the Buyer You'll Meet Tomorrow

When I help someone buy a home, I'm not just thinking about whether that home works for the version of you sitting across from me today.

I'm thinking about the person who will buy it from you someday.

That might be seven years from now. It might be ten. Or life might do what life does, and suddenly you need to sell much sooner than you expected.

Who is your future buyer? How large is that buyer pool? Will they be able to finance the property? And when it's time to sell, will you have options?

Those questions are part of protecting your investment before you ever own it.

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Real estate is a phenomenal wealth-building tool. But not every property is equally good at it.

You've probably heard some version of this: Real estate appreciates.

Generally, they're right.

Own a good property long enough and you have two powerful things happening simultaneously. The property can appreciate while your mortgage balance declines. You get to live there, make memories there, stay safe and warm there, and potentially build significant equity along the way.

It's GREAT.

But that doesn't mean every property is an equally good investment.

There are plenty of things that can affect appreciation and resale. Neighborhood price ceilings matter. Condition and deferred maintenance matter. Location matters. In an interest-rate-sensitive market, the cost of making an outdated home livable matters tremendously.

But that's not what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about condos.

And I have a fairly strong opinion:

I rarely recommend a condo as the best wealth-building purchase in the Triangle.

Could I recommend one in Manhattan? Absolutely.

A beach market where the lifestyle, rental potential and scarcity support condo ownership? Maybe.

But Raleigh, Cary, Apex and the surrounding Triangle? I'm going to make you work pretty hard to convince me that a condo is a better long-term purchase than the alternatives available to you.

Here's why.

First, understand what you're actually buying.

People sometimes use "condo" and "townhome" interchangeably. They aren't the same thing.

A townhouse describes the physical style of a home. A condominium is a legal form of ownership.

In a traditional condominium, you own your individual unit plus an interest in the project's common elements. Depending on the condominium declaration, your unit boundaries may generally be described as the interior space or something closer to "studs in." The association is responsible for various common elements and typically maintains master insurance covering property defined by the condominium documents.

A fee-simple townhome is different. Even though you may share walls with your neighbors, you typically own the structure and the land associated with your lot.

And this distinction becomes very important.

Because when you finance a typical fee-simple home, the lender is primarily underwriting you and the property you're buying.

With a condominium, the lender may also have to underwrite the condominium project itself.

That means decisions made by an HOA board you've never served on can eventually affect whether someone else can get a mortgage to buy your home.

Let's look at what buyers are actually doing in Wake County.

I pulled a snapshot of our August 2026 MLS data because I don't want this conversation to exist only in theory.

At the time of this analysis:

Condos

• 402 available for sale
• 106 pending
• Average market time for the pending inventory: approximately 39 days

That means there are only about 26 pending condos for every 100 currently available.

Now compare that with townhomes:

Townhomes

• 401 available for sale
• 325 pending
• Average market time: approximately 26 days

That's approximately 81 pending townhomes for every 100 currently available.

Put another way, the pending-to-active ratio for townhomes is roughly 3.1 times the condo ratio in this snapshot.

That's a meaningful difference in liquidity.

I'm not saying every townhome sells and every condo doesn't. Of course not.

I'm asking a more important question:

When you eventually become the seller, which buyer pool would you rather be selling into?

Then there are the HOA dues.

I also reviewed recent MLS sales data.

Across 77 closed condo sales in the dataset, the primary Association Fee field averaged approximately $371, with a median of about $265.

For the 344 closed townhome sales in the comparison dataset, the average primary Association Fee was approximately $203, with a median of $190.

That's an average condo association fee approximately 82% higher in this particular dataset.

One important caveat: MLS association-fee fields can contain different billing structures and secondary association fees, so these figures are directional market data rather than a representation that every fee is billed monthly.

Why do I care so much about this?

Because buyers don't have unlimited monthly budgets.

Imagine you are comfortable spending $3,000 per month on housing. If several hundred dollars of that budget has to go toward association expenses rather than supporting the mortgage on an asset you own, that changes the amount of property you can afford.

Your HOA payment isn't building your individual equity.

And those fees aren't necessarily fixed forever.

Older buildings need roofs. Siding. Elevators. Paving. Structural repairs. Insurance. Landscaping. Mechanical systems.

Those costs eventually have to come from somewhere.

That means dues can increase, and when reserves aren't sufficient, owners can face special assessments.

Now let's add insurance.

Have you heard anything about property insurance costs lately?

Condominium associations generally maintain master insurance covering the common elements and residential structures as required by the condominium documents and applicable lender requirements.

That insurance is paid for by the association, which ultimately means the owners are paying for it through their assessments.

And insurance isn't just an expense issue anymore.

It can become a financing issue.

Fannie Mae requires lenders to evaluate whether a condominium project meets project eligibility standards, and specifically identifies project financial stability, condition, marketability, litigation and adequate insurance coverage as project-level risks.

Which brings me to the part I think many condo buyers don't understand until they're already owners.

Your future buyer can be perfectly qualified and still have trouble buying your condo.

Imagine this:

Seven years from now, you list your condo.

It's beautiful.

You get an offer from a buyer with excellent credit, good income, plenty of cash and a conventional loan preapproval.

Great buyer.

Then their lender starts reviewing the condominium.

And suddenly the conversation isn't only about your unit.

How much money does the HOA have in reserves?

Are owners delinquent on their dues?

Are there special assessments?

Is there deferred maintenance?

Has there been a structural or mechanical inspection?

Is there litigation?

Does the master insurance policy satisfy lending requirements?

These aren't hypothetical questions.

Under Fannie Mae's Full Review requirements, for example, generally no more than 15% of units may be 60 days or more delinquent on regular assessments, and the same 15% threshold applies to each special assessment. The HOA budget generally must allocate at least 10% of assessment income to replacement reserves, unless an acceptable reserve study satisfies the applicable requirements.

Freddie Mac also requires project-level review of reserves, critical repairs and certain structural or mechanical inspection reports. And for mortgage applications received on or after August 3, 2026, Freddie Mac changed how a reserve study can be used as an exception to its reserve requirements, including eliminating baseline funding as an acceptable methodology for that purpose and requiring lenders to use the study's highest applicable funding recommendation.

Read that again.

You can maintain your condo beautifully, make every mortgage payment on time, pay every HOA bill you've ever received and do everything "right," and decisions made at the association level can still affect the financeability of your unit when you need to sell it.

That's the risk I want my buyers to understand.

"Okay, Saira. What if I'm paying cash?"

Then you eliminate the financing concern for yourself.

You don't necessarily eliminate it for the person who needs to buy the condo from you.

If you love a particular building, want the amenities, don't want exterior maintenance and can comfortably afford the dues, a condo might be exactly the lifestyle you want.

That's valuable.

But I still want you to ask:

When I eventually sell this property, how many buyers can buy it from me?

If the answer becomes "primarily cash buyers" because the project develops a financing problem, you haven't just changed how someone can purchase your condo.

You've potentially reduced your buyer pool.

And buyer pools matter.

This is what I mean when I say I'm your advisor, not just your Realtor.

My job isn't to open the door and tell you the kitchen is pretty.

You can see the kitchen.

My job is to help you see the things that aren't obvious yet.

I want to understand the HOA. The ownership structure. The insurance. The reserves. The resale history. The competing inventory. The monthly carrying costs. The financing implications.

And then I want to ask the question buyers understandably aren't always thinking about when they're excited about their next chapter:

How are we going to sell this someday?

Sometimes the answer is still, Buy the condo.

Sometimes it's, This particular community is financially strong and makes sense for what you're trying to accomplish.

And sometimes my answer is going to be:

I think we can make a better investment with your money.

That's the value of having someone at the table whose job isn't to sell you a house. It's to help you make a smart real estate decision.

Whether this is your first home or your fiftieth, you deserve to understand what you're buying, what you're assuming, and how today's decision could affect your options tomorrow.

And frankly, we can uncover a surprising amount of this during our very first conversation.

If you're a year away from purchasing or considering making a move next week, schedule a consultation with me. We'll talk about what you're trying to accomplish, what the market is actually doing and how to buy not only for the life you're living today, but for the financial future you're building.

Saira Bruno
SB Real Estate
Advisors first.