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| Tips on Choosing a Condo | You also should look for the name recognition. Lately, more high-end projects are being built by famous designers or architects. For example, French interior and product designer Philippe Starck is teaming up with developer Jorge Perez to create Icon Brickell, a condominium complex in Miami. In Manhattan, Downtown by Philippe Starck, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, is a dwelling development with interiors designed by Mr. Starck. Other famous names who have gotten into the condo act include Richard Meier, the architect for the Getty Center in Los Angeles, home of the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Michael Graves, the post-modern architect who designed, among the rest, the Swan and Dolphin hotels at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. Both architects have condo projects in the works in Miami and Manhattan. But if your builder is not a household name and actually most are not, try to make sure that the builder is at least respectable.
Another decision to take is to choose between old and new condos.
Depending on the building's condition and maintenance, the market and your handyman skills, a purchase of an older complex or a new one will be better investment. If you decided to buy an older condo complex, check out whether the building and its grounds have been kept in good condition. Just as a marvelous home in not as beautiful neighborhood will sell for less than a similar home in a better allocation, if your building is not proper condition, it will be less attractive to buyers.
New condos, which should be in good condition and are more likely to have the latest amenities and features, will be more interesting for the buyers. Although if you buy a condo as a short-term investment and bank on quick price appreciation, the better idea is to buy a new condo, preferably in a complex's initial offering. A new condo will always increase, with the price of construction going up.
If you want to invest some your efforts, purchasing a condo that needs to be repaired or just special handling. In a market such as Chicago, where the yearly condo price appreciation is about 4%, it is rather hard to make money off new construction, because you are banking on appreciation. So it is reasonable to buy a condo that needs work and then investing in about $10,000 to $20,000 into the kitchen and baths to push the unit's value up by about $60,000.
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