Last month I showed a buyer two condos on Washington Boulevard, about four blocks apart. Same square footage within 20 feet of each other. One was listed at $415,000. The other at $475,000. The buyer looked at the cheaper one and said, "This is the better deal. The math is obvious."
The math wasn't obvious. It was incomplete.
Here's the mistake I see first-time buyers make more than any other: they reduce every comparison to price per square foot. It's a clean number and it feels smart. But it strips out everything that actually determines whether a unit holds its value or bleeds it.
That $415,000 unit had monthly assessments north of $700. The $475,000 unit? Around $380. Over five years, that gap erases the price difference and then some. The cheaper unit also sat in a building with a special assessment pending for facade work, which the seller disclosed but the buyer almost glossed over because the per-foot number looked so attractive.
Price per square foot is useful for one thing: comparing similar units inside the same building. That's it. Once you cross the street, you're comparing different reserves, different management companies, different capital plans, different parking situations. Two buildings on the same block of Peoria Street can have a $150/month spread in assessments. That's real money that never shows up in a Zillow filter.
What I tell buyers to look at instead:
- The reserve study. How funded is the building? A number below 50% funded should make you ask hard questions. - Assessment history over the last three years. Are they climbing fast? - The ratio of owner-occupied to rented units. Lenders care about this and so should you. - Pending or recent special assessments.
Investors already know this, by the way. Every investor I work with runs the real cost of ownership before they even tour a place. First-time buyers get excited about finishes and layout (understandable) and forget that the HOA is a second mortgage you can't refinance.
Sellers, this matters for you too. If your building has strong reserves and low assessments, that's a selling point worth highlighting. I'd rather lead with a clean reserve study than a staged dining table.
So the next time you pull up two listings side by side and start dividing, ask yourself what that number is leaving out. Probably a lot.