How to Spot a Bad Condo Floor Plan Before It's Too Late

my personal belief is that you should never ever buy a pre-sale condo unless maybe you're an experienced investor who's looking to own for the long term because buying off of future value at inflated prices of something like 30% off of a floor plan well it's really not a good investment you can buy these exact same properties if not even better layouts at bigger square footages right now for considerably less money but that's probably not going to stop you or a lot of other people in the future from buying pre-sale condos so uh this is not just a video for pre-sale condo it is definitely a video for anyone looking for a good floor plan and what people should be looking for if they're looking at resale in the future and general livability of the unit that they're purchasing uh so I know that a lot of people like to get into just dollars and cents on their investment properties I'm going to share with you though today here uh what I look for when recommending floor plans to a client and also the units that are just really really hard to sell so we're going to go through a bunch of different floor plans show you what I like or don't like about them what you may want to consider when you're looking for a current unit on the market so my recommendation for 99% of people is to always uh end up with a resale unit you save money there's less risk there's all sorts of other stuff that goes on um but I understand these sales centers are good and hey if we need more housing we need more units so they're going to build this type of stuff but my thought is the floor plans I'm currently seeing out there are not very good so I'm going to show you a couple of those then I'm going to show you the good stuff that you should be looking for if you're interested in this type of video or staying up to date on the Siri and Fraser Valley real estate market please go ahead and subscribe to the channel and if you wouldn't mind please go ahead and click the like button as well because that will help me get this information out to more people who can then also buy better units and increase their overall salability in the future and if you are wise enough to avoid the pre-sales and are thinking about a resale unit and you need help you can always book a call with me using the link in the description below at a time that works best for you so myself and my team can show you how to identify the good units now let's hop into my screen here so I can show you exactly what I'm talking about with some of these units now we're going to start off with a small plan this is actually a plan very similar to one I sold not that long go I believe it was a Dawson and Sawyer plan and well it's a pretty good little one bed now it is a little one bed we're talking like just over 500 square ft it's a very small place but when you walk in the door bathroom off to the left you got a washer dryer a little bit of a coat closet not much storage in this unit then you end up with an optional Island that's what this kind of dotted line here means living space at the end deck one bedroom what we're going to call his and hers closets and then walk back through into what kind of becomes your on suite at that point in time so you end up with the master or primary bedroom and if you are looking for a one-bedroom unit this is a very very good option this gives you everything that you're looking for obviously you can't raise a big family here you're not going to have a ton of storage but it gives you real livability you've got a designated kitchen area you've got a designated living area you even can walk through to your on Suite in the middle of the night and not worry about it I don't know maybe you have friends sleeping on the couch or whatever uh it's just a lot more livable style of unit because there is another option which is this guy here now personally uh this kitchen area this peninsula style kitchen you can see it's very similar from the last unit we were looking at except this one doesn't have an island it has a peninsula personally I prefer this the kitchen is way more livable you can usually get some sort of stools up against an island over here and then you actually have a defin dining room and a defined living room this unit might be a little bit bigger but you see what it is lacking here is the closet space so you're now sacrificing a little bit of the closet space for more living area and then you also eliminate that kind of on Suite bathroom because now you don't have the door coming through from the primary bedroom and you actually have to walk out now when this is a one bedroom unit it's not really a big deal you're probably not having that many guests you're probably not living with a roommate or anything anything like that so walking out and around the corner past the washer and dryer not really a big deal the cool part here is you get a designated washer and dryer closet or laundry room you would call it and then also a cat closet as well and a little smaller bathroom so these are both really good one-bedroom options if that's all that's in your budget it's just fine there's absolutely nothing wrong with that but here's the next one that I would like you actually to avoid this is what is very common referred to is a junior one bed and this is where my Spidey senses go up when somebody says oh they're giving away these great one-bedroom units over at such and such development uh this is a trend I'm seeing and I don't like it whatsoever I'm going to see if I can actually zoom in a little bit for you because it's such a skinny little narrow unit it's not very livable so you walk in you get a closet you get a laundry and they're going to call this storage sure let's I mean you got to close the door get into the laundry it's really really tight you end up with the regular siiz bathroom there's absolutely nothing wrong with that but here's what I'm going to warn people against and I really think that people should try to avoid these units as best they can for resale if you're just looking at from a cash flow point of view or I mean an investor point of view maybe the numbers make sense but look at this this is the entire kitchen and it is literally in the hallway this is the hallway into the unit and the kitchen is stacked down one side of the unit now the other part of this that I absolutely despise is the fact that this is a junior one bit otherwise known as a studio except they can't they don't call it a studio because they actually have these sliding doors here and here of which they actually kind of slide and they're just glass so they're not a defined one bed and they don't have a window to the outside which is a technical one-bedroom a one-bedroom is a closet and a window to the outside so they call them Junior one bedrooms and then you end up with these kind of sliding glass doors and then sure there's a nice big walk-in closet down here it's not really that big because well I mean they're they do uh kind of emphasize you know for instance how big is this table really with three seats at it pushed up against the wall and then that's your love seat so again this a really really tight unit but they could make them a ton more livable and they just unfortunately don't so that's your whole unit and really I I say avoid them if you can they feel lot like a hotel room maybe a glorified hotel room and they're nothing that you would likely want to live in yourself so if I wouldn't live in it I personally won't buy it and uh rent it out to a tenant be careful of these try and get into a proper one-bedroom if you can afford it issue is the one-bedrooms are more expensive next up is another little sneaky trick now this is usually not the developer that does this but the resale units look at this unit first of all it's an inside corner they're never ideal inside Corners are never ideal try to avoid them if you can if you want anything you want an outside corner unit not an inside corner unit and you can easily identify that because look at the bedroom first of all it's O odd shaped and look how tiny that little window is there so these are really dark rooms that are very odd shaped but look at the second bedroom down here first of all it's about the size of the walk-in closet and it has no window so technically it's a den even though they're calling it a bedroom there is no fire escape from this room should there be a fire like there would be out of this tiny tiny window so it's not technically a twoed and you have to worry about this if we're getting decent size one bed in dens now almost everybody's calling them two beds usually a two bed will come with two baths this is a twoed one bath so it's actually a one bed and den one bath the rest of the living space actually isn't that bad you have a sizable walk-in closet I would just never pick an inside unit with a really dark odd-shaped bathroom not a proper second bedroom and although it does have what looks to be a sizable Island doesn't really have a defined living dining area but if you're looking for a twoed we can now switch over to a very common floor plan that I see now I don't mind this floor plan but I do not think it's ideal so you walk in you've got a kitchen with a pass through so it's kind of a gley kitchen but not bad it's open to a big huge dining area it's a really nice floor plan for that actually and then you end up with a proper living area but here's why I don't favor this and why this floor plan actually will sell for Less the bedrooms that are good sizes I mean they say it's 20 fet but what is that 20 foot measurement from here all the way down to the bathroom probably this looks like in about 11 by 11 or 11 by 12 room so be careful with those measurements but it has this shared wall it's got a great amount of storage which I'm assuming no laundry is over here so it does have a big hallway storage area does have two good sizable bedrooms but that shared wall really takes away from things like privacy if you have kids uh maybe the desire to have a roommate that shared wall really makes a big big difference whoever is in the primary bedroom obviously has the on Suite which is fantastic but whoever's in this second bedroom has to come across the hall and well walk out maybe in their knickers to use the bathroom across the way now the other thing that I actually dislike about this particular layout is if you ask me this is a shower in the second bathroom or the main bathroom I guess you would call it and the shower should be in the on suite and the bathtub because of little kids and things should be in the main so those two things should be switched so this is not an ideal layout for a twoed I'm going to keep going with not ideal layouts I'm going to show you a little another version of this this is the twoed uh with again the shared wall they've actually got this listed correctly so this is technically a den but in today's market a lot of people are going to list this as a second bedroom but again an inside corner so again only a one bath so that is what leads you towards the developers probably sold it as a one bed and den originally now I do love this layout because you've got this big dining area you've got this big kitchen you've got a good siiz living area and then you've got the two separate rooms but again that joining wall and this irregular shaped room with that inside corner so try to stick away from those inside Corners they always sell poorly and most people think they are very dark because they are kind of in the armpit of the building rather the two-bedroom unit you should be looking for is in my estimation this one now this actual floor plan of a client that uh we just had purchase into a proper pretty in langly and this is what you are looking for if you can get this in a twoed this is the one so you enter in you enter right into a big open kitchen with an island now you have options you can eat at the island if you're not the dining table type of person or you can have plenty of room here for a full dining table as well as your Island and a living area you have two proper bedrooms but this is the big selling feature they are opposing opposing bedroom give you tons of different options say it's just you and your spouse and one of you uh stays up late and the other one goes to bed early well you could even set up say a second TV or something in the second bedroom and have that separation between each other or if you live with your kids uh you can keep kid noises on one side of the apartment and you can keep adult noises maybe happening overnight in the other side of the apartment so it's a big big bonus to have that separation I'm telling you in the resale side of things buyers absolutely love that so try and find this type of property if you can I mean sure you do look in from the balcony into the master but usually that's not too much of an issue you end up again with the proper shower and this is actually an extra- large shower in the on Suite with what we call his and hers closets and then on the other side you have the the bathtub which is where it should be outside of the potential kids room the biggest bonus of them all this particular unit was a two- bed and den or an office now there's no window in this office but it makes for either great storage or an office space something you feel comfortable using during the day and then you still have the second bedroom for guests or kids other bonuses here are the washer dryer doesn't lead right out into the kitchen so it's kind of I mean it's right there but it's tucked around the corner so that's a good thing with obviously with a closet door and then if you do have guests coming from out of town and they're staying in your second bedroom they just have to do this little kind of loop out again if they're running for the bathroom in the middle of the night they don't have to walk across where you might be to uh use the facilities so if you can this is the floor plan I want you to look for I think it's the best the buyers like it the best when you go to resell and if you can get that Den space you know all this work from home stuff we've been going on this is absolutely one of the best Styles you can get now I'm going to show you a Dawson Sawyer plan that I've actually uh sold this unit for a client they bought it on I guess what you would call a pre-sale they completed and when they actually got their keys and did the walkth through they hated this unit this unit was atrocious they couldn't wait to get out of this unit luckily they were able to turn turn a profit but let me show you what I mean by that so first of all this was a corner unit so you see all these windows they're all on the outside it's nice bright unit it's also on this side so there's a light just flooding into this place and that's what they were sold on you're going to get the nice good beautiful corner unit but look at all this wasted hallway space you come in you go past the coat closet and this was just a big long Corridor that was just an absolute waste of square footage when you came down that Corridor you immediately walked into the second bedroom and let me tell you they say this bedroom is almost 8 by 10 this bedroom was no such thing the 10 was by from the window to the door not framing in this closet not accounting for this 2 and 1/2 ft of closet at all you could barely fit a single bed in this room and close the door it was atrocious but uh there was some positives and I'll try and focus on those a little bit so there's a big full proper bathroom and I mean when you walked in I think there was a the floor plan that they had actually ended up with an island and this area wasn't great it wasn't a huge size but really what sucked about the kitchen it was kind of just jammed in the corner and up against one wall for the most part it really just didn't feel great it did lead out into a nice balcony which was fantastic but here's where I think this looks good on paper but this floor plan really fell short you walk into the primary bedroom and the closet being on your right here well it was it was in the way it was actually a very poorly placed closet well this room is all in itself just very poorly placed there's a closet on this wall an Open Door on the middle of this wall and a window on this wall it gave no place to put your bed your bed had to be underneath of the window and that was really not suitable it was absolutely terrible now this did have a redeeming Factor when you walked past that bed however it was actually situated in this room you walked into the on suite and it was gorgeous it had its own tub Soaker tub it had its own massive uh standup shower it had a window it actually had a window over the bathtub it actually had a large window in the on Suite again be a little careful I don't know why you need a large window in your bathroom maybe you're into exhibition or something and showing off what you got which is great but I just can't imagine a world where your on Suite being bigger than your second bedroom is a good thing it had two sinks and it was gorgeous but it was not livable these Corner units don't have to be all bad let me show you The Hub uh of which was a very I guess kind of almost a similar layout I guess you would call it even though this The Hub is a high-rise but uh this building was not designed poorly and actually this is one of my favorite layouts even though it's got all this kind of same wasted space in that walk-in foyer so you walk in the foyer sure there's a closet and look at all this you think this is all wasted space it kind of sucks well the cool part about it was you were far away from the hallway so if there was any noise going on out there you couldn't really hear it but when you walked in you had on the left I guess it would be your primary bedroom you had your full on Suite you had your walk-in closet was not a big space but it was a nicely laid out space and again now you have an actual proper wall that you put your bed up against so that was it was really nicely located and that also LED out towards the balcony but back in the main living area I guess the thing I didn't really like about it is again if you have that second bedroom you're guest would have to come all the way out here and in front of your master bedroom door again in the middle of the night if they're making noise or whatnot wouldn't be ideal but you do have a full proper dining area and what I like about this is you have not only this beautiful kitchen and if you know the Hub it's got this amazing kind of backsplash window that's really really cool really unique feature but look it's got a full proper living room and dining room and they're disconnected completely so you can actually Define those spaces and the biggest thing that I like about other than the backsplash window about these particular layouts and they're very very unique there's not many buildings that have anything like this is just the fact that you do have that separation between the two bedrooms again so you can have kids on the other side of the unit and you can be in the primary bedroom and there's no disturbances in between particularly if you're doing things like nap time and all that sort of stuff now here's an outside corner unit two-bedroom that I think could have been done a little bit better but not bad you walk in you do have a hallway the cool part about having these hallways is you do actually feel a little bit more like a home like there's actually kind of some separation and this obviously has a 1 two 3 four five piece on Suite so that's great it's got closets it's got nice big rooms the again the adjoining second bedroom to the primary not my idea of the best layout that there is the main bathroom only again has that shower when I feel like they should have had a bathtub in there if they could have fit it but obviously they couldn't fit it now we've got this kind of Galley walkthrough kitchen and a breakfast nook I think breakfast nooks are for the most part going out of style if I could if I could pick this up and move this whole kitchen to this wall over here and pick up this bedroom and bath and move it over to this side that's what I would have done because I think then you end up with the massive great broom feature that so many people are looking for and a opposing bedrooms but not a bad option and given the fact that this is almost 12200 ft well it would be a pretty nice unit and I think most people would take it if they could afford it now you're not going to see anything this spacious in new constructions so think about that if you're looking for a unit like this you're going to have to go to something 20 or 30 years old but there's still great buildings out there for that and then super rare again this is an outside corner but this is a three bed three beds are super rare I think they're cool the problem is they're so expensive if you get them big enough or they do that thing like the junior one bed where they start putting in sliding walls and then they fit them all into 800 square F feet so they really kind of suck but this one here actually don't mind necessarily that this bedroom is angled so much first of all because there's two balconies to deal with but let's face it these are probably the kids rooms or the guest rooms because the primary bed is over on this side so again getting that primary bed separation so the adults can live the adult life and the kids or roommates or whoever can deal with it in the other side uh that's probably the best thing that you should be looking for I really love how this actually has a defined dining area as well and a defined living area that being said there are not many three beds out there and in my market of Sur I mean most people are looking for a twoed two bath if they can or if they can't they squeak into the one bed but ideally they're not trying to squeak into that one bed or Junior one bed with that hallway style of kitchen which really is not livable and it's very much in my estimation a poor investment because when the market turns and the market always turns up and the market always turns down it it fluctuates quite a bit that's exactly what it is it's a market where prices can go up buyer sentiment can change and if the market does go south those properties that don't give livability they are the hardest to sell and therefore they could be the worst investment let me know which one of these floor plans you like best Down Below in the comments and know that if you need my help in Sur or the Fraser Valley trying to identify which condo is the right one for you well you can book a call with me right now using the link in the description below please remember to subscribe click the like button and we'll see you in a couple of days

Channel: Karrasch Real Properties

Views: 244,363

Keywords: Steve Karrasch Real Estate, Surrey Real Estate Agent, Surrey Realtor, Fraser Valley Real Estate Prices, Living In Surrey BC, Vancouver Real Estate, Investing In Surrey, Surrey Real Estate Specialist, Home Buying Tips, Canadian Housing Market, Real Estate, Surrey Condo, Surrey House For Sale, Moving to Surrey, First Time Home Buyer Canada, Real Estate Canada, Surrey Townhouse, How to Spot a Bad Condo Floor Plan Before It's Too Late, Condo floor plan, floor plan, floorplan

Id: 8FQUKg9Pc9U

Length: 22min 19sec (1339 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024