Chicago Suburbs Condo

I'm feeling nostalgic, thinking back to my very first home that I owned...a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo built in 1974, in the suburbs of Chicago. I purchased the condo in 2002 for $123,000 from a contractor who had completely gutted it and spared no expense on the finishes because he was living there. The condo was very close to my work at the time, in fact in the balcony picture you can see my office building!

Soon after moving in I was elected to the Condo Board and that's when I learned about the financial health of the Homeowner's Association (HOA). Unfortunately, I did not do my due diligence in researching the financial health of the HOA before I bought the unit - a very expensive lesson to learn - and it's why I only lived there for one year. Two of the biggest headaches associated with condos are increases in monthly dues and surprise assessments. If I had done my homework on the HOA before I bought it, I would not have bought the unit to begin with. When I first looked at this condo I thought it was nice that it had low HOA dues. But after moving in and joining the condo board, I quickly learned that low HOA dues could mean the condo isn’t keeping up with maintenance which could in turn trigger an assessment. During inspection, I only had my own unit inspected, in hindsight I should've had my home inspector walk around the property and look for potential big maintenance problems.

When I put it on the market 11 months after I bought it, I told my then neighbors that I wanted to move into a single family home, which was partly true, but it was really because of the HOA's finances. I did not take any pictures with my furniture, at least none that I can find, so the following pictures are with the previous owner's furniture.