Hey everyone,
This is my first post here and I’m really glad to join this community. I’ve already learned a lot just by reading, and I hope I can contribute as well.
I’m currently in the process of looking at apartments, but I keep going back and forth about the age of the property.
Some people tell me that location matter more than age as long as the place is livable, in a good neighborhood, and well managed, the age shouldn’t be a dealbreaker.
But others say that once a place hits around 30-35 years, the depreciation really kick in, maintenance costs go up, and resale can get tricky, sometimes you end up selling at a discount to a promoter/developer.
Given the current situation, my goal is at least to get a property that will maintain its value. I’m considering something around 40m2 , but since my personal situation might change, I could end up leaving in 6-10 years.
A few specific questions:
- Do you personally have a cutoff age when buying an apartment?
- Is 30–35 years already “too old,” or still fine depending on condition and management? (I still see some 40–45 year old properties selling at surprisingly high prices…)
- Depreciation is a bit confusing: for houses the value steadily drops (close to zero after ~20 years, with heavy depreciation in the first few years). But for apartments, the only source I found says the residual value hits zero at 47 years. How accurate is that in reality? Is the depreciation for an appartement higher at the beginning of its lifecycle or at the end since no loans can't be provided ? Got this data from another thread but this is somehow misleading https://imgur.com/wT2PXTc
- For those who bought older apartments, how did they hold up long term especially when it came to resale?
Would really appreciate your insights!
by ChampionshipThin4649