| The master deed establishing the Hawthorne Point Condominium Association is a joke on the owners. | ||
| How so? | ||
| The master deed makes no allowances for the higher value of water front units relative to water view units! | ||
| The master deed also restricts how you can decorate the outside of your units, prohibits rentals, tries to give the condominium board control over your pets, ... This is typical for a condominium, but many buyers seem not to understand. | ||
| Many owners have simply had no clue what they bought. |
Water front is valued the same as water view!?
"...the ownership shares were based purely on the square footage of the units and the number of outside windows, with no allowance for the view..."
| As a former owner of a waterfront unit used to say, it is hard to understand why anyone would buy a back unit. They just subsidize the waterfront. | ||
| Ownership shares in the condominium association are defined in the master deed. Normally, the shares are proportional to the value of the units. When Hawthorne Point was built, the developers apparently did not have adequate financing, so they built the waterfront units first to generate capital to complete the construction. The unit prices and the ownership shares were based purely on the square footage of the units and the number of outside windows, with no allowance for the view. The early 80's was a period of very high inflation, so by the time the back units got constructed and sold, market prices had already risen considerably. So, even though the back units did not have direct waterfront or the same HVAC systems (no A/C in the original back units), the pricing per square foot was very similar. Of course, it did take years to unload those last few units... | ||
| So why does anyone care? The ownership shares determine how the association fees are divided among the units. The average front has been assigned an ownership percentage of 3.87%; for back units the average is 3.03%. Using the Gloucester tax assessor's data for the average undepreciated value, the value for a unit restored to new condition for waterfront units is $1,321K; the back units average $740K. If ownership percentage were based on the tax assessors view of potential market value, the ownership percentages should average 4.24% for front units and 2.37% for back units. This means the fees for back units are about 28% higher than fees that fairly represent potential market values. | ||
| The back units effectively subsidize the front units. | ||
| Here's the view from just outside one of the back units: | ||
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| Here's the view from just outside one of the front units: | ||
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