[quote=sdcellar]If instead, that’s a bad interpretation and the Stonebridge property was something approaching a steal, then still don’t let the M-R equivalence fool you. You saved the money on the purchase price of the house plain and simple. M-R didn’t suddenly become awesome. (and if you really think about it, as a percentage of purchase price, the M-R is even higher!)[/quote]
sdcellar, if I understand you correctly here, are you saying that since the builders in SB didn’t receive a (lump-sum equivalent of 30 yrs worth of MR) in the purchase prices that these properties originally sold for and instead owners’ annual MR payments were diverted to bonds to run the CFD(s), that the buyers who bought new in SB and possibly thought they were getting a “good deal” at the time weren’t because they were paying exactly what the market would bear at the time (and still give the developers a profit)? And that the price they paid had nothing to do with whether MR bonds were present there or not? Of course, the above is all irrespective of the boom/bust cycle that took place.
If this is what you are saying, I agree. A resale buyer will try to get the most “bang for their buck” in their price range and will add the remaining MR encumbrance onto the price of the property when comparing that property to a non MR-encumbered comparable one (apples to apples).
Unfortunately, there aren’t yet enough “traditional” resales which took place in a “normal” market to prove whether a property in some of these recently-built high-MR communities will appreciate sufficiently over an average length of ownership of say, 7-10 years, to determine if taking on these MR encumbrances was “a good investment.”
But this is a very interesting subject, nonetheless.
I haven’t studied the comps but this is why I think the SCP community may very well attract a different subset buyers who are shopping in a higher price range than SB buyers and properties in SCP may be more valuable, overall.
But I don’t know for sure. I’m not very familiar with the various communities of SR.
