Tampa Bay Condo Conversions

by: Marc Vitorillo

In Orlando and the Tampa Bay area, there seems to be an influx of many apartments converting to condos. From St Pete to New Tampa, these are popping all over the place. To see a brief list, see my section here.

Last Wednesday evening, I was one of four panel speakers discussing the local Tampa Bay Real Estate market. A woman in the audience wanted to know if she was better off buying a condo-conversion or keep on renting. She has been at that apartment complex for many years, with payments of $795/month. If she were to buy that unit, her payments would probably double. With the uncertainty on how long she was going to stay and competing with other resales in the future, she was better off renting.

A couple reasons for the condo conversions are due to developers having scarce land to buy and also having higher new-construction costs. Do keep in mind, that apartments have different building codes as opposed to condos. One of the main concern about apartment dwellers is the design in-between walls. Nothing worse than hearing your next-door neighbor having a conversation in the middle of the night, while you are attempting to sleep.

It would be interesting to find out, how many of these go unsold in the near future. We might even see a re-conversion. This happens when the converters throw their properties back in to the rental market.