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LOCAL NEWS

Condo craze slows

04:57 PM Mountain Standard Time on Wednesday, December 20, 2006

By 3TV Staff

Just like the housing boom, the condo craze has also slowed down.

The condo boom started as a cheaper alternative to buying a single-family home. But once the market became overcrowded with condos, some developers are now forced to rent.

Condos can be a great alternative to a single-family home if you don't want to deal with a lot of maintenance or if you don't need the space.

"Just recently, we had a boom just like the housing market in places like Phoenix and Florida. What happened was they just overbuilt," Mike Bianchi said.

Bianchi is the owner and broker for Windemere Central Phoenix.

He said developers in the Phoenix metro area converted too many apartments into condominiums.

"(Developers) took a ton of properties that were rentals before and turned them into homes," Bianchi said. "At the same time, (developers) flooded the market with too many condos and now there is not enough buyers for those homes."

And further, now you have people who would like to rent properties, but can't because there aren't many takers anymore.

"I think, currently, 98 percent of the apartments that are in the city of Tempe are currently rented," he said. "That's an extremely high rate of rentals."

That's why you're seeing some condos being converted back to apartments.

"The good news for consumers is if you want to buy a property and you want to buy a condo, today is a great time to do it because there's a ton of them on the market," Bianchi said.

And that means you'll get fantastic incentives.

Bianchi said his company just sold a condo to a buyer who will have all of his homeowner's association fees and his taxes paid for the entire next year.

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