It's almost one year after Maria Charskaya bought her Seattle townhouse and she still is one happy customer.
"Very quickly we realized that we're not fixer uppers, so we moved on to the 'we need something new construction, we need it to be reasonably well situated next to the city,' because both of us are working," Charskaya said.
The townhouse was a match that ticked all of her and her family's boxes, and did it all within their budget.
"The location is amazing. We are 15 minutes from the downtown, 15 minutes from everything pretty much around the neighborhood is great and the house in itself is what we were looking for," she said.
"I'd say in the last 10 years we've seen a ton of townhouse development," said Charskaya 's real estate agent Sharon O'Mahony.
O'Mahony, of O'Mahony Homes, who has been in the Seattle real estate game for 20 years, says she's had many clients that have found their perfect home in today's imperfect market in a townhouse — a trend that can be spotted in many markets across the country
According to the National Association of Home Builders, townhouse construction made up almost 15% of single-family home starts the second quarter of this year. That's a 17.2% year over year increase for a second straight quarter — and an all-time high since the data started being reported in the mid-80's.
"We have a huge middle housing problem. So this is something that's going to help us solve that partly," said O'Mahony.
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Charlie Lankston, executive editor at Realtor.com, says there are a few clear reasons why demand is high for townhouses.
One is price. Lankston says that there are 36 zip codes where townhouses are on average 30% cheaper than typical single family homes — such as in Raleigh, North Carolina, for example.
"The median house price of a townhome in Raleigh is $463,000. However, the median house price for another kind of standalone single family home is over $2.49 million," said Lankston.
Another reason, Lankston says, is potentially cheaper insurance rates and the fact that townhouses are being built in places they typically haven't in the past.
"Developers are building more townhouses in more rural areas because land prices have gone up. It's not as easy to take a big plot of land, stick one house in the middle of it, and expect to make good money off that," she said.
Another plus, at least for Maria Charskaya, has been an instant sense of community. There are multiple townhouses on the same plot and she's gotten to know her neighbors well.
"When we moved in, we had neighbors visiting us with cookies," she laughed, "Like the whole neighborhood is very close knit community."
So will this trend be sticking around? Lankston believes so.
"These are people who really want to establish themselves in a home, settle in. And be there for at least a few years. So I really do think that we are going to see townhouses as being a kind of prevalent theme for a few years to come," she said
As far as advice for townhouse buyers, Sharon O'Mahony says to be aware of homeowners association fees. Some but not all townhouses are a part of an HOA and may have extra monthly fees.
Also think about location — whether or not the townhome trend sticks, O'Mahony says a property in a great area location will maintain its value better than one that is not.
"Stick with location, location, location, location, because when the market turns, if it ever turns, the hardest thing to do is to sell a property in a location that's less desirable," she said. "So I would say to keep their focus on an area that is really desirable not just for them but for other buyers because I think you can't lose if you do that."
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