Hey,

The wife & I are looking at moving into possibly moving into University City.

1) Prior to the maddening switch to Vbulletin there was a map posted on here of the Alexander catchment boundaries. I can not find it now. Does anyone have that?

2) The Garden Court building. The units seem to be really cheap. Is there a particular reason why they are so cheap? Is it just because it is an older building? Help!

3) My wife is under the impression that the housing stock in University City is largely infested with roaches/termites, an impression that has been given to her by students. Is this true?

4) Someone mentioned new condos on a threat that I believe has been lost. Where were these supposed to be?

5) Finally, what are the rough boundaries of what is safe in University City?

2. Garden Court condos have insane condo fees. $700 a month or something.

1) I would take anything students say about University City with a grain of salt. The people you need to talk to are people who have bought homes there and who intend to stay for a while.

2)The new condo project is one Penn is creating at 42nd and Pine. I don't know anything about scheduled construction.

3) The boundaries of University City are roughly the Schuylkill River
west to 48th St. with Chestnut St the northern border and Chester Ave
the southern border. Also some folks include Powelton Village
as part od University City. That didn't used to be true.

There are some new condos being built on Osage at 43rd. I'm not sure when they're going to start constructing the 42nd-Pine condos.

__________________
The Good Reverend

The new condos are a renovation of an existing building at 42nd and Pine.

You can view the Penn Alexander School's cactchment here:
http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/schools/p...chmentarea.htm

For those of you who think the GardenCourtcondo fees are "insane" think about a few things. The condofees cover
1) heat which to heat a huge 2000sqft unit would be very expensive
2) water
3) trash collection 3x a week
4) all common area maitanance including gardening, indoor swimming pool upkeep, roof, boilers, windows and so on...
5) building insurance (you are not required to have mortgage insurance with a condo since it is covered by the fees. You should get condo insurance though which is similar in price to rental insurance CHEAP)

So people immediately assume that they get nothing for their money when infact there are bills that you can subtract. If you were to buy an old victorian in the neighborhood you are still going to have to heat that house. If you need to put a new roof on you are going to have to fund that yourself. These things are taken care for you in a condo situation. You are paying for convienence. All you have to deal with is the interior of your unit.

One more thing to keep in mind. The biggest units in the building are selling for around $220,000 for around 2500sqft. If you compare that to what they are listing 4200 Pine Street condos for (studios starting at $269,000 for around 500sqft) I think you will see that the gardencourt units are the better buy. The values for the units are still undervalued and can only go up as they have been doing for the past 3 years.

I am a resident of the Gardencourt now for 3 years and absolutely love the building and highly recommend it to everyone. It has a great friendly diverse community. If you have any questions about the building dont hesistate to ask me.

Paul: what is the condo fee for the $220,000 units?

I actually don't know what the biggest unit condo fees are. They are based on square footage. I know the biggest ones are above $700 a month but that also includes the assesment for the elevators. 8 elevators are being installed currently replacing out the originally broken 1920's elevators. Its a major upgrade. You can usually see what the condo fees are by looking at www.urbanbye.com or at www.realtor.com.

Why would UCity have more roaches or termites than any other neighborhood? That makes no sense whatsoever. Insects are completely blind to neighborhood boundaries. They go where an environment exists that allows them to thrive.

One thing to remember about student comments is that many of them live in poorly maintained apartment buildings close to campus that exclusively service students. Students that have never lived on their own before, that live almost exclusively on takeout food, students that turn over constantly whether or not the landlord does a good job so that the landlord has little incentive to do proper extermination and maintenance, etc. Do you catch my drift here?

Virtually anything in the Penn Alexander catchment area is quite "safe" as is reflected by the housing prices. Above Sansome (which is the edge of the catchment area) the housing stock kind of obviously gets a little more beat up and there is quite a bit more commercial and old small industrial mixed in with the housing. This area is rapidly improving however and its relative affordability is poosibly one the reasons that it as an area that attracts a ton of immigrants from Asia, the Middle East, Pakistan and Africa.

For a few blocks west of the catchment area is some really fine architecture and a community of folks who actively appreciate and value their neighborhood for its beauty and diversity and which are less focused on Penn and its students. The home of the Mariposa Coop, the A-space, Calvary Center and the Firehouse Farmer's Market - this neighborhood is deeply politically progressive and has a high level community involvement. tons of small community gardens and other community activity along those lines. A lot of the folks who live here (including myself) are drawn to the area by the qualities of the neighborhood itself which has little to do with the institutional presence of Penn. 50th St. is the current western edge of UCD's beat for its various community improvement projects, 52nd is the current western edge of the Penn Mortgage Enhancement Program. Personally I think most of University City is reasonably "safe", although obviously some of the blocks west of 50th and north of Spruce west of the mid 40's could use a fair ammount of improvement.

So, mortgage for a 220k unit is roughly $1,100 with a couple bucks down. Then add an $800 condo fee.

$1,900 /month
add the assessment $6,000
add electricity (cooling 2500 sqft isnt cheap)
add catv
add phone

You are looking at $2,400 a month to live at 46&Pine in a (big) condo. Id much rather buy into a new development, and get the BIG appreciation that always follows.

I live in a condo building, and I turned my heater one 1 time all winter. No lie. Now, I live in a tiny condo (700 sqft)