Philadelphia Real Estate Blog

Check out our groovy new video featuring Mid Rise Philadelphia Condos!

Mark Wade
Prudential Fox and Roach
www.CenterCityCondos.com
530 Walnut St. #260 Phila, PA 19106

From Philly.com:  “An upscale W Hotel is scheduled to break ground next year on a half-acre site that was originally planned for a $420 million Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with luxury condominiums before the lending markets collapsed four years ago.

The new hotel would sit on what is now a surface parking lot at 1441 Chestnut St, just behind the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and its condo tower, according to a representative of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., which owns the W brand.” [Read More…]

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach Realtors
530 Walnut St. #260 Phila., PA 19106

Do you really know what you are going to get? I am going to suggest you don’t.

When the spate of new high rise buildings hit the drawing boards over the past
decade, many buyers purchased their Center City condo based upon renderings, little floorplans, and a whole lot of marketing materials which surely guaranteed a buyers happiness IF they bought in that particular development.  All ad campaigns showed smiling, happy, good looking folks who would one day reside in the building you were considering.

But what about the Quality of the Finishes?  Many questions remained unanswered until the finished project was done, and buyers could then see what they were getting. And some projects of course, looked better on paper than they perhaps do in real life.  So many factors don’t show up on renderings, like:

-Width of the Common Hallway
-Common area ambiance – Scale, decor, and ceiling height
-The feel of the interior condo elements- like light, view, and again, scale
-Amenities- Size of gym, parking access or lack thereof, and staffing budget
-Quality of interior finishes- Hollow core doors? Doorknobs? Countertop thickness, quality or lack thereof in terms of carpeting, noise transference between units, etc.

And I am just scratching the surface here. The point is, if you are buying new construction, you should ask a lot of questions. And get the answers in writing if you can. Because some new construction Philadelphia condo buyers turn out to be big winners, and others- well, not so much.

Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach Realtors
530 Walnut St. #260 Phila., PA 19106