KCRag Forum

909 Walnut has a sales office built on the corner of 9th. Went in last fall.

I could have bought a discounted one-bedroom condo for $85,000 at Quality Hill Square when I was still renting there, but I couldn't get approved because they didn't meet the 50 percent sold criteria, and wouldn't meet that goal any time soon.  This was back in 2008 right after the real estate crash.

I had no problem qualifying for a loan, because I had a high credit score, and owned no money.

Because of that, I went out looking at houses, and ended up getting a two-bedroom house with a one-car garage for less than I would have paid for the discounted one-bedroom condo with no garage.

FangKC wrote: I could have bought a discounted one-bedroom condo for $85,000 at Quality Hill Square when I was still renting there, but I couldn't get approved because they didn't meet the 50 percent sold criteria, and wouldn't meet that goal any time soon.  This was back in 2008 right after the real estate crash.

How does that work (the 50% sold criteria)?  If my understanding is correct, and it probably isn't, it seems kind of like an infinite loop. 

In a condo development, banks will only give mortgages when 50 percent of the condos have been sold or are occupied by owners and not renters.

So in this situation, I guess the condo developer must basically find cash buyers until it can reach the 50 percent threshold.

Fannie Mae approves 909 Walnut condos. Wells Fargo is the preferred lender, and condos can be sold with as little as 5 percent down.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... b&page=all

In case anyone cares, electric car charging spaces are being installed inside the 909 Walnut parking garage.

In the past six months, the building had started offering recycling bins and composting as well.

FangKC wrote:Fannie Mae approves 909 Walnut condos. Wells Fargo is the preferred lender, and condos can be sold with as little as 5 percent down.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... b&page=all

i guess they're no longer selling units?

Correct; I think they gave up on that in 2014 or 2015.

the website had information regarding buying units as recently as ~6 months ago. they redid their website this winter and that information appears to be gone.

i also know of at least one inquiry into purchasing a unit around summer 2016, and 909's office provided information. the putative buyers chose a unit in a different building, but all appearances were that a purchase of a unit in 909 would have been facilitated.

i wouldn't be surprised if they would still let someone buy a unit. but at their asking price and HOA structure, i don't think anyone's interested. they probably have something like 5+ years of empirical evidence to that effect, too. so i'm not surprised they didn't waste their time adding a "buy!" component in the website redesign.

I looked at units there when they first opened. They had a 'rent-to-buy' feature where you go X% or $X knocked off of the price of buying a unit based on each month you rented. If that was still in place it would be a great enticement for a long-term renter to buy.

kcjak wrote:I looked at units there when they first opened. They had a 'rent-to-buy' feature where you go X% or $X knocked off of the price of buying a unit based on each month you rented. If that was still in place it would be a great enticement for a long-term renter to buy.

sadly, this kind of thing has a bad reputation because it's too often seen used by sleazy landlords to get extra money out of someone

also, if the data points i've heard are representative, the HOA fees are something like 60%—or more—of the monthly rental payment for the same unit. which makes buying hard to justify even if there is some kind of long term renters credit.

i followed up and found out the corporate structure has changed — units at 909 walnut are rent only now, except for the units that have already been purchased as condos.

kcjak wrote:I looked at units there when they first opened. They had a 'rent-to-buy' feature where you go X% or $X knocked off of the price of buying a unit based on each month you rented. If that was still in place it would be a great enticement for a long-term renter to buy.

I looked at it too except I thought it was a ridiculous offer. So let's say you paid $2000/mo. in rent, you got a $2000 credit per year and it was going to be 5 years before they could be sold. So you were going to get a $10,000 credit versus the appreciation of the unit. So let's say you could buy an 1800 sq.ft. unit for $200/sq.ft. or $360,000. Assuming the market appreciated over 5 years, you might pay $240/sq.ft. or $432,000. So in this example, you got a $10,000 credit toward a unit that went up in value $72,000. I wanted to own so that's why I passed the building up and went elsewhere. I tried to get them to agree to a price in 5 years because they did for a couple of the earliest renters, but then they stopped it for the purchase credit model, which didn't hurt their ability to rent the units but also gave them more potential upside when they went to sell. Obviously the recession affected everything, but I'm sure they've still done okay on the property.

909 Walnut for sale.

Historic Downtown Skyscraper for Sale, Missouri’s Tallest Residential Tower

The 909 Walnut building, the iconic, bunny-eared skyscraper that jumpstarted the 21st Century revival of the downtown housing market, is up for sale, asking price $49 million.
...
Now the building’s apartments are 91.5 percent leased at an average monthly rent of $1,735, according to Institutional Property Advisors, the firm marketing the property. Its office space is fully occupied by EPR Properties which has a lease through 2026.

https://cityscenekc.com/historic-downto ... ial-tower/

Weren't parts of this building being sold as Condos from the very beginning? I remember looking at units there just after it opened and I seem to remember they were condos. And the penthouse that incorporates each tower at the top has gotten a lot of press through time as a condo.

only 5 to 10 ever sold as condos.

It's literally in the article

The original plan was to begin converting 909 Walnut into condominiums after five years, but the Great Recession of 2008 got in the way.

Solomon said only about seven units were sold including the multi-million dollar two-story penthouse unit at the very top which includes one of the two towers.

“Not that there weren’t buyers, they couldn’t get financing during the downturn,” he said.

wahoowa wrote:only 5 to 10 ever sold as condos.

I remember looking at one on the 6th (?) floor back in the day, had a huge balcony that I kinda regret not having with the condo I bought. If I remember right, it's incredibly hard to get lending if less than 50% of the building is owned. I wonder how hard it would be for one of those owners to get our of their unit?

yeah, sorry, didn't read it. even if i had read the article i would have trusted my vague memory of my parcel viewer research at the time over whatever the article/the leasing office said.

i don't think it's too hard to sell. one was on zillow for 2-3 months about a year ago, i assume it sold but not sure. one's for sale now i believe, posted in the last week or so. i'll try to pay attention.

the fifth floor units have the huge patios, but no views. the sixth floor units are the ones with the balconies that are a bit smaller but overlook (the other patios) and walnut/9th/alley to the east. maybe the new owner will pursue condo sales and i can win the lottery and buy a couple of the 5th story units and blow a hole through the walls. that's the dream!