Trying to Buy a Garage

We received a letter in the mail from our Condo sales associate last weekend. The letter stated they were having a garage sale. When we first bought our home, they told us garages (which are detached but nearby) would be either $13,000 extra or $16,000 extra depending on which size garage we wanted. At the time, I was maxed out with the mortgage monthly payment and didn't want to make it any larger. So, we declined a garage. This letter stated that garages were now, either $5,000 or $6,000. These numbers are definitely more manageable, but I wasn't sure they had any empty garages near our unit. We live in a more filled out and busy section of the neighborhood. There are many empty garage units, but those are where the new construction is getting worked on. No one lives there yet, which is why the garages are empty.

I went immediately to the sales office and discovered there is one quite close to our walkway. I went home and called the bf to discuss. We both would love the garage because these condos have very little in storage options. Our closets are small, and we have junk we're just not ready to part with. Because of that, we've got plastic totes everywhere. Our dining room was a storage room for the longest time because we didn't have the money for a dining set. Now that we have one, the junk is stacked against a wall. Aside from storage, we'd love to have a place to put garage-like items. We want to work on landscaping, but I can't buy a bunch of gardening tools because there's no where to put them. We don't buy a lot of car stuff because our parking spaces are outdoors. We'd also like to buy a used freezer or something to store bulk freezer items like normal households do. Because of our limited storage, we have to buy higher priced, lower-quantity items.

Not only is there a purchase price for the garage, but it adds an additional $33.00/month to our association fees. Mathematically, we need to work on some budgeting for this. We're considering the fact that these garages will cost less than the ones others have already purchased. So, when we decide to sell our home in the future, our resale value will be more in-line with our neighbors, and we wouldn't have spent the same amount of money.