Most residents will tell you that Newtown has a lot going for it, but finding affordable housing is not always easy to find. Or it is it?
“Sometimes a family breaks up but a parent wants to stay connected to the kids, sometimes people fall on hard times, but don’t want to leave the area. Sometimes people just want a smaller home,” Realtor Joan Salbu of Coldwell Banker said. “A person can still live in Newtown very affordably.”
Affordable in this case would be an 885 square foot home on a .10 acre, within walking distance to a small private beach on the Housatonic River. “This wasn’t a tear-down,” Salbu said. “It was cute.”
The two bedroom house with hardwood floors, paneled living room and fireplace, sold for $79,000 in just 22 days. The original listing price was $89,000. Taxes are $3,189, making the monthly payments conceivably close to $600 a month including taxes.
Also available in similar price ranges are a variety of mobile homes. A like-new home at 301 Main Street in Botsford has 700 square feet of living space and is listed at $49,900. With an eat-in kitchen that would be considered spacious in a house that cost five times as much, the small but tidy home boasts new appliances, oak cabinets, new carpeting and window treatments, new shed and landscaping, and a good sized bathroom with laundry hook-ups.
Salbu noted that the process is to buy the mobile home and lease the land it sits on. The MLS listing states that common charges would be $455 a month, with taxes on the home approximately $1,000 a year. When all is said and done, Salbu said the $49,000 home would cost close to $1,200 a month.
The bedrooms are small in this unit, at 10x12. In another brand new unit that sold for $69,000 on Mount Pleasant Road, the bedrooms were comparable to a ranch home of almost 1,000 square feet.
According to Salbu, mobile homes make sense for people who don’t want to bother with yard upkeep and want to stay in the area. “Lots of people are interested in mobile homes,” she said. “They are like little ranches. In areas like Florida, the insurance rates can be high, but not here.”
