Real estate prices in Texas crazy cheap?

[Jonathan Whatley]

You can't necessarily rely on asking the seller. The seller might not reliably know whether or not the condo is non-warrantable. Perhaps the condo was warrantable when they bought, but later became non-warrantable. Perhaps the seller acquired through inheritance.

When you're buying, your real estate agent can likely at least get a pretty good idea, and if your mortgage is conventional or FHA, your mortgage broker or lender would find out for sure. If you're buying with cash but you want to know that it's warrantable today to increase your confidence of attaining a warranted mortgage in the future, you could probably ask your real estate agent and your attorney to provide documentation as a condition of your purchase.

But remember, even if it's warrantable today, it could become non-warrantable in the future, and you couldn't point to the fact that it was warrantable when you bought to get a warranted mortgage in the future. 

In addition to the monthly condo fee Rachel mentions, some condos will occasionally charge unit owners a one-off "special assessment" fee to cover a unusual maintenance or operating expense.

My fairly confident guess is that a condo in Houston for $60k that seems okay visually is non-warrantable.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the asking price in a listing is sometimes much less than the actual lowest price the seller would accept. Sometimes a property is listed at a low price the seller will not accept to attract attention. Sometimes the seller expects a "bidding war" of multiple offers much higher than the listing price.