Thank you all for your feedback! Please do keep it coming. A lot of food for thought.
Some key notes from my end:
- Renting the condo is not an option. As many of you said, I am not the landlord type.
- Selling, putting the cash in the bank and renting in the meantime is also not an option, since I work from home and do need my own office space. This is one of the main reasons why we want to buy a house. Plus, I do not think we can take the stress of moving twice in a short period of time.
- The price of the condo is right. As far as I can tell, the external factors that are working against us are the fact that the building is getting a bad name, the huge condo oversupply in the area, and the fact that it attracts mainly Russian and Canadian investors who are only interested in dirt cheap units that are not well maintained but that they can still rent for $3K+ a month. We started listing ours at $450K+ and it is now at $385K. It is a very large corner unit (1600 sq/f) with huge rooms (bigger than those in most homes today) with ZERO wrong or in need of fixing. The unit has new impact windows and new kitchen that, by themselves, cost us $60K+. It is by far the cheapest and best deal in the entire building. A similar unit sold earlier last year for $399K. When I mention our asking price to the neighbors, they can not believe it. Most think we should ask at least $50K more. So there you go. I am not greedy and want out as well. But I can also not afford to give it away. Still, if we get no action in a month or so, we will discount the price further and just bite the bullet.