Let’s pick up where we left off on Monday’s discussion about “dog units” and explore another real estate catch-phrase that could significantly impact your investment: the “for now view.”

It should be pretty self-explanatory, but just in case it’s not, there’s a video below.

Every buyer contemplating the purchase of a condo with a great “for now view” has to consider what that view is worth today, and while the buyer is living in the unit, and ultimately assess the risk that the view is one day diminished…

I asked my client to assess the risk of this “for now view,” and he laid it out as follows:

1) How long will I live here?
2) What are the chances that a condo is built south of here?
3) When is it realistic that the project could break ground?

We figured that if the south view were significantly obstructed, that $1.5M condo with a view could be impacted to the tune of $400,000.  It would still have a nice east view, but so do many units.  How many units face pure south, with that kind of skyline?  That is where the value lays in this unit, otherwise it’s “just” another condo.

Let’s say that a condo project was going ahead immediately south.  Even if there wasn’t a hole in the ground, but a project was approved, the buyer pool would know that the view will soon be gone, and thus much of the value of the condo would go with it.

Say that’s five years from now.  That would mean that the buyer of this unit, today, would spend $400,000 on that view, for five years, or $80,000 per year.

Is it worth it?

Every buyer is different, and you might suggest that some rich playboy buying a waterfront condo with a “Million Dollar View” might consider it money well spent.

But nobody likes losing money, and especially not those who have lots of it.

Then again, we all have a different tolerance for risk…