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Should You Buy a Condominium or a Single Family Home?

Home Buying: Should You Buy a Condominium or a Single Family Home?

Which should you buy...Condo or Single Family

Condo or Single Family Home?

You have finally put together enough money to pay for a home and you are wondering whether you should buy a condo or a single family property. Condos have become more and more popular over the years and it is easy to see why – they come with several excellent advantages.

That is not to say that single family homes are less attractive – it all depends on what you are looking for. Before you make up your mind about condominiums and single family homes look at the following pros of each.

Pros of owning a condo

•    The biggest benefit of buying a condo is that you will pay less than you would for a single family home. When you buy a condo you don’t have to pay for the plot of land on which it sits – a condominium, is a form of shared ownership. If, however, you buy a single family home you will pay more because the land also comes under your ownership.

•    Many people, especially busy professionals, choose to buy condos because they require much less by way of maintenance. Many condos come with an excellent deal – all the maintenance will be done by the condo association. You don’t have to think about issues like maintaining a yard of a garden because there is none, and everything else on the property is maintained by its owner. The same goes for internal maintenance as well – when you have issues with plumbing or heating for instance, you can call the maintenance co-op for repairs and you will only have to pay a small fee, Compare this with a single family home where you are in charge of all maintenance, inside and out.

•    You will also not have to worry about the insurance of the exterior of the property if you buy a condo – the condo association pays for it. All you have to insure are your condo itself and its contents. For a single family home you are in charge of all interior and exterior insurance, including insurance for any nearby structures.

Pros of buying a single family property

•    For many the fact that you get lots of privacy in a single family home is enough to convince them to pay more. You don’t have to worry about what neighbors will say – you are free to do whatever you want on your property (within reason of course). You can have parties and barbeques without worrying that you will upset your neighbours.

•    People with young families tend to buy single family homes because of the amount of space that they have. As children grow older they will need room to play, and they can do that in the front and back yards.

•    Single family homes will also fetch more when the time comes to sell – you will not just be selling the structure, you will get money for the land that it sits on.

Now that you know the pros of both you can decide which is right for you – a condominium or a single family unit?


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