When it comes to finding a place to live, there are no shortage of options. Depending on your job, your lifestyle, your lifestyle and other factors, you may chose a house, a condo, an apartment or another living arrangement.
When it comes to condos and apartments, there are many advantages to both that real estate services can help you explore. With so many options available and pros and cons, real estate companies and real estate services can help break things down for you and help you make the best choice about where to live.
A condo is essentially a cross between an apartment and a house and you can own it outright if you want to. Here are a few pros about condos:
- Buying a condo is cheaper than buying a house depending on the size. There are a lot of factors that are considering when figuring the cost of a home, but typically you’ll spend less on a condo than on a home. As it stands, about 22-24% of the U.S. population lives in private communities.
- There’s no mowing to be done. If you’re not big into mowing the lawn, condo ownership can be great for that reason and because your condo association will take care of most maintenance needs. Be sure that when you’re doing your homework with different real estate companies and real estate services, ask about condominium association management and how well it’s run.
You get a sense of community. Since condo owners tend to live in close proximity, there’s a chance to get to know them and maybe even make some new friends. Unlike a home, where you can drive into a garage and enter the house from the garage and never see your neighbors, with a condo you might run into neighbors at the pool, in the clubhouse and likely around the neighboring area if you’re out and about.
Here are a few pros about home ownership:
- Owning your own place: One of the biggest advantages that being a homeowner can offer is just that: the ability to own your own land and your own property. Bye definition, condos don’t offer that same luxury. It’s true that being a homeowner takes a lot of work, but at the end of the day you’ll be able to have a greater hand in what your home and property look like.
- Better self expression: As nice as condos can be one, of their biggest disadvantages is uniformity. When you buy a condo, you don’t only exterior of the place. When you own a home, you own the whole thing. That means if you want to paint the whole entirety to of your house inside and out a certain color, you can do just that. Want to build a backyard playground? You can do that. Want to build an addition on to your house for some extra space? You can do that too.
- Adopting to change: Another advantage of buying a house is the fact that you can better adapt to any lifestyle changes you may have. Depending on your homeowners association or HOA, it can affect what kind of job you have. Let’s say you are self-employed as a handyman. If you own a home, you’ll be able to run that business out of your house. If you want a to condo, you can’t. The same thing goes for the amount of people in your living space. If you buy a home when you and your spouse are a newly married couple, chances are you’re buying a space with thoughts of having children the future. A condo on the other hand may only accommodate 2-3 people and if your family grows too big, that might not sit well with your HOA.
There are many pros and cons to owning a condo and before you go buying one, it’s best to check with a realtor to figure out what your best living option maybe. Maybe you were destined to be home owner, with a couple acres of land and a nice house. Maybe you were born to rent, especially if you’re living in the city or moving from place to place. There’s no wrong answer but real estate services, especially local property management and real estate management can help put you on the right track.