Condominium
Definition of "Condominium"
So, you’re out and about your homebuying dream and then you stumble upon this question: what is a condominium? Like, you think you know what is a condo home, but it's so hard to explain...
It's ok; it happens to the best of us.
It's not easy defining what is a condominium; condos are one weird body. Keeping up with its weirdness, we could say that condominium is a form of home ownership in which the owner exclusively owns the airspace within the walls but doesn’t own the actual walls, ceilings or floors of the home and anything beyond those.
But enough with the weird. Let’s make this easy and fun. What is a condo home? Let’s put it in a way that anyone can understand. The best way to describe what is a condominium is by defining it as a place within a place. And, while the interest is different from one to the other, you have ownership over both.
Example: an apartment within a condominium building, or a single-family house within a gated community. You accrue ownership of both, but the smaller unit – the apartment or the house - is 100% yours, while the rest – the common areas like gym, pool, lobby, laundry room, elevators…- are collectively owned by all other residents within the condominium and managed by associations such as a Homeowners Association.
Because the ownership is influenced by the neighbors – as you and they share common areas and, sometimes, services – it will vary from condo home to condo home if you can rent your condo to someone else, or if it’s a “owner’s only” type of property.
So, as you can see, it's hard to define what is a condo home. In the end, a condominium is not so much a place, but a form of ownership.
Popular Real Estate Terms
In a construction loan, payments made to a contractor as the various construction stages are completed. The contractor uses progress payments to pay the various subcontractors and suppliers ...
Document issued by a public or private institution to perform some activity according to legal requirements. There is usually a license fee. An example is a real estate license. ...
Government official who values real estate property for tax purposes and ascertains the annual property tax assessments that must be collected. ...
Lien on a given property, such as an person's house as a collateral for a loan. ...
Outside of a structure covering a lower quality or cheaper surface to make the structure look better. Examples of veneer exteriors are bricks covering concrete, or a thin surface layer of ...
Has not been registered on the companies books. It belongs to the person holding it. See also bearer bond; bearer instrument. ...
A person who dies without a will and having unknown intentions regarding his estate. In such case, a court administrator is typically appointed to act as an executor in distributing any ...
making land more beautiful to look at by adding improvements such as lawns, trees, and bushes. Increases the value of the property. ...
The economic indicators that trail behind aggregate economic activity. Six lagging indicators issued by the government consisting of unemployment rate, corporate expenditures, labor cost ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.