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
Uncertainties associated with real property including lack of insurance coverage in the event of fire or injury, high crime area, and environmental problems. This risk may be reduced ...
The definition of the term “demise” covers more spectrums than just real estate related. Most commonly the term demise is used to talk about someone’s death. It is also ...
Foreign-born individual not qualifying as a citizen of the country in which he or she resides. ...
Heating system generating heat through radiation as opposed to a convection heating system. For example, baseboard heating is a radiant heating system where the heat from circulating hot ...
Also called real property. Anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings, walls, fences, and shrubs, as well as the rights to own or use them. It is distinguished from ...
Land development planning model theorizing that an urban area grows in rings expanding out from the central business district. The second ring is a shifting area having manufacturing and ...
One of the many Inflation definitions can be put into these simple words: the result of the general increase in prices over a period expressed as a percentage. Inflation is controlled by ...
What a piece of property could be sold for on the market. ...
Value of a company's or person's name and reputation, As a result, the business will have a competitive edge, and generate better-than-typical future earnings. ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.