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
Distance from the location of natural ground and water to the actual ground level. ...
Appraisal of a location before the purchase is made of it for potential environmental problems. ...
Rainwater pipe attached to a roof gutter channeling the run off down and away form the building. ...
Incapable of performing duties because of a lack of knowledge and training. The individual may not possess the qualifications and credentials. For example, a prospective buyer of real ...
Timeshare homes is the popular name given to the concept of fractional ownership in real estate, and, in fact, is a better term to explain its meaning.Why?Well, fractional ownership means ...
The right to deviate from the use of land prescribed by an existing zoning ordinance. ...
A statistical procedure using a body of measurable independent variables to compute an equation that successfully measures and forecasts the variance in another variable, the dependent ...
The right to allow livestock to graze on a certain range or grazing lands. Grazing rights can be obtained through a lease or by contractual agreement stipulating the period of time and the ...
When we’re talking about debt service, we refer to the amount of cash required to cover the debt’s repayment of both the interest and the principal for a certain period of time. ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.