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
To transfer a property title by deed or other instrument to another party. ...
Changing property ownership. An example is the sale of a home to another. ...
System of interconnected pipes, radiators, and/or ducts designed to heat a building utilizing a main heating unit. The system is controlled through a thermostat that regulates the ...
Unable to sell an investment to obtain cash in the short-term without incurring A significant loss. Real Estate is typically not liquid because of the inability to sell property to raise ...
Something that is hidden or overlooked and may be realized at a later time. For example, an individual's name is improperly spelled on a title deed, and the oversight is not noticed until ...
Representation on a flat surface of any region that depicts the elevation of that region. ...
The use of borrower funds by people or business to increase the return on an investment. Examples are a mortgage to purchase real estate and buying real estate stock on margin. ...
To understand what a principal broker is, we have to go back up the family tree of real estate.You do understand all brokers can be real estate agents, but not every real estate agent can ...
loan that is not secured by a mortgage on a specific property. It is backed only by the borrower's credit rating. Unsecured loan are typically short term. The disadvantages of this kind of ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.