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
Housing whose rental payments are reduced because of aid granted by the federal, state, or local governments, private enterprises, or individuals. For example, monthly rental payments for ...
Branching is a widespread phenomenon in banking and other financial domains. A branch office defines an office or business bureau that a company opened in another location to provide ...
Supervisor of the operation of apartments while residing in one of the apartments. Some responsibilities include showing vacant apartment to prospective tenants and assuring that the ...
Formal, written, unconditional promise to pay on demand or at a future date a definite sum of money. The person signing the note and promising to pay is called the maker of the note. The ...
Database program that has real estate listings including property photographs. Real estate computer software allows real estate agents and brokers to search for a particular listing by ...
Economic principle determining the market prices of goods, services, and property. The principle states there is a pricing relationship between supply and demand for real property. Economic ...
Depository institution, such as mutual savings banks. If organized as mutual associations, depositors are shareholders, They offer mortgages. ...
The definition of real estate owned (REO) is known by heart by house flippers or by real estate agents specialized in bank owned properties. These are properties that once used to be in a ...
Amount the taxpayer gets back when he or she files the tax return at the end of the reporting year because taxes were overpaid for that year. The tax overpayment equals the tax payments ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.