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
Expenditures incurred to develop real estate. An example is the cost to build a shopping center. ...
Net operating income (NOI) of property relative to its market value. If rental income property worth $1,000,000 results in NOI of $100,000, the overall return is 10%. NOI compared to ...
Upgrading made by a lessee to leased property. Examples are paneling and wallpapering. These improvements revert to the lessor at the expiration of the lease term. As improvement costs are ...
For real estate investors, the vacancy and credit loss is a way to determine a property’s potential for profit. This value is determined by subtracting the losses brought by vacant ...
Book value is a quintessential term used in the financial world and the real estate business. Though, there are slight differences in its interpretation in these two areas of ...
In appraisal jargon, property currently being appraised. ...
Legal right or privilege, such as that arising from a contract, to use land owned by another person or business for a specific purpose. The use should be reasonable for the circumstances. ...
Act of postponing a closing for another day or place. Adjournments of closing can occur for a variety of reasons including the lack of an appropriate closing statement, one or more parties ...
Special court for the purpose of providing fast, inexpensive and informal settlement of small financial claims between plaintiff and defendant. The parties represent themselves. A landlord ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.