When you're looking for a home, whether it's a condo here in Saskatoon or a house for sale in Scarborough, Ontario, one of the biggest mistakes you can make lies in not understanding what the different types of home style entail. There are detached homes and there are apartments. There are town homes and there are condominiums. The problem is that some of them look just the same from the outside - and even the inside! So what is a freehold town house anyway? How is it different from a condo town house? We'll set you straight before you end up tripping over your own ignorance.
Most people think that condos and town homes are easily distinguishable by their appearance - that condominiums look like apartments, stacked one on top of the other in high rise buildings, while Etobicoke townhouses are just like regular houses but arranged in a row close together. This is an incorrect assumption. During your Saskatoon home search you might see a house lined up in a row with its neighbors and it's actually a condo and not a freehold town house. This is because the major difference between the two lies in the contracts and not the appearance.
When companies make Toronto condo sales, what they're selling is just a portion of a larger property. This is true whether the larger property is a high rise building or a row of town houses. In a condo development, you will have common areas accessible to all members of the community and be responsible for paying monthly fees to the condo association for the maintenance of these areas. In a condo town house development, the common areas might be a patio, a park, a pool, or a playground. Each one is different. You will also not be able to make changes to your townhouse that will affect the aesthetic of the whole, much like belonging to a neighborhood with a Homeowners' Association.
With a freehold town home, you own the town home and the property it rests on outright. Unless a Homeowner's Association presides over the neighborhood, you can do whatever you like to your property, even if your neighbors are opposed to it. With Riverdale homes of this type, you pay only the outright purchase fee at the beginning and no monthly fees. Any public areas there are in the neighborhood will belong to the city and not to your neighborhood specifically.
The features that condo town homes and freehold town homes have in common that make them different from cottage rentals in PEI are that they share their exterior walls on the sides with their neighbors. Otherwise they're the same as detached homes - they might have basements, yards, garages, and attics.
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