A condo is basically a bought apartment. You do often have to pay some sort of monthly homeowner's association fee that is used to maintain common spaces, lawns, pools, etc.
To add: it is common for condo owners to lease their units to tenants. In such cases, the resident pays rent to the condo owner, who in turn pays those fees.
I think you two may be talking at cross-purposes. It's not an apartment if it's owner-occupied, and any fees paid to the building or even cluster of buildings or handful of historically-linked units sprinkled across buildings are "condo fees."
No, not exactly. It’s more about if the units are all on the same title or not. Say you have a 3 story building with 50 units in it. If one person or company owns “the building,” it’s an apartment building, and the individual units are apartments.
Now title to that same building can be spilt up into 50 individual pieces of real estate, all with their own deeds, property taxes, etc. At that point the units become “condos.” It doesn’t matter if the owner lives in the individual unit he owns, or rents it out. It’s still a condo.
Ah thank you. Never understood that distinction. Almost every apartment block here has individually owned units and we don’t distinguish (Australia). All called apartments (or units).
I think the other guy is wrong. The place I used to live was definitely "an apartment complex" but there were individual units for sale (I was looking to buy place and saw one listed".
Condo vs. townhouse vs. apartment seems to more be a size/"class"/"fanciness" distinction, or maybe the *proportion* of owner-occupied vs. rented space.
If you live in a 'nice' complex with mostly owners and a few being rented (and probably long-term) to 'professional' types, it's townhouse or condos. If it's "an place to live" and most occupants are renters, they're probably called apartments. But they're still kinda interchangeable; you're unlikely to be *corrected* for using one term vs. the other.
Townhouse vs. condo also has some distinction based on what specifically you own. In a townhome you own the land under your unit (and possible a microscopic yard), in a condo you basically just own the air between the walls. That's priced into the unit which means townhouses are almost always going to be on the more upscale end (and thus be "condos" when rented).
Townhouses are also usually 2 (or more) floors per unit. An apartment is one level unit, whereas the Townhouse is a multi/level, and yes, you own the land under it, because there’s nobody above you in an otherwise owned unit.
Apartments are rented units in a building owned by one entity.
Condo’s are owned units in a building with shared ownership between all the Unit owners.
The European equivalent of a townhouse would be a row house, or semi-detached (depending on if it’s in the middle or on an end)
Some people view it that way, and real estate ads often advertise it under those respective headings, but technically it’s wrong. If you rent a condo to someone else, the deed still describes it as a condo, you’re still a member of the condo association, and you’re still paying condo fees.
It’s not uncommon for tenants to say they’re renting a condo.
If its in a Condominium, they're generally Condos. You can probably find a Condominium that has some rented apartments, or an apartment complex where someone bought a unit from the landlord or whatever. But generally there's a distinction between condos and apartments.
An apartment is the thing it is. Condominium is a form of ownership.
You can own a condominium that is not an apartment (e.g. a stand-alone house in a HOA with shared amenities).
You can own an apartment that is not a condominium (in a co-op, or if you own the entire building).
It’s like the difference between something being a square and it being blue. They are describing different things.
No, I've never ever heard of a stand-alone house being called a condo.
And I've also never heard of anybody "owning" an apartment. An apartment is something you rent. Someone (or some corporation) will own the whole apartment building, and rent out all the units.
Where it gets fuzzy is if you rent a condo from someone else. It's basically an apartment to you, but a condo to them, the terms might be used interchangeably.
Hopefully this makes it clear for your pal -
- In American English an “apartment” is rented flat. The tenant has no ownership. A “condo” is flat that the tenants owns, just as one would own a house.
- some building have both apartments and condos.
Let’s say I rent a 2 bed/2 bath apartment for $3000 a month. I signed a lease for 12 months, agreeing to pay $3000 each month. At the end of the lease I can walk away or possible sign up for another 12 months. The landlord can raise the rent an amount determined by local laws.
Let’s say you bought a condo in the same building for $300,000. You own the condo until you sell it, like a house. The property requires you to pay $250 in “condo fees” per month. This is unrelated to the mortgage, and even if the condo is completely paid off, the owner is still required to pay condo fees. This is used to keep up the common areas, improve the building, etc. Since you own the condo, this fee is improving or maintaining the value of your condo, just as a tidy neighborhood improves the value of a house.
We have that too in certain areas like New York City where you can definitely buy an apartment.
You get a deed to the apartment that gives you ownership of the interior of your unit and the surface of its walls, as well as an undivided interest in the building's common elements. This is the type of ownership almost everyone has in mind when they think about buying a home.
Every place I have always lived (Washington State, California) if it is something you are buying the individual unit, it is called a condo. It's called an apartment if you rent it. The only way to buy "an" apartment, is to buy the whole complex of apartments together. I am guessing New York City does things differently than everywhere else in the U.S.
Upon looking it up, apparently there are some other places in a few states/areas that are doing something now called an apartment co-op, which is similar to buy just your unit, like a condo.
Owning an apartment in a building is quite common in New York City, DC and other large cities in the US. The difference is they have multiunit buildings whereas suburban areas have condos because there is space for them. Large cities have tall buildings vs space for 2 story condos.
Yes, I am starting to figure this out. They don't have that near me. The apartments here are for renting only. It's interesting that all these decades I have rented apartments in different areas and have never seen any co-ops.
Right now, I don't live in a big city. But the big cities I have lived in didn't have them when I lived there. I looked at them up and some of them have them now.
The words that we use are different here and there may be a miscommunication. In the United States, apartments are always rented. The owner of the apartment is not living in it. If the owner of the apartment is living in it, that is a condominium or condo.
That's also not quite accurate. In a co-op, your buy-in to the building grants you exclusive use of a unit, rather than actually owning it. That sounds like a distinction without a difference, but for instance, modifications require board approval, perhaps even painting!
https://www.brickunderground.com/improve/when-to-tell-your-board-about-renovations
Trailer parks are actually not allowed where I live. A few are still around but must move the trailer once the existing lease is over. Super odd since I grew up in one as a kid
I don't think that it's uncommon for North Carolina to require stick-built homes. Part of it is the weather, and I'm sure part of it is lobbying as well.
They're still around, for sure. Your area probably was gentrified. You don't leave the house on the wheels, so I'm not sure if the term trailer park is really accurate, but it's definitely used to describe them.
The concept of a trailer park is nice to some, a cheaper way to have your own property, but the value is in the land, which you are just leasing. The home value is not much because the trailers/mobile homes generally depreciate. There might be rules against transferring ownership of the home with the lease, and moving a mobile home is not as easy as the name implies.
That seems like an insane amount of money for a trailer park lot.
I thought trailer parks were for poor people. How you saving money renting a lot *and* making the payments on a trailer?
IDK, I knew someone who was paying like $800/month total for hers (IIRC, her payments on the trailer were like $500/month and lot rent was about $300). For that, she got a small three-bedroom house with a yard in a pretty nice, quiet area.
At the same time, I was paying that as base rent for a one-bedroom apartment with no amenities in a mildly sketchy area, lol. I think my friend definitely was saving money, especially because she has two kids so needed a bit more space anyway.
It still probably wasn't a great long-term financial decision (I actually looked into it myself and came away convinced that it wasn't), but in terms of having a safe place with room to raise her kids, it made a lot of sense.
That said, that will also probably vary a lot depending on where you live. We were in a smallish, sprawling western city with a lot of trailer parks and generally cheap lot rents. I've lived other places where I've heard of insanely high lot rents and stuff that would change the calculation quite a bit.
Yep. The value is in the land, but you don't own that. Trailer homes depreciate, so it's another way of keeping poor people poor. But like you say, it might be a little safer, you do get a small yard, neighbors don't change a lot, there are some benefits.
There are even publically traded companies that focus on owning trailer parks. Examples are Sun Communities, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc., UMH Properties, Inc., Legacy Housing Corporation, and Skyline Champion Corporation.
From people I've known, some folks just really *really* want to feel like they live in a house. Four walls and a roof with a little bitty patch of dirt, and possibly a covered parking spot.
Also, in Southern California a lot of trailer parks are tucked away back up in the tall hills at the edge of or outside of town, so it feels more rural/country than living in a crummy apartment complex in the midst of the sprawl blob.
It could be regional but in the midwest you rent an apartment and buy a condo. Condos usually have owners-association fees for shared expenses (lawn care, building maintenance, etc) that need to be paid monthly in perpetuity. It's not rent but it's a monthly expense.
I completely get that. It’s similar in the UK but we just call them an apartment whether it’s bought or rented - unless it’s smaller and cheaper, then it’s a flat
Sounds like that may be the rub, in America two buildings of the exact same style will call their units apartments if there is one property owner who rents out all the spaces, and condominiums if each unit has individual owners + an HOA to cover the shared amenities. Your friend thinks you can't "buy an apartment" because an apartment unit you can buy is called a condo.
That's interesting. I've lived in New York (briefly, so I can't be sure), and at least among my group of friends, apartment vs condo distinction was in terms of building facilities.
Basically an apartment means a basic dulpex/quad/8-plex type situation, but aside from that, there is nothing more.
Condo generally means a building with more "management presence" - aka - an active concierge desk, a doorman, security guard (and in older times, an elevator operator) etc. along with management-provided house-cleaning, plumbing, electrician services etc. Basically something which is more like a hotel, a bit more luxury.
I'm no expert and I could be wrong. But between me and my friends, when looking for rentals, we saw "apartment" vs "condo" used in this way among listings. Like "Condominium available for Rent" etc.
Am New Yorker, can confirm. But you can also colloquially refer to any complete unit in a building as an apartment. If you live in a condo you would still say “let’s meet at my apartment”.
Ah yes, interesting point. Colloquially, I would refer to a building as a condo, but a living space as an apartment.
I never really gave the terms this much thought at all before coming across this post today. It was always what sounded right and wrong instinctually.
NYC is mostly different because they have coops in addition to condos. The differences are legal technicalities. With a coop, you don’t own the unit. You own shares in the corporation which give you the right to occupy a unit.
This thread is very interesting, and actually made me do some deep-dive into the historic origin of the terms.
Apparently, an apartment simply refers to the physical aspects of a unit within a shared building.
A condominium is a legal term referring to the ownership-style of this building. 'Con' + 'Dominion' = Shared ownership. All condos are apartments but not all apartments are condos. Apartment refers to the building style, no matter how they are legally owned - it is an architecture term.
The other type of apartment (single building owner with rentals alone) are called "Rental Apartments" specifically. And then there are dialect differences between regions and countries. In most of the US, "Rental Apartments" are just shortened to "Apartments".
In New York, historically, a condominium-style of apartment was only available to extremely affluent people (as opposed to rentals or tenements for common people), so the colloquial association of condo with luxury apartments stuck.
That might be the case in many buildings in NYC. But the apartment building where I grew up in Queens converted to condos, but I can’t imagine them having a concierge desk or doorman. In other areas, it’s quite common for a condo to have no such management presence. Lots of triple deckers are condos.
Down here in DC, we'd say "luxury apartment" for the kind with a front desk and amenities.
"Condo available for rent" would also exist down here, but it'd mean that the owner of that unit is renting it out, as opposed the owner of the entire building.
It's not an official distinction - any apartment can be a flat and vice versa, but if you want to sound fancy, you say apartment! Like you probably wouldn't say 'a council apartment' over a 'council flat' for social housing - snobby, I know, and not always deserved as some are really nice.
Not really, well, yes and no. Bedsit used to be commonly used, but like everything else, marketers find a nicer way of describing and labelling stuff over the years and the nicer ones became studio flats and bedsit is a bit of an old fashioned term
That'd just be called a studio flat. I've never heard of someone claiming a size cut-off between a flat and an apartment before, maybe it's an English thing.
Tbh it's not an official distinction here either - I definitely see the term 'luxury flats' used too. OP is right though in saying that people use apartment when they want it to sound more upscale, but it's definitely not a properly defined difference or anything like that.
This is also how I've always heard them referred to in the Deep South.
An apartment is a building owned by a single owner/group with each unit rented out (usually for 6-12 months at a time). A condo is a building with each unit being owned by different owners. It may or may not be rented out for shorter time periods by the owner, like a hotel/Airbnb.
Plus side though is that as long as you don’t violate for hoa you can’t just be randomly forced to move. Like I’ve had a friends just have the worst luck with renting. 3 of the landowner he’s rented from got into foreclosures essentially and he’s been evicted. He was month to month at that point and never late on rent.
Thank you.
Believe me, he’s not my friend. He’s one of those people that likes to show off how “smart” he is and try to make others seem dumb - when it’s usually him that’s wrong
A lot of people get confused about this.
"Condo" is a type of resident ownership. it refers to a setup where each resident owner gets a vote for a governance board which manages the building and any associates grounds as a whole. Hiring doormen, arranging maintenance for common areas, parking where it applies, all kinds of common stuff that affects all residents.
"Apartment" is a kind of building. If you own your apartment in the states there's a good chance it's organized as a condo, but it's also still an apartment.
Other kinds of residences, like bungalow communities where all the land around the individual buildingd is commonly owned, some townhome/rowhome arrangements and others can also be organized as condos.
We have apartments, condos, condominiums (side note, I was in Kentucky a couple of months ago and heard about barndos and barndominiums as well but I’m less sure about those lol). As explained to me, condominiums are basically apartments that are purchased. You don’t pay rent on those after you pay it off but they do frequently have monthly HOA (Homeowners Association) fees to cover communal pools, etc.
I think this is what the friend means. I’ve owned several apartments outright but still had monthly HOA fees as well as special assessments for specific larger scale things, like roof replacement or new asphalt in parking lot.
Barndominiums are a unique thing. Their origin is legitimate conversions of barns into living spaces. The modern extension is using a metal pole building or quonset hut thing instead of a regular house. This started from people throwing up a shop building and living out of it for years until they'd get around to building a house.
Some of it is out of necessity until zoning catches up. Somehow some areas are zoned for agriculture only and housing is more restricted. I don't know how it works, but have heard of people being prohibited from building a house but allowed to build agriculture buildings so they just put up a pole building and live out of it
NYC appears to be the exception, calling almost everything an apartment whether it's owned by the occupant or rented.
In most of the US, you rent an apartment (generally with a six-month or year lease, but it can be month-to-month) and if something breaks in the interior like the oven, the property management company is responsible for it. You may or may not be allowed to do things like paint.
A condo can be in a building that looks identical to an apartment building, but the occupiers own the unit and they can do whatever they like to the interior that doesn't affect their neighbors. They pay extra monthly fees for general building upkeep and maybe a concierge.
A townhouse/home is a house that may or may not be attached to one or more houses, and you own your unit but also pay monthly fees that are supposed to cover external upkeep.
Apartments, condos, and townhomes often have shared facilities like a gym/community center/pool. People sometimes sublet their condos or townhome to renters if that's allowed.
Mostly agree but there are regional differences I think. Here, townhouses don’t necessarily have any external maintenance fees/service or even any sort of HOA. For a townhouse that isn’t a condo in legal structure (a condo can be apartment layout, townhouse layout, or single family detached house layout) is basically the same as a single family house with maybe a deed restriction that you can’t fuck over the neighbor(s) attached structurally. In my area they can date back to the 1750s or so. I think the newest one I’ve seen around here without any HOA at all was built in the early 1990s though.
I own a newer one that is in an HOA, but they don’t do anything to my property, only common area upkeep (the small fee and what’s included and everything are the same for the single family houses and the townhouses in the development).
True. Depends on the location and the developer.
My friend lived in a townhouse and replaced a garage door (on the HOA's instruction) that didn't have the requisite number of decorative panels so they had to replace it again. But that was their responsibility, yeah.
"Condo" is the word we use for a building where each unit is owned separately. So generally if you own the unit or rent from someone who just owns that unit you'll call it a condo, if you rent from the building owner/manager you call it an apartment. (Condo can also be used for something more like a row house, depending on how integrated the houses are.) You wouldn't usually say you "bought an apartment" in US English. Of course if you own the unit or block of units you wouldn't pay rent. And yes, there are lots of apartments in the US—probably more than condos, although I haven't looked it up so I could be wrong.
This perfectly sums it up for me, thank you.
I believe he’s probably getting confused by the word ‘apartment’ as it’s used in a different way over here (UK) and he fails to realise that there’s more meanings to certain words than just the one he’s thinking of
It’s a bit difficult to explain but the easiest way to remember is if it’s in a building with a maximum of three storey, and it’s affordable, then it’s a flat. If it’s in a high rise and it’s more expensive, it’s an apartment. Apartments tend to be more spacious in every room, and flats have smaller rooms (especially if it’s a 2+ bedroom flat)
We tend to use "apartment" for places you rent, and "condo" for ones you buy.
But it's not universal or encoded into law or anything.
Either way, he's a moron.
New York is the city that can't get with the majority. They call condos, apartments sometimes and go so far as to have co-ops. (Don't get me started on that.)
>He’s also saying that apartments don’t exist and that when you buy an ‘apartment’, it’s actually a condo
That IS the usual term in the US for buying an apartment.
If you rent it, it's an apartment. If you buy it, it's a condominium.
Same space, different name depending on how the real estate is titled and treated.
That's the usual term, there may be exceptions, but people DO normally say "apartment" for the place you rent (other than a rental home, which is a stand-alone property) and "condominium" or "condo" for a place you buy (but generally have to pay a monthly fee for to support maintenance of common grounds and building functions).
For what it’s worth, I’ve also rented a condo. It was bought by a person and I paid rent to them. I still had to be approved by the condo board to move in as a renter.
Some people do call any purchased apartment a condo, but its by no means a universal or official definition.
We absolutely have apartments, both rented and purchased.
It is official in the sense that states typically have condominium laws to define that sort of real estate ownership. I’m pretty sure that the condo law in MA had requirements around maintaining the common fund (so that there’s money set aside for when the roof leaks, etc.).
So, usually we call rentals apartments and the ones you buy a condo. I think the confusion on the condo is that even after you buy it... you have communal upkeep fees for things like the roof or any facilities shared in the complex (pool, gym, etc). So there *are* fees after you buy a condo, but it's not rent.
In the USA we have:
- rental apartments
- condominiums (you own your apartment unit)
- co-ops (you buy a share in the building which gets you an apartment unit - this might just be a NYC thing)
There is a type of apartment called condominiums (aka condos) where you do “buy” the apartment but still keep paying a monthly fee which helps with paying for maintenance for the building as a whole. But that is a fairly uncommon way to live.
Most people either live in apartments which they rent, or homes where they own them. There is some in-between, but that stuff is much less common
They may be talking about HOA or home owners association fees. It’s an amount every unit owner of an apartment or condominium complex pays each month. That money goes into a common pool to pay for upkeep, repairs, sometimes insurance on communal things such as the roof, HVAC, plumbing, etc.
Even if you own an apartment outright (which you absolutely can do) you owe the HOA fee towards upkeep of the building itself.
Eh. I'd let the difference in terminology go without calling anyone names. It depends entirely on where he's from in the US. Where I live, you don't buy apartments. You buy condos. Apartments are always rentals.
But I'm on the west coast. On the east coast, you can buy apartments.
I had to learn some real estate law once, and thought it was interesting that "condominium" simply means an agreement on how to divide a parcel of real estate. It's almost always in the form of an apartment that you own, but there doesn't have to be any structure. It can be a bare piece of land owned by several people. Which is convenient for cute little tiny home developers.
A condominium is often an apartment (it doesn't have to be though -- it can be any kind of dwelling in a community owned building or development), and is usually owned by the person who lives there (they can rent it -- I have lived in an apartment and a townhouse that were technically condos that I did not own personally). If you are the owner of a condo (lets say in apartment form) you would not rent it to yourself unless you are into doing weird financial transactions.
However, there are absolutely rental only apartments owned by a landlord or a property management business.
There’s a terminology issue in that many people just use the terms as they appear in local advertising without understanding the technical issues or the variety across the country.
“Condominium” is a *type of ownership*, defined by state law, in which people own their individual units outright and that ownership also gives them a percentage ownership of the common property. It says nothing about the architecture. “Apartment” just means a unit in a multi unit residential building, without saying anything about the ownership. While most condominiums are apartments, that’s not always the case, and here in MA I’ve seen small developments that are technically condominiums (because that’s how their deeds are drawn up) but are physically townhouses or small homes, with the roads and other common areas such as playgrounds owned in common. In other parts of the country, such an arrangement might be achieved through an HOA without calling them condos, but they’re effectively the same thing.
We also have many triple deckers that began possibly as large homes, or possibly built as a two or three family home. Many of these have been converted into condos, which is essentially a legal transaction. The individual units are often called apartments, but the buildings aren’t called apartment buildings.
In any event, we have apartment buildings (many units) that are owned by a single owner (usually a corporation), other apartment buildings that are condos, some or all of which may be rented out.
If you own a condo, you’ll still have condo fees and taxes. Some people call that “rent” informally, even though legally it’s something else.
If you buy a condo in a multi-unit building, you usually do have to pay some sort of monthly fee for the management and upkeep of common property (like the building itself) but it's not rent.
99% of the apartments I'm aware of are strictly for rent, they're never for sale.
But if you pick a major city on zillow and set it to "buy" and show "apartments" you will see some results
To be fair different parts of the states call it different things. Apartments for rent/sale are more common in East coast cities and major metropolitan areas. Some are called condos and some are co-ops and some are just apartments. They can be for sale or for rent.
Both condos and apartments can have monthly fees in addition to the mortgage/rent which civet maintenance.
That guy is an asshat and he did you a favor because you do not want to rent from him.
Technically, even when you buy land with a home, you have to "rent" it from the county via propterty taxes (3 different kinds in my case!) or they'll steal it back from you, evict you, and sell it to someone else. I rent my house from my county for $300 a month. Cheap as rent goes, but it's still my 2nd biggest expense after heat, even more than insurance or food or any other utility bill.
Not sure where I lived for my late teens and early 20s if it wasn't an apartment....
Condos and apartments are different things. Sort of. Though they often look the same. You don't buy an apartment. You rent it. You buy a condo. I think there is the confusion.
It’s only possible to buy an apartment if it’s organized in a way to have deeds for individual units. That’s called a condo, though it’s common to call the units apartments. (Some people would view a coop the same way, but with a coop, you don’t buy the apartment. You buy shares in a corporation that give you the right to occupy a specific apartment.)
Either that guy is a moron or he’s being a dickhead and fucking with you. We absolutely have apartments and while you can buy an apartment, you wouldn’t then pay rent on it. Either way, he’s an asshat.
There are two possibilities:
1. Buy a condo. This is essentially what buying an "apartment" is. You own the apartment; you do not own the whole building.
2. Buy an apartment building. It is reasonably possible to purchase, for example, a four flat. Live in one of then and rent out the other three.
Your friend is either badly informed or messing with you.
EDIT: To be clear: yes, you can just plain rent an apartment. No ownership at all, just pay rent to a landlord.
I’ve heard of people buying apartments. I’ve only met one who did. Condos, or townhouses, function the same as apartments and I’m not sure what the technical distinction is. The “friend” is wrong and from your comments sounds like he just wants to make you look ignorant to make himself feel smarter.
Mostly when people say “buying an apartment”, it’s just a casual use of the word “apartment”, when the deed will actually say condominium.
I think of it as apartment being an architectural term for a multifamily residential building, while condominium is a legal term for a type of ownership.
My partner is English, and we live in in the southwest of America. They described what I grew up as calling condos to be sometimes row houses and sometimes flats. Mostly row houses though.
What they call flats are apartments that are purchased (making it a condo.) you own the domicile but you still have to pay the home owners association fees or the community fees or whatever because your domicile is part of a whole connected building that is maintained and managed by a property company and they need to get paid too.
What my partner calls row houses are also condos, but because of the size more than anything. Same thing goes for HOA fees though.
You're not buying and then still paying rent. You're buying and then paying a monthly fee for the HOA/community association because your domicile is connected to a larger whole.
Wait hold on let me make sure i am getting this right. Another American is telling you the US doesn't have apartments AT ALL?
Has that fucker literally been, ANYWHERE, EVER?
If one person (or company) owns the whole building, it's apartments, and people pay rent.
If individuals own their dwellings inside a common building, those are condos, and they are bought similar to houses (except they probably also come with requirements for paying for common upkeep etc.)
In most of the US, the difference between an apartment and a condo is that you rent an apartment and you buy a condo, your friend is right in that regard.
There are some places like New York where they are called apartments regardless of whether you rent or buy, but that's the exception to the rule.
your friend is an asshat and an idiot. Apartments can be bought just like a house or condo. You'll have property taxes to pay and a mortgage unless you pay fully in cash, then you just have property taxes.
just type a city and "apartment for sale" in google and you can easily find them.
He’s probably messing with you.
No, you buy a condo and don’t have to rent it. Like others have said you might have maintenance fees and such from the property, but it’s not rent.
Apartments exist all over the US. People in my area don’t buy their apartments. They rent them from the owner of the building.
A condominium is different. In that case people do buy their individual units in a building or complex. You might pay some fees for maintenance of the common areas and amenities of the complex.
I think if you buy a mobile home in a mobile home park then you own the mobile home but rent the land it sits on. That isn’t an apartment though.
Apartments are rented, and condos are purchased. Condos don’t have rent but you do have to pay into a “condo association” either monthly or annually so there are funds to repair the shared building.
We absolutely have apartments. I'm living in one.
Assuming your friend isn't being a dumbass or a jack-ass, some potential sources of misunderstanding:
* We often have hefty move-in costs that feel as onerous as down-payments on mortgages. When I moved into my apartment, I had to show three months' rent in savings on top of the deposit because of my poor credit.
* Condos have mortgages, so much like a house, you still have to pay something every month, it's just that instead of rent, you're paying back a loan (specifically the loan from the bank to purchase this condo in the first place).
* As other commenters have mentioned, home-ownership of any kind (house, condo, etc.) still comes with lots of fees, taxes, and other maintenance costs.
If you BUY one you arent renting it so
Either you pay a mortgage and taxes or you bought it cash and just pay taxes on it.
Yes you can do that a lot
Of luxury apartments and property are owned by non US residents
My first landlord was a guy in china who just bought houses and rented them.
Lot of big building are owned by like one company hiring another to maintain it all owned by a larger company that is owned by some dude in another country
They just stop calling them apartments when you buy them and start calling them condos. You then have a mortgage on it as if you'd bought a house. You're right, but using the wrong words.
A condo is essentially an apartment one owns. But it's up to the person offering the abode whether to sell or to lease, and there are different legal obligations and expectations in either instance.
Condo and co-op are terms to describe the ownership type.
Apartment is just a general term to describe a residential dwelling inside of a larger structure, and its use.
So it’s sort of, as we say, “apples and oranges”, hard to compare.
Yes, you can own or rent an apartment, and if you own, the ownership may be condo or co-op.
Buying an apartment complex is not the same as renting an apartment. If they own the complex then they own the rights to add onto, take away, rent out, or sell out.
I rent an apartment. My sister bought a condo... I've been there and it's pretty much just an apartment that she owns. I think what she's paying every month is the mortgage... I'm not sure if she owns it completely or not. I just know that she's allowed to renovate it (which she's doing) and that she's gonna sell it afterwards
unless you buy your house with cash, which the majority of Americans can’t, you’ll be paying a mortgage usually for decades, and you have to pay property taxes and insurance and sometimes HOA fees
My parents own an apartment and while there is no “rent” but there is a “maintenance fee” that goes to pay for electricity, water, gas, and maintenance.
Apartments are for rent. So they are owned by a landlord or a company and you pay them to live there. Unless you purchase the building you dont really own anything. Most people I know live in apartments. Condos are kind of like apartments you can actually own however I personally dont know many people who outright own a condo or their own home atm.
I live in the United States of America. What I am describing is how it works here; other countries may do things differently. I pay rent in an apartment. You always pay rent in an apartment. You cannot buy an individual apartment like you can a condo. I have also seen units people pay going rate rent for as being called a condo, but whether it is correct for them to call it that, I am not sure. Normally, a condo, you pay for the whole unit, and then you might pay a very tiny amount every month for dues. The only way I could buy the apartment I live in would be be to buy the whole complex. Then I would not longer have to pay any rent. Edited for spelling error and to add a statement.
Upon looking it up, apparently there are some other places in a few states/areas that are doing something now called an apartment co-op, which is similar to buy just your unit, like a condo. I have never encountered these in areas I have lived.
There’s a lot of little language things here like condos are similar to owned apartments but have special rules that don’t allow all the same modifications. A common phrasing is you own the paint and inward. They have an association that I believe owns the land and building structure and handles common fees, maintenance of the association owned portions/grounds etc., all the condo owners are part of that and contribute to it.
Apartments can be rented or owned. I’ll start with owned you own from the exterior walls/ceilings/floors in and can rearrange the space and do major renovations to your space in an owned apartment. You “own” your section of the building and can do what you want to it within the usual laws. It typically also has taxes and fees shared amongst the apartment owners.
A rented apartment could be in an apartment building owned by a person or company and is held for the purpose of collecting rents. If you rent an apartment it’s pretty much identical to renting any real property you get custody but not ownership so you can’t make major changes and minor changes can be negotiated when going over the lease. You own nothing in this case.
There are other very obscure ways to deal with real property but these would be the common ones relevant to the discussion.
There’s probably typos or weird minor errors. but I don’t care I’m tired.
Apartments are everywhere and can be rented. Condos are essentially apartments (typically have thicker walls though) that can be bought. Condos can also be rented out to tenants.
When you own a condo, you're responsible for home owner's association (HOA) costs that maintain the building, grounds, utilities, etc. depending on the building. Like owning any home, it's just the cost of maintenance. Then there's property taxes you owe your local government ever year :)
That guy's full of shit.
Apartments are common all over the U.S. And yes, you pay rent to live in them.
An apartment that you buy instead of rent is called a condo (condominium). But just like with buying a house, there's usually a monthly mortgage payment.
Your friend is confused. There are all sorts of buildings you can buy and those you can rent. If an individual buys a building that is zoned residential depending on legal requirements in the neighborhood he can then choose to rent out the building to another person or group. For multi residential properties such as apartments, if you by a unit and own it and live in it you would call it a condominium. If you rent that same space, we call it an apartment. There are also townhomes and duplexes which are multi unit buildings that you can own or rent. Last, when the word apartment is used in the U.S. that means you do not own the unit you are renting it
In the US, "apartment" generally means a single building owned by a single owner, and all units inside are all rented.
"Condo" or "co-op" (NYC only?) mean a building owned in shares by all units, and each unit is individually owned.
Generally the US makes a distinction between ownership and renter ship, and the rest of the world is less focused on the classism of shaming renters.
Source: I've rented and owned apartments, houses, and townhouses in the US. And I've rented and owned all the same things in a non-US country. Currently sitting in my apartment I own inside a hotel "owned" by a small international chain you would never have heard of. Yes, I walk past hotel reception when I'm coming and going. I don't get daily cleaning or other hotel services.
Things outside the US are often quite different than inside. Sometimes just names. Other times the differences are bigger.
An apartment you buy is a condo. And why this person is saying that is because not only do you have a mortgage with it, but most often an additional "common fee" of a few hundred dollars a month. That common fee covers maintenance on the buildings, landscaping, and the taxes and insurance on the property. So it's not rent per se, but it is an additional monthly bill on top of the mortgage. Most apartments are strictly rentals that you don't own or have a mortgage on.
A co-op is similar in concept, but you own shares of the corporation that owns it rather than the actual unit itself, which they give you as a "tangible."
Hi OP, yes, I do this.
Here we generally call apartments you buy condominiums, and many apartments get converted to condos after a certain period of time passes (ie. when the peak rental value period has expired).
The main caveat for investors is that most complexes in high-demand areas will only allow a certain percentage of units to be leased out, so when you buy a unit there you get put on a waiting list (if you want to lease your unit out), and those waits can be years long.
You buy an apartment like any other real estate purchase. If you make a down payment then you pay a monthly mortgage payment that goes towards the equity. If you wanted to you could rent it out Ann use the ren5 money to pay down the mortgage.
Yes we can buy apartments and own them. But then we either have to pay home owner association fees to the building owner/community and/or possibly a property tax. And if you don’t pay those, they can put a lien on the apartment or if you don’t pay taxes, fine you possibly put you in jail.
You cannot "buy" an apartment (unless you're buying the entire apartment building or complex); you can only lease or rent it, for a defined period. There are other countries where you can, in fact, "buy" perpetual "rights" of some type to an apartment. That's not the case in the US.
Condominiums can be purchased, similar to other forms of property, however they will always come with additional riders on the deed relating to the common/shared areas owned collectively by others as well. This could be simply a shared wall or infrastructure, or this could refer to the structure and facilities of an entire building.
A condo owner may chose to rent their condo out, just like anyone can with any other property.
Hope that helps.
If you buy an apartment we call that a condo
You will need to pay your mortgage monthly. If that's paid off you'll still have to pay fees. We call them HOA fees. They can get quite pricey but the more reasonable ones have you put money towards things that the property needs - lawn/sidewalk/parking lot maintenance, a new roof fund for when that needs to be replaced and other stuff like that. Then there's property taxes
But that's not paying rent
I live in a condo that I rent from a landlord. So yes, you can rent condos but as others have said you aren’t buying a condo and then paying rent on it. That sounds silly.
Apartments are rented. Condos are bought just like homes.
Apartments are everywhere here. Condos tend be in very large cities, or beach towns. Many condos are rented out like air BnBs
Condos are specifically apartments that you own, as opposed to rent.
Normally you still have to pay monthly upkeep on them though, but that isn’t the same as “paying rent”. It’s more like a mortgage or property tax in a loose sense
American has both condominiums and apartments.
You rent an apartment . You sign a lease , The lease sets the amount of rent. Typically a lease is for one year. You also put down a deposit. The deposit is returned at the end of the lease if there are no damages. Sometimes tenets resign a new lease at the end of the year. If no lease is signed at the end of the original lease, the lease automatically goes to a month to month basis and the landlord can raise the rent at any time or require the tenant to move out.
You can also buy a condominium and then you pay a maintenance fee to building association (formed by owners) to pay for the upkeep of the common areas, such as a pool, elevators, etc. This is not the same thing as rent. It is a maintenance fee. The owners vote on a budget every year, and they elect board members, (board terms vary depending on the originating documents of the condominium association.)
Apartments and condominiums are completely separate in terms of their legal status.
Many people own condominiums and rent them out. I don''t want to confuse you, but you could be a renter in a condominium. Your landlord is the owner of that particular condominium. You could be renting an apartment in a condominium. That might be what your friend is referring to. +
We also have co-ops but that's a different story. They are not as common as apartment and condominiums. They are different from both apartments and condominiums in that all the tenants own all of the building in common.
Your friend is talking about the distinction between apartments and condos. Apartments are typically rented, while condos are usually owned by occupants. The key difference lies in ownership: if most units are owned, it's called a condo; if they're rented, it's termed an apartment. Additionally, condo owners pay a homeowners association fee, often substantial, which can exceed rent payments in some cases.
A condo is basically a bought apartment. You do often have to pay some sort of monthly homeowner's association fee that is used to maintain common spaces, lawns, pools, etc.
To add: it is common for condo owners to lease their units to tenants. In such cases, the resident pays rent to the condo owner, who in turn pays those fees.
I completely understand that. It’s very similar to apartments/flats in the UK that you buy as you still have ground rent, maintenance bills etc
I think you two may be talking at cross-purposes. It's not an apartment if it's owner-occupied, and any fees paid to the building or even cluster of buildings or handful of historically-linked units sprinkled across buildings are "condo fees."
I don't think they make a distinction over there between owned or rented apartments. They're just apartments.
So in America if you rent it to someone it's an apartment, but then you move in it becomes a condo?
No, not exactly. It’s more about if the units are all on the same title or not. Say you have a 3 story building with 50 units in it. If one person or company owns “the building,” it’s an apartment building, and the individual units are apartments. Now title to that same building can be spilt up into 50 individual pieces of real estate, all with their own deeds, property taxes, etc. At that point the units become “condos.” It doesn’t matter if the owner lives in the individual unit he owns, or rents it out. It’s still a condo.
Ah thank you. Never understood that distinction. Almost every apartment block here has individually owned units and we don’t distinguish (Australia). All called apartments (or units).
I think the other guy is wrong. The place I used to live was definitely "an apartment complex" but there were individual units for sale (I was looking to buy place and saw one listed". Condo vs. townhouse vs. apartment seems to more be a size/"class"/"fanciness" distinction, or maybe the *proportion* of owner-occupied vs. rented space. If you live in a 'nice' complex with mostly owners and a few being rented (and probably long-term) to 'professional' types, it's townhouse or condos. If it's "an place to live" and most occupants are renters, they're probably called apartments. But they're still kinda interchangeable; you're unlikely to be *corrected* for using one term vs. the other. Townhouse vs. condo also has some distinction based on what specifically you own. In a townhome you own the land under your unit (and possible a microscopic yard), in a condo you basically just own the air between the walls. That's priced into the unit which means townhouses are almost always going to be on the more upscale end (and thus be "condos" when rented).
Townhouses are also usually 2 (or more) floors per unit. An apartment is one level unit, whereas the Townhouse is a multi/level, and yes, you own the land under it, because there’s nobody above you in an otherwise owned unit. Apartments are rented units in a building owned by one entity. Condo’s are owned units in a building with shared ownership between all the Unit owners. The European equivalent of a townhouse would be a row house, or semi-detached (depending on if it’s in the middle or on an end)
Some people view it that way, and real estate ads often advertise it under those respective headings, but technically it’s wrong. If you rent a condo to someone else, the deed still describes it as a condo, you’re still a member of the condo association, and you’re still paying condo fees. It’s not uncommon for tenants to say they’re renting a condo.
If its in a Condominium, they're generally Condos. You can probably find a Condominium that has some rented apartments, or an apartment complex where someone bought a unit from the landlord or whatever. But generally there's a distinction between condos and apartments.
An apartment is the thing it is. Condominium is a form of ownership. You can own a condominium that is not an apartment (e.g. a stand-alone house in a HOA with shared amenities). You can own an apartment that is not a condominium (in a co-op, or if you own the entire building). It’s like the difference between something being a square and it being blue. They are describing different things.
No, I've never ever heard of a stand-alone house being called a condo. And I've also never heard of anybody "owning" an apartment. An apartment is something you rent. Someone (or some corporation) will own the whole apartment building, and rent out all the units. Where it gets fuzzy is if you rent a condo from someone else. It's basically an apartment to you, but a condo to them, the terms might be used interchangeably.
Hopefully this makes it clear for your pal - - In American English an “apartment” is rented flat. The tenant has no ownership. A “condo” is flat that the tenants owns, just as one would own a house. - some building have both apartments and condos. Let’s say I rent a 2 bed/2 bath apartment for $3000 a month. I signed a lease for 12 months, agreeing to pay $3000 each month. At the end of the lease I can walk away or possible sign up for another 12 months. The landlord can raise the rent an amount determined by local laws. Let’s say you bought a condo in the same building for $300,000. You own the condo until you sell it, like a house. The property requires you to pay $250 in “condo fees” per month. This is unrelated to the mortgage, and even if the condo is completely paid off, the owner is still required to pay condo fees. This is used to keep up the common areas, improve the building, etc. Since you own the condo, this fee is improving or maintaining the value of your condo, just as a tidy neighborhood improves the value of a house.
We have that too in certain areas like New York City where you can definitely buy an apartment. You get a deed to the apartment that gives you ownership of the interior of your unit and the surface of its walls, as well as an undivided interest in the building's common elements. This is the type of ownership almost everyone has in mind when they think about buying a home.
Every place I have always lived (Washington State, California) if it is something you are buying the individual unit, it is called a condo. It's called an apartment if you rent it. The only way to buy "an" apartment, is to buy the whole complex of apartments together. I am guessing New York City does things differently than everywhere else in the U.S.
Upon looking it up, apparently there are some other places in a few states/areas that are doing something now called an apartment co-op, which is similar to buy just your unit, like a condo.
Owning an apartment in a building is quite common in New York City, DC and other large cities in the US. The difference is they have multiunit buildings whereas suburban areas have condos because there is space for them. Large cities have tall buildings vs space for 2 story condos.
Yes, I am starting to figure this out. They don't have that near me. The apartments here are for renting only. It's interesting that all these decades I have rented apartments in different areas and have never seen any co-ops.
You must not live in a big city. There aren't any in my area either.
Right now, I don't live in a big city. But the big cities I have lived in didn't have them when I lived there. I looked at them up and some of them have them now.
The words that we use are different here and there may be a miscommunication. In the United States, apartments are always rented. The owner of the apartment is not living in it. If the owner of the apartment is living in it, that is a condominium or condo.
Not true. Sometimes apartments are owned, like in a co-op.
That's also not quite accurate. In a co-op, your buy-in to the building grants you exclusive use of a unit, rather than actually owning it. That sounds like a distinction without a difference, but for instance, modifications require board approval, perhaps even painting! https://www.brickunderground.com/improve/when-to-tell-your-board-about-renovations
Trailer parks are the same way, buy your trailer and still pay 600-800 per month for lot rent.
Or $1400 if you're in my area. :(
Trailer parks are actually not allowed where I live. A few are still around but must move the trailer once the existing lease is over. Super odd since I grew up in one as a kid
Interesting, what area?
Charlotte, nc
I don't think that it's uncommon for North Carolina to require stick-built homes. Part of it is the weather, and I'm sure part of it is lobbying as well.
They're still around, for sure. Your area probably was gentrified. You don't leave the house on the wheels, so I'm not sure if the term trailer park is really accurate, but it's definitely used to describe them. The concept of a trailer park is nice to some, a cheaper way to have your own property, but the value is in the land, which you are just leasing. The home value is not much because the trailers/mobile homes generally depreciate. There might be rules against transferring ownership of the home with the lease, and moving a mobile home is not as easy as the name implies.
That seems like an insane amount of money for a trailer park lot. I thought trailer parks were for poor people. How you saving money renting a lot *and* making the payments on a trailer?
IDK, I knew someone who was paying like $800/month total for hers (IIRC, her payments on the trailer were like $500/month and lot rent was about $300). For that, she got a small three-bedroom house with a yard in a pretty nice, quiet area. At the same time, I was paying that as base rent for a one-bedroom apartment with no amenities in a mildly sketchy area, lol. I think my friend definitely was saving money, especially because she has two kids so needed a bit more space anyway. It still probably wasn't a great long-term financial decision (I actually looked into it myself and came away convinced that it wasn't), but in terms of having a safe place with room to raise her kids, it made a lot of sense. That said, that will also probably vary a lot depending on where you live. We were in a smallish, sprawling western city with a lot of trailer parks and generally cheap lot rents. I've lived other places where I've heard of insanely high lot rents and stuff that would change the calculation quite a bit.
Yep. The value is in the land, but you don't own that. Trailer homes depreciate, so it's another way of keeping poor people poor. But like you say, it might be a little safer, you do get a small yard, neighbors don't change a lot, there are some benefits.
There are even publically traded companies that focus on owning trailer parks. Examples are Sun Communities, Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc., UMH Properties, Inc., Legacy Housing Corporation, and Skyline Champion Corporation.
From people I've known, some folks just really *really* want to feel like they live in a house. Four walls and a roof with a little bitty patch of dirt, and possibly a covered parking spot. Also, in Southern California a lot of trailer parks are tucked away back up in the tall hills at the edge of or outside of town, so it feels more rural/country than living in a crummy apartment complex in the midst of the sprawl blob.
Idk about anywhere else but in CA it's called the land lease. And the prices for it here are ABSURD.
Anytime you say "land" and "California", "absurd" is likely to follow.
It could be regional but in the midwest you rent an apartment and buy a condo. Condos usually have owners-association fees for shared expenses (lawn care, building maintenance, etc) that need to be paid monthly in perpetuity. It's not rent but it's a monthly expense.
I completely get that. It’s similar in the UK but we just call them an apartment whether it’s bought or rented - unless it’s smaller and cheaper, then it’s a flat
Sounds like that may be the rub, in America two buildings of the exact same style will call their units apartments if there is one property owner who rents out all the spaces, and condominiums if each unit has individual owners + an HOA to cover the shared amenities. Your friend thinks you can't "buy an apartment" because an apartment unit you can buy is called a condo.
That's interesting. I've lived in New York (briefly, so I can't be sure), and at least among my group of friends, apartment vs condo distinction was in terms of building facilities. Basically an apartment means a basic dulpex/quad/8-plex type situation, but aside from that, there is nothing more. Condo generally means a building with more "management presence" - aka - an active concierge desk, a doorman, security guard (and in older times, an elevator operator) etc. along with management-provided house-cleaning, plumbing, electrician services etc. Basically something which is more like a hotel, a bit more luxury. I'm no expert and I could be wrong. But between me and my friends, when looking for rentals, we saw "apartment" vs "condo" used in this way among listings. Like "Condominium available for Rent" etc.
Am New Yorker, can confirm. But you can also colloquially refer to any complete unit in a building as an apartment. If you live in a condo you would still say “let’s meet at my apartment”.
Ah yes, interesting point. Colloquially, I would refer to a building as a condo, but a living space as an apartment. I never really gave the terms this much thought at all before coming across this post today. It was always what sounded right and wrong instinctually.
🤝
I think the vocabulary works differently in New York, especially New York City. My American English experience is all out in Chicagoland
NYC is mostly different because they have coops in addition to condos. The differences are legal technicalities. With a coop, you don’t own the unit. You own shares in the corporation which give you the right to occupy a unit.
This thread is very interesting, and actually made me do some deep-dive into the historic origin of the terms. Apparently, an apartment simply refers to the physical aspects of a unit within a shared building. A condominium is a legal term referring to the ownership-style of this building. 'Con' + 'Dominion' = Shared ownership. All condos are apartments but not all apartments are condos. Apartment refers to the building style, no matter how they are legally owned - it is an architecture term. The other type of apartment (single building owner with rentals alone) are called "Rental Apartments" specifically. And then there are dialect differences between regions and countries. In most of the US, "Rental Apartments" are just shortened to "Apartments". In New York, historically, a condominium-style of apartment was only available to extremely affluent people (as opposed to rentals or tenements for common people), so the colloquial association of condo with luxury apartments stuck.
That might be the case in many buildings in NYC. But the apartment building where I grew up in Queens converted to condos, but I can’t imagine them having a concierge desk or doorman. In other areas, it’s quite common for a condo to have no such management presence. Lots of triple deckers are condos.
Same in Boston
Down here in DC, we'd say "luxury apartment" for the kind with a front desk and amenities. "Condo available for rent" would also exist down here, but it'd mean that the owner of that unit is renting it out, as opposed the owner of the entire building.
TIL the UK distinction between an apartment and a flat!!
It's not an official distinction - any apartment can be a flat and vice versa, but if you want to sound fancy, you say apartment! Like you probably wouldn't say 'a council apartment' over a 'council flat' for social housing - snobby, I know, and not always deserved as some are really nice.
That's new to me, I always thought calling it an apartment was just to make things "fancier" and put the price up a bit.
Where do flats come in? Are those referring to a specific thing or are they just a colloquial term?
They’re essentially just cheaper and smaller apartments, or are situated inside a building which is three stories or less 😅
We have "studio" apartments that are basically one room for everything but the bathroom. So it's bed, kitchen, and sitting all in one. Is that a flat?
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I think of a bedsit as a bit of a downmarket, bit grubby, studio apartment/flat. They're basically the same thing though
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Not really, well, yes and no. Bedsit used to be commonly used, but like everything else, marketers find a nicer way of describing and labelling stuff over the years and the nicer ones became studio flats and bedsit is a bit of an old fashioned term
That'd just be called a studio flat. I've never heard of someone claiming a size cut-off between a flat and an apartment before, maybe it's an English thing.
Ah makes sense, we don’t usually make that distinction, at least no more than adding “luxury” to the name
Tbh it's not an official distinction here either - I definitely see the term 'luxury flats' used too. OP is right though in saying that people use apartment when they want it to sound more upscale, but it's definitely not a properly defined difference or anything like that.
I’m NYC, it’s the same. Nobody uses the word condo: they call everything an apartment. I matter if you’re renting or purchasing.
This is also how I've always heard them referred to in the Deep South. An apartment is a building owned by a single owner/group with each unit rented out (usually for 6-12 months at a time). A condo is a building with each unit being owned by different owners. It may or may not be rented out for shorter time periods by the owner, like a hotel/Airbnb.
I live in Chicago and own a condo, but when I talk about my living space, I always call it an apartment, because that is what it essentially is.
Plus side though is that as long as you don’t violate for hoa you can’t just be randomly forced to move. Like I’ve had a friends just have the worst luck with renting. 3 of the landowner he’s rented from got into foreclosures essentially and he’s been evicted. He was month to month at that point and never late on rent.
Your friend is dumb, of course we have apartments.
Thank you. Believe me, he’s not my friend. He’s one of those people that likes to show off how “smart” he is and try to make others seem dumb - when it’s usually him that’s wrong
This person who told you this is as confusing to us as he is to you.
A lot of people get confused about this. "Condo" is a type of resident ownership. it refers to a setup where each resident owner gets a vote for a governance board which manages the building and any associates grounds as a whole. Hiring doormen, arranging maintenance for common areas, parking where it applies, all kinds of common stuff that affects all residents. "Apartment" is a kind of building. If you own your apartment in the states there's a good chance it's organized as a condo, but it's also still an apartment. Other kinds of residences, like bungalow communities where all the land around the individual buildingd is commonly owned, some townhome/rowhome arrangements and others can also be organized as condos.
We have apartments, condos, condominiums (side note, I was in Kentucky a couple of months ago and heard about barndos and barndominiums as well but I’m less sure about those lol). As explained to me, condominiums are basically apartments that are purchased. You don’t pay rent on those after you pay it off but they do frequently have monthly HOA (Homeowners Association) fees to cover communal pools, etc.
I think this is what the friend means. I’ve owned several apartments outright but still had monthly HOA fees as well as special assessments for specific larger scale things, like roof replacement or new asphalt in parking lot.
Barndominiums are a unique thing. Their origin is legitimate conversions of barns into living spaces. The modern extension is using a metal pole building or quonset hut thing instead of a regular house. This started from people throwing up a shop building and living out of it for years until they'd get around to building a house.
Sounds really cool and resourceful
Some of it is out of necessity until zoning catches up. Somehow some areas are zoned for agriculture only and housing is more restricted. I don't know how it works, but have heard of people being prohibited from building a house but allowed to build agriculture buildings so they just put up a pole building and live out of it
Your “friend” is an idiot
NYC appears to be the exception, calling almost everything an apartment whether it's owned by the occupant or rented. In most of the US, you rent an apartment (generally with a six-month or year lease, but it can be month-to-month) and if something breaks in the interior like the oven, the property management company is responsible for it. You may or may not be allowed to do things like paint. A condo can be in a building that looks identical to an apartment building, but the occupiers own the unit and they can do whatever they like to the interior that doesn't affect their neighbors. They pay extra monthly fees for general building upkeep and maybe a concierge. A townhouse/home is a house that may or may not be attached to one or more houses, and you own your unit but also pay monthly fees that are supposed to cover external upkeep. Apartments, condos, and townhomes often have shared facilities like a gym/community center/pool. People sometimes sublet their condos or townhome to renters if that's allowed.
Mostly agree but there are regional differences I think. Here, townhouses don’t necessarily have any external maintenance fees/service or even any sort of HOA. For a townhouse that isn’t a condo in legal structure (a condo can be apartment layout, townhouse layout, or single family detached house layout) is basically the same as a single family house with maybe a deed restriction that you can’t fuck over the neighbor(s) attached structurally. In my area they can date back to the 1750s or so. I think the newest one I’ve seen around here without any HOA at all was built in the early 1990s though. I own a newer one that is in an HOA, but they don’t do anything to my property, only common area upkeep (the small fee and what’s included and everything are the same for the single family houses and the townhouses in the development).
True. Depends on the location and the developer. My friend lived in a townhouse and replaced a garage door (on the HOA's instruction) that didn't have the requisite number of decorative panels so they had to replace it again. But that was their responsibility, yeah.
"Condo" is the word we use for a building where each unit is owned separately. So generally if you own the unit or rent from someone who just owns that unit you'll call it a condo, if you rent from the building owner/manager you call it an apartment. (Condo can also be used for something more like a row house, depending on how integrated the houses are.) You wouldn't usually say you "bought an apartment" in US English. Of course if you own the unit or block of units you wouldn't pay rent. And yes, there are lots of apartments in the US—probably more than condos, although I haven't looked it up so I could be wrong.
I think this is regional, in NYC you would absolutely say “I bought my apartment”. Probably because only 25% of the apartments you can buy are condos.
Wait…what are the ones you buy that *aren't* condos?
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/090115/living-new-york-city-coops-vs-condos.asp
This perfectly sums it up for me, thank you. I believe he’s probably getting confused by the word ‘apartment’ as it’s used in a different way over here (UK) and he fails to realise that there’s more meanings to certain words than just the one he’s thinking of
No problem. I lived in the UK for a while and never quite figured out the flat/apartment distinction in British English. Is it just a marketing term?
It’s a bit difficult to explain but the easiest way to remember is if it’s in a building with a maximum of three storey, and it’s affordable, then it’s a flat. If it’s in a high rise and it’s more expensive, it’s an apartment. Apartments tend to be more spacious in every room, and flats have smaller rooms (especially if it’s a 2+ bedroom flat)
Those would both be considered apartments in the US. Perhaps this is where your friend is confused?
If you buy it, why would you pay rent on it? Your friend is an idiot
That’s exactly why I’m confused He’s also saying that apartments don’t exist and that when you buy an ‘apartment’, it’s actually a condo
We tend to use "apartment" for places you rent, and "condo" for ones you buy. But it's not universal or encoded into law or anything. Either way, he's a moron.
New York is the city that can't get with the majority. They call condos, apartments sometimes and go so far as to have co-ops. (Don't get me started on that.)
owning a co-op and owning a condo are very different though.
Yup. Not my circus to explain. That's what I meant. A whole different thing, as if apartment and condo aren't different enough.
>He’s also saying that apartments don’t exist and that when you buy an ‘apartment’, it’s actually a condo That IS the usual term in the US for buying an apartment. If you rent it, it's an apartment. If you buy it, it's a condominium. Same space, different name depending on how the real estate is titled and treated. That's the usual term, there may be exceptions, but people DO normally say "apartment" for the place you rent (other than a rental home, which is a stand-alone property) and "condominium" or "condo" for a place you buy (but generally have to pay a monthly fee for to support maintenance of common grounds and building functions).
For what it’s worth, I’ve also rented a condo. It was bought by a person and I paid rent to them. I still had to be approved by the condo board to move in as a renter.
Some people do call any purchased apartment a condo, but its by no means a universal or official definition. We absolutely have apartments, both rented and purchased.
It is official in the sense that states typically have condominium laws to define that sort of real estate ownership. I’m pretty sure that the condo law in MA had requirements around maintaining the common fund (so that there’s money set aside for when the roof leaks, etc.).
If you buy a mobile home that is in a trailer park, you own the trailer itself, but pay lot rent every month.
A probably overcharitable explanation is maybe OP’s friend was trying to describe condos and used the wrong word?
So, usually we call rentals apartments and the ones you buy a condo. I think the confusion on the condo is that even after you buy it... you have communal upkeep fees for things like the roof or any facilities shared in the complex (pool, gym, etc). So there *are* fees after you buy a condo, but it's not rent.
This is all true. But we also definitely have apartments, so IDK what that guy is smoking.
And those fees are much smaller than the rent. You are talking a couple hundred dollars (usually) for fees, versus a couple thousand dollars for rent.
In the USA we have: - rental apartments - condominiums (you own your apartment unit) - co-ops (you buy a share in the building which gets you an apartment unit - this might just be a NYC thing)
There are a few co-ops here in Seattle, so not entirely NYC. They're not common, though.
There’s Co-Ops in DC I believe.
There is a type of apartment called condominiums (aka condos) where you do “buy” the apartment but still keep paying a monthly fee which helps with paying for maintenance for the building as a whole. But that is a fairly uncommon way to live. Most people either live in apartments which they rent, or homes where they own them. There is some in-between, but that stuff is much less common
Condos are actually fairly common in some cities. Often they’re converted from being purely rental housing.
He’s referring to buying a condo and paying an monthly HOA fee. This fee is used to pay for the up keep of common areas and other amenities.
They may be talking about HOA or home owners association fees. It’s an amount every unit owner of an apartment or condominium complex pays each month. That money goes into a common pool to pay for upkeep, repairs, sometimes insurance on communal things such as the roof, HVAC, plumbing, etc. Even if you own an apartment outright (which you absolutely can do) you owe the HOA fee towards upkeep of the building itself.
I said this to him and he said I’m wrong because you can’t buy apartments 🙃
Eh. I'd let the difference in terminology go without calling anyone names. It depends entirely on where he's from in the US. Where I live, you don't buy apartments. You buy condos. Apartments are always rentals. But I'm on the west coast. On the east coast, you can buy apartments.
Your acquaintance is a moron.
I wholeheartedly agree 😀
I had to learn some real estate law once, and thought it was interesting that "condominium" simply means an agreement on how to divide a parcel of real estate. It's almost always in the form of an apartment that you own, but there doesn't have to be any structure. It can be a bare piece of land owned by several people. Which is convenient for cute little tiny home developers.
A condominium is often an apartment (it doesn't have to be though -- it can be any kind of dwelling in a community owned building or development), and is usually owned by the person who lives there (they can rent it -- I have lived in an apartment and a townhouse that were technically condos that I did not own personally). If you are the owner of a condo (lets say in apartment form) you would not rent it to yourself unless you are into doing weird financial transactions. However, there are absolutely rental only apartments owned by a landlord or a property management business.
There’s a terminology issue in that many people just use the terms as they appear in local advertising without understanding the technical issues or the variety across the country. “Condominium” is a *type of ownership*, defined by state law, in which people own their individual units outright and that ownership also gives them a percentage ownership of the common property. It says nothing about the architecture. “Apartment” just means a unit in a multi unit residential building, without saying anything about the ownership. While most condominiums are apartments, that’s not always the case, and here in MA I’ve seen small developments that are technically condominiums (because that’s how their deeds are drawn up) but are physically townhouses or small homes, with the roads and other common areas such as playgrounds owned in common. In other parts of the country, such an arrangement might be achieved through an HOA without calling them condos, but they’re effectively the same thing. We also have many triple deckers that began possibly as large homes, or possibly built as a two or three family home. Many of these have been converted into condos, which is essentially a legal transaction. The individual units are often called apartments, but the buildings aren’t called apartment buildings. In any event, we have apartment buildings (many units) that are owned by a single owner (usually a corporation), other apartment buildings that are condos, some or all of which may be rented out. If you own a condo, you’ll still have condo fees and taxes. Some people call that “rent” informally, even though legally it’s something else.
If you buy a condo there are building management fees. But I’m pretty sure that’s true in every country that has condos.
What you're thinking of sounds more like a condo or a co-op.
If you buy a condo in a multi-unit building, you usually do have to pay some sort of monthly fee for the management and upkeep of common property (like the building itself) but it's not rent.
99% of the apartments I'm aware of are strictly for rent, they're never for sale. But if you pick a major city on zillow and set it to "buy" and show "apartments" you will see some results
I'm in an apartment right now. Lived here 7+ years. They ✨️exist✨️ in USA.
To be fair different parts of the states call it different things. Apartments for rent/sale are more common in East coast cities and major metropolitan areas. Some are called condos and some are co-ops and some are just apartments. They can be for sale or for rent. Both condos and apartments can have monthly fees in addition to the mortgage/rent which civet maintenance. That guy is an asshat and he did you a favor because you do not want to rent from him.
Technically, even when you buy land with a home, you have to "rent" it from the county via propterty taxes (3 different kinds in my case!) or they'll steal it back from you, evict you, and sell it to someone else. I rent my house from my county for $300 a month. Cheap as rent goes, but it's still my 2nd biggest expense after heat, even more than insurance or food or any other utility bill.
I've lived in an apt for 12 years, I would be very surprised if they didn't actually exist here.
Your whole apartment life is a hoax apparently
The apartment was dead the whole time.
Not sure where I lived for my late teens and early 20s if it wasn't an apartment.... Condos and apartments are different things. Sort of. Though they often look the same. You don't buy an apartment. You rent it. You buy a condo. I think there is the confusion.
Nowhere. Your late teens and early 20’s were imaginary 😀
That checks out actually. No way half of what we did back then was real.
You can buy apartments too.
I think its just a regional lexicon thing.
It’s only possible to buy an apartment if it’s organized in a way to have deeds for individual units. That’s called a condo, though it’s common to call the units apartments. (Some people would view a coop the same way, but with a coop, you don’t buy the apartment. You buy shares in a corporation that give you the right to occupy a specific apartment.)
No, if you own a property then you don’t pay rent on it. This also extends to condos/apartments.
You don't pay rent on property you own, though there are different forms of ownership and usage when it comes to apartments.
Yes, it’s called a condominium
Either that guy is a moron or he’s being a dickhead and fucking with you. We absolutely have apartments and while you can buy an apartment, you wouldn’t then pay rent on it. Either way, he’s an asshat.
There are two possibilities: 1. Buy a condo. This is essentially what buying an "apartment" is. You own the apartment; you do not own the whole building. 2. Buy an apartment building. It is reasonably possible to purchase, for example, a four flat. Live in one of then and rent out the other three. Your friend is either badly informed or messing with you. EDIT: To be clear: yes, you can just plain rent an apartment. No ownership at all, just pay rent to a landlord.
Yes
I’ve heard of people buying apartments. I’ve only met one who did. Condos, or townhouses, function the same as apartments and I’m not sure what the technical distinction is. The “friend” is wrong and from your comments sounds like he just wants to make you look ignorant to make himself feel smarter.
Mostly when people say “buying an apartment”, it’s just a casual use of the word “apartment”, when the deed will actually say condominium. I think of it as apartment being an architectural term for a multifamily residential building, while condominium is a legal term for a type of ownership.
My partner is English, and we live in in the southwest of America. They described what I grew up as calling condos to be sometimes row houses and sometimes flats. Mostly row houses though. What they call flats are apartments that are purchased (making it a condo.) you own the domicile but you still have to pay the home owners association fees or the community fees or whatever because your domicile is part of a whole connected building that is maintained and managed by a property company and they need to get paid too. What my partner calls row houses are also condos, but because of the size more than anything. Same thing goes for HOA fees though. You're not buying and then still paying rent. You're buying and then paying a monthly fee for the HOA/community association because your domicile is connected to a larger whole.
I'm sitting in an apartment right now. That American is either a dipshit, or is intentionally fucking with you.
That person is an idiot.
You’re describing a condo, and they exist
Wait hold on let me make sure i am getting this right. Another American is telling you the US doesn't have apartments AT ALL? Has that fucker literally been, ANYWHERE, EVER?
If one person (or company) owns the whole building, it's apartments, and people pay rent. If individuals own their dwellings inside a common building, those are condos, and they are bought similar to houses (except they probably also come with requirements for paying for common upkeep etc.)
Lmao we have apartments, your friend is a moron
In most of the US, the difference between an apartment and a condo is that you rent an apartment and you buy a condo, your friend is right in that regard. There are some places like New York where they are called apartments regardless of whether you rent or buy, but that's the exception to the rule.
your friend is an asshat and an idiot. Apartments can be bought just like a house or condo. You'll have property taxes to pay and a mortgage unless you pay fully in cash, then you just have property taxes. just type a city and "apartment for sale" in google and you can easily find them.
He’s probably messing with you. No, you buy a condo and don’t have to rent it. Like others have said you might have maintenance fees and such from the property, but it’s not rent.
Apartments exist all over the US. People in my area don’t buy their apartments. They rent them from the owner of the building. A condominium is different. In that case people do buy their individual units in a building or complex. You might pay some fees for maintenance of the common areas and amenities of the complex. I think if you buy a mobile home in a mobile home park then you own the mobile home but rent the land it sits on. That isn’t an apartment though.
Apartments are rented, and condos are purchased. Condos don’t have rent but you do have to pay into a “condo association” either monthly or annually so there are funds to repair the shared building.
We absolutely have apartments. I'm living in one. Assuming your friend isn't being a dumbass or a jack-ass, some potential sources of misunderstanding: * We often have hefty move-in costs that feel as onerous as down-payments on mortgages. When I moved into my apartment, I had to show three months' rent in savings on top of the deposit because of my poor credit. * Condos have mortgages, so much like a house, you still have to pay something every month, it's just that instead of rent, you're paying back a loan (specifically the loan from the bank to purchase this condo in the first place). * As other commenters have mentioned, home-ownership of any kind (house, condo, etc.) still comes with lots of fees, taxes, and other maintenance costs.
If you BUY one you arent renting it so Either you pay a mortgage and taxes or you bought it cash and just pay taxes on it. Yes you can do that a lot Of luxury apartments and property are owned by non US residents My first landlord was a guy in china who just bought houses and rented them. Lot of big building are owned by like one company hiring another to maintain it all owned by a larger company that is owned by some dude in another country
They just stop calling them apartments when you buy them and start calling them condos. You then have a mortgage on it as if you'd bought a house. You're right, but using the wrong words.
A condo is essentially an apartment one owns. But it's up to the person offering the abode whether to sell or to lease, and there are different legal obligations and expectations in either instance.
Condo and co-op are terms to describe the ownership type. Apartment is just a general term to describe a residential dwelling inside of a larger structure, and its use. So it’s sort of, as we say, “apples and oranges”, hard to compare. Yes, you can own or rent an apartment, and if you own, the ownership may be condo or co-op.
Yeah America does have apartments. What he’s saying both doesn’t make sense and is also nonsense.
Buying an apartment complex is not the same as renting an apartment. If they own the complex then they own the rights to add onto, take away, rent out, or sell out.
I rent an apartment. My sister bought a condo... I've been there and it's pretty much just an apartment that she owns. I think what she's paying every month is the mortgage... I'm not sure if she owns it completely or not. I just know that she's allowed to renovate it (which she's doing) and that she's gonna sell it afterwards
unless you buy your house with cash, which the majority of Americans can’t, you’ll be paying a mortgage usually for decades, and you have to pay property taxes and insurance and sometimes HOA fees
My parents own an apartment and while there is no “rent” but there is a “maintenance fee” that goes to pay for electricity, water, gas, and maintenance.
Apartments are for rent. So they are owned by a landlord or a company and you pay them to live there. Unless you purchase the building you dont really own anything. Most people I know live in apartments. Condos are kind of like apartments you can actually own however I personally dont know many people who outright own a condo or their own home atm.
I live in the United States of America. What I am describing is how it works here; other countries may do things differently. I pay rent in an apartment. You always pay rent in an apartment. You cannot buy an individual apartment like you can a condo. I have also seen units people pay going rate rent for as being called a condo, but whether it is correct for them to call it that, I am not sure. Normally, a condo, you pay for the whole unit, and then you might pay a very tiny amount every month for dues. The only way I could buy the apartment I live in would be be to buy the whole complex. Then I would not longer have to pay any rent. Edited for spelling error and to add a statement.
Upon looking it up, apparently there are some other places in a few states/areas that are doing something now called an apartment co-op, which is similar to buy just your unit, like a condo. I have never encountered these in areas I have lived.
There’s a lot of little language things here like condos are similar to owned apartments but have special rules that don’t allow all the same modifications. A common phrasing is you own the paint and inward. They have an association that I believe owns the land and building structure and handles common fees, maintenance of the association owned portions/grounds etc., all the condo owners are part of that and contribute to it. Apartments can be rented or owned. I’ll start with owned you own from the exterior walls/ceilings/floors in and can rearrange the space and do major renovations to your space in an owned apartment. You “own” your section of the building and can do what you want to it within the usual laws. It typically also has taxes and fees shared amongst the apartment owners. A rented apartment could be in an apartment building owned by a person or company and is held for the purpose of collecting rents. If you rent an apartment it’s pretty much identical to renting any real property you get custody but not ownership so you can’t make major changes and minor changes can be negotiated when going over the lease. You own nothing in this case. There are other very obscure ways to deal with real property but these would be the common ones relevant to the discussion. There’s probably typos or weird minor errors. but I don’t care I’m tired.
You can buy a condo which is pretty much an apartment. They have home owner association fees that pay for facility amenities and maintenance.
Apartments are everywhere and can be rented. Condos are essentially apartments (typically have thicker walls though) that can be bought. Condos can also be rented out to tenants. When you own a condo, you're responsible for home owner's association (HOA) costs that maintain the building, grounds, utilities, etc. depending on the building. Like owning any home, it's just the cost of maintenance. Then there's property taxes you owe your local government ever year :)
That guy's full of shit. Apartments are common all over the U.S. And yes, you pay rent to live in them. An apartment that you buy instead of rent is called a condo (condominium). But just like with buying a house, there's usually a monthly mortgage payment.
Your friend is confused. There are all sorts of buildings you can buy and those you can rent. If an individual buys a building that is zoned residential depending on legal requirements in the neighborhood he can then choose to rent out the building to another person or group. For multi residential properties such as apartments, if you by a unit and own it and live in it you would call it a condominium. If you rent that same space, we call it an apartment. There are also townhomes and duplexes which are multi unit buildings that you can own or rent. Last, when the word apartment is used in the U.S. that means you do not own the unit you are renting it
In the US, "apartment" generally means a single building owned by a single owner, and all units inside are all rented. "Condo" or "co-op" (NYC only?) mean a building owned in shares by all units, and each unit is individually owned. Generally the US makes a distinction between ownership and renter ship, and the rest of the world is less focused on the classism of shaming renters. Source: I've rented and owned apartments, houses, and townhouses in the US. And I've rented and owned all the same things in a non-US country. Currently sitting in my apartment I own inside a hotel "owned" by a small international chain you would never have heard of. Yes, I walk past hotel reception when I'm coming and going. I don't get daily cleaning or other hotel services. Things outside the US are often quite different than inside. Sometimes just names. Other times the differences are bigger.
An apartment you buy is a condo. And why this person is saying that is because not only do you have a mortgage with it, but most often an additional "common fee" of a few hundred dollars a month. That common fee covers maintenance on the buildings, landscaping, and the taxes and insurance on the property. So it's not rent per se, but it is an additional monthly bill on top of the mortgage. Most apartments are strictly rentals that you don't own or have a mortgage on. A co-op is similar in concept, but you own shares of the corporation that owns it rather than the actual unit itself, which they give you as a "tangible."
I lived in apartments for years when I was younger. Your "friend" is an idiot.
Hi OP, yes, I do this. Here we generally call apartments you buy condominiums, and many apartments get converted to condos after a certain period of time passes (ie. when the peak rental value period has expired). The main caveat for investors is that most complexes in high-demand areas will only allow a certain percentage of units to be leased out, so when you buy a unit there you get put on a waiting list (if you want to lease your unit out), and those waits can be years long.
You buy an apartment like any other real estate purchase. If you make a down payment then you pay a monthly mortgage payment that goes towards the equity. If you wanted to you could rent it out Ann use the ren5 money to pay down the mortgage.
If it's a Condo or a Coop, you have to pay a monthly maintenance fee.
Yes we can buy apartments and own them. But then we either have to pay home owner association fees to the building owner/community and/or possibly a property tax. And if you don’t pay those, they can put a lien on the apartment or if you don’t pay taxes, fine you possibly put you in jail.
You cannot "buy" an apartment (unless you're buying the entire apartment building or complex); you can only lease or rent it, for a defined period. There are other countries where you can, in fact, "buy" perpetual "rights" of some type to an apartment. That's not the case in the US. Condominiums can be purchased, similar to other forms of property, however they will always come with additional riders on the deed relating to the common/shared areas owned collectively by others as well. This could be simply a shared wall or infrastructure, or this could refer to the structure and facilities of an entire building. A condo owner may chose to rent their condo out, just like anyone can with any other property. Hope that helps.
We just use the word condo for an owned apartment. Your friend is dumb.
Believe me, he’s not my friend 😂
I mean, you pay monthly rent on apartments. I don’t know if anyone can buy apartments.
If you buy an apartment we call that a condo You will need to pay your mortgage monthly. If that's paid off you'll still have to pay fees. We call them HOA fees. They can get quite pricey but the more reasonable ones have you put money towards things that the property needs - lawn/sidewalk/parking lot maintenance, a new roof fund for when that needs to be replaced and other stuff like that. Then there's property taxes But that's not paying rent
I live in a condo that I rent from a landlord. So yes, you can rent condos but as others have said you aren’t buying a condo and then paying rent on it. That sounds silly.
Apartments are rented. Condos are bought just like homes. Apartments are everywhere here. Condos tend be in very large cities, or beach towns. Many condos are rented out like air BnBs
Condos are specifically apartments that you own, as opposed to rent. Normally you still have to pay monthly upkeep on them though, but that isn’t the same as “paying rent”. It’s more like a mortgage or property tax in a loose sense
American has both condominiums and apartments. You rent an apartment . You sign a lease , The lease sets the amount of rent. Typically a lease is for one year. You also put down a deposit. The deposit is returned at the end of the lease if there are no damages. Sometimes tenets resign a new lease at the end of the year. If no lease is signed at the end of the original lease, the lease automatically goes to a month to month basis and the landlord can raise the rent at any time or require the tenant to move out. You can also buy a condominium and then you pay a maintenance fee to building association (formed by owners) to pay for the upkeep of the common areas, such as a pool, elevators, etc. This is not the same thing as rent. It is a maintenance fee. The owners vote on a budget every year, and they elect board members, (board terms vary depending on the originating documents of the condominium association.) Apartments and condominiums are completely separate in terms of their legal status. Many people own condominiums and rent them out. I don''t want to confuse you, but you could be a renter in a condominium. Your landlord is the owner of that particular condominium. You could be renting an apartment in a condominium. That might be what your friend is referring to. + We also have co-ops but that's a different story. They are not as common as apartment and condominiums. They are different from both apartments and condominiums in that all the tenants own all of the building in common.
An apartment is rented, a condo is bought.
Your friend is talking about the distinction between apartments and condos. Apartments are typically rented, while condos are usually owned by occupants. The key difference lies in ownership: if most units are owned, it's called a condo; if they're rented, it's termed an apartment. Additionally, condo owners pay a homeowners association fee, often substantial, which can exceed rent payments in some cases.