House, Townhouse, Condo, Twin Home, What's the Difference?
Not only do homes come in all shapes and sizes, there's also
special types of homes that sometimes come with special
requirements. Here's a few you may not be as familiar with
but are pretty common in Utah.
- Single Family Detached - This is the type of home
that comes to mind first when the word home is mentioned.
This is a house on it's own land without any walls connected
to any other property. So when you hear 'single family
detached' or just 'detached' as the type of home, now you
know it's just talking about a house.
- Condo or Condominium - This is where you share common
walls (and frequently common ceilings and floors) with your
neighbors. What you actually usually own is the
interior space of your home and then you have what's called an undivided
interest in the exterior of the building and the ground
around it. An undivided interest means that you and
your neighbors own everything in common and no one can rope
off a portion of it and say that's their part and no one
else can use it. This common area is usually
maintained by something called a Homeowners Association (HOA)
which you usually have to pay a monthly fee toward.
- Townhouse - This is a type of condo. Generally a
condo is considered a townhome when you don't have neighbors
above or below you. Most of the time they have more
than one level as well.
- Twinhome - A twinhome means you share a common wall with
a neighbor, kind of like a duplex only each side is owned
separately. If the twin homes have garages a lot of
the time the common wall is between the two garages.
- 55 and Older Community - This can be a community of
houses, condos, or any other type of residential property.
The catch, as you might've guessed, is you need to be 55 or
older to live in one of these communities.
In nearly every situation where you have a condo of some sort
you will be part of a Homeowners Association and in almost all
new single family detached house developments have them now too.
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