Apartments and Condos and Town Homes oh my!

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Ok, my g/f, my best friend, another friend, and I are thinking of moving out of our parent's homes and moving in to an apartment, a town home, a duplex, or maybe a condo. We figure that rent will be about $250 to $300 a month for each of us, but we are unsure on what kind of housing to move in to. Personally, I see no difference between town homes and condos, but that's just me.
Have you lived in any of the afore mentioned housing?
Any info would be welcome.

 

It all depends on how close you are. With a town house you might be able to get a couple rooms and the couch for several people. Condos the same and in most apartments you've just got a max of two rooms and the living room(at least in san diego)

 

Well a condo and an apartment are pretty much the same as long as you are only renting and not buying. Generally, condos tend to be a bit nicer than apartment buildings but for the same money you will normally get the same quality of dwelling. I have lived in three of the four (never a condo but I stayed at my Grandmother's condo in the U.S. whenever I visited her) and the only real differences are

(1) yard work/maintenance which you would have to (or be allowed to depending upon how highly you regard such activities) do for yourself in most duplexes/town houses but would be included in your rent for apartments and condos

(2) Noise from neighbours - basically you will normally have four neighbours who you share a wall or ceiling/floor with in most condos/apartments, only two with a townhouse and only one with a duplex. Now in terms of wall thickness/insulation I have found apartments to generally be the worst, condos the best, and the other two being roughly equal somewhere in between.

Of course the bad thing about renting (at least around here) is that you will invariably end up paying more in rent than you would on mortgage payments if you actually bought the place. That was easily the deciding factor in my delaying moving out of my parents' house until I had enough to put a down payment on a house.

If I had a normal 25 year mortgage amortization my monthly payments would, on a three bedroom detached brick house, be roughly the same as I would pay to rent a one bedroom basement apartment.

It is much easier to save up for a downpayment when you have monthly rent of zero, no utilities to pay for, no phone bills, free food etc.

 

We're currently renting a 3BR townhouse. In this market, you guys wouldn't be able to touch it on your budget: $1750/month! I don't know how real estate in SLC compares to the Philly 'burbs, though.

Our biggest problem is storage space, but that might not be an issue for you since y'all won't have 40+ years of accumulated crap.

One other thing to consider - wherever you end up, make sure that either your hot water heater has good capacity, or that some people are willing to shower at opposite ends of the day!

 

Oh, and if you are in an apartment with the typical multiple bedrooms sharing a common bathroom, DO NOT take the room next to the bathroom. Plumbing can often be quite bad in apartment buildings and you want your stuff to be as far away from it as possible.

Back in University I lived in a four bedroom apartment. Each pair of rooms shared a bathroom with the layout being something like this

bathroom - bedroom1 - bedroom2 - livingroom/kitchen -bedroom3 - bedroom4 - bathroom2.

I was in bedroom4, the guy in bedroom3 was somewhat on the large size and had the tendency to block the toilets. About once every month or so I had the great pleasure of seeing a small ocean of water flowing out of the bathroom and under my bedroom door.

I could go on about the mystery sludge that occassionally came burbling out of the kitchen sink but I imagine that you get the point.

What can I say except that after that wonderful experience I have never even considered renting an apartment again.

 

Apartments or Townhousess are probably best. I'd steer clear from a condo, unless you're not required to pay the condo fee.

I own a 4BR townhouse that has 2.5 bathrooms. There is occasionally noise from neighbors, but to be honest, I probably make more noise than they do. This place is the perfect size...Although since I live alone, it's more room than I probably need.

If you can buy the property...That's the best bet! But again, steer clear of condos. They usually have a fixed condo fee to pay every year, and if the condo board ever votes to make improvements to the outside, you are required to pay for them! And the resale value for condos is usually terrble too! Bad news!

If you aren't planning to buy...Just go with an apartment. You don't have to worry about maintenance, property taxes, or all that hassle! I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment with 4 other guys when I graduated from college...It was a blast! Plus, the rent split 5 ways came out to like $110/month!

 

I've been loking through the "For Rent" Magazine and the most I've seen so far is $950 a month, and that was a very large 3br appartment near the Jordan River and a golf course.

@JSBB: Almost all of the appartments we are looking at were built within the last 5 years, so the plumbing should be fine.

@Bel: Noise probably won't be a problem with us either since each of us have a nice sound system we'll be taking with us. We may get a lot of death threats taped on our door though.