Condo vs House

I prefer the condo or apartment to owning a house as owning one is a lot of work. However, I truly believe that you should rent or buy into a higher ended place that has a common room and maybe an exercise room. In the common room, you should have "Happy Hour" on Fridays @ 5 pm. Then maybe there might be a coffee morning to get together and solve the world's problems. I really hate places where you live for years and don't even know your neighbour. Social isolation is really bad for your mental state of health; no matter how the media is trying to tell us how wonderful and safe it is. You could be safe but going crazy in the mean time!
 

Daytona Al said:
Doesn't a mobile home get cold in Canada? Maybe I'm thinking about the kind that they make in Florida.
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No we don't have a problem with winter and heating, and I suppose mobiles built for Canada and those for Florida would be very different.
Pappy said:
We did the same thing when we retired 22 years ago. We are in Florida and a few years ago I put up grab bars in all the entrances as both me and my wife are finding it hard to get up our few steps into the house. We also love our place.
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Our bathroom is grab bar city! We have railings on the 3 steps, plus DH built a ramp a few years when we got our "senior recreation vehicles" commonly known as mobility scooters.
 
I'm not sure it's where you live that is the problem. With either place you choose will need to become a part of the community. It doesn't sound like you are doing that- "feel a bit isolated on the 4th floor". The answer is rather obvious-get out of your home, and meet others in your building. It's an easy answer, but hard to do. I've lived next door to a couple since, 1995, and I don't know their names. Do you have some kind of building association?
 

We have owned 6 houses, 2 town houses and 1 condo apartment.

We bought the first townhouse which was a condo in 1987. I gave away the lawn mower and have not missed it yet.
Our second condo townhouse was in a senior community where there were 4 recreation centers and 5 swimming pools.
When we returned to Florida we bought a first floor condo apartment. The car is parked in our assigned space, 20 feet from our front door. With a first floor unit we have a rear patio. There are large oak trees with spanish moss on them and palm trees.

I don't ever want to own a regular house again.
 
Daytona Al said:
I always hated yard work. Now I miss it. Ironic.
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I'm thinking the same thing. I'm locked in this pristine beautiful condo with nothing to do. I need to get down on the ground. Most of all, I want to carry the groceries into my house without a shopping cart. Sounds minor but it's making me crazy. We bought this place about eighteen months ago and I loved it-- ocean views etc. Now it's making me nuts. The ocean is shining like a searchlight all the time. I need a normal house. I'm following your lead.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I'm not sure it's where you live that is the problem. With either place you choose will need to become a part of the community. It doesn't sound like you are doing that- "feel a bit isolated on the 4th floor". The answer is rather obvious-get out of your home, and meet others in your building. It's an easy answer, but hard to do. I've lived next door to a couple since, 1995, and I don't know their names. Do you have some kind of building association?
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Unfortunately, our building is mainly ocean rentals. People buy the place then rent by the week. I knew that when we moved in, but didn't fully understand what it meant. We have an association, but it isn't very active. I probably need to go back to work.
 
Murrmurr said:
If your condo has a balcony and you're allowed to have plants there, you could make a hobby of growing unusual ornamental plants or some vegetables and herbs, maybe even a small fruit tree.

After reading through all the posts I'm wondering if you can "trade" condos at some point. Here in California, if a condo owner finds their place is too large or too small, they need to be on the ground floor or nearer their storage unit or whatever, they have the option to negotiate terms on a more desirable unit within the complex. Maybe that option is available to you.
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We have a balcony on the ocean but the winds make if problematic to keep plants. Unfortunately there is no trading condo law in Florida. But it sounds like something that we should have.
 
fmdog44 said:
There is always something that needs doing when you own a house. Add the hot summers make outside work out of the question. I live on the second story of a two story condo. Owning a house in my area better be in a no flood zone.
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You make a good point. Right on the ocean, we have more than the occasional hurricane.
 
Pappy said:
We did the same thing when we retired 22 years ago. We are in Florida and a few years ago I put up grab bars in all the entrances as both me and my wife are finding it hard to get up our few steps into the house. We also love our place.
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What kind of mobile home park do you live in. Is it very nice? Do you know the neighbors? Can you get good insurance? I hadn't thought about that option, but it sounds like you're loving itl.
 
Our park is a little different than most parks. No rent, we own our land and pay taxes, less tham $300 a year. Insurance in Florida has gone through the roof, no pun intended, no matter where you live on the east coast.
We have a HOA and have a very nice clubhouse, pool, courts, etc. Joining the HOA is not required due to the deed restricted park. We are very lucky to have great neighbors. The first photo is the whole park. Our place is the blue dot upper left.
B125A776-069B-44C7-81F7-A59B7072EC57.jpeg4BE85D26-91E3-4DF9-A119-75E3CD7D8E60.jpeg7CB82A62-3049-4DFA-B6CB-DC775D091597.jpeg333496E5-F859-444B-98A4-122E4B1B9475.jpeg
 
Pappy said:
Our park is a little different than most parks. No rent, we own our land and pay taxes, less tham $300 a year. Insurance in Florida has gone through the roof, no pun intended, no matter where you live on the east coast.
We have a HOA and have a very nice clubhouse, pool, courts, etc. Joining the HOA is not required due to the deed restricted park. We are very lucky to have great neighbors. The first photo is the whole park. Our place is the blue dot upper left.
View attachment 184248View attachment 184249View attachment 184250View attachment 184251
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This looks great. Do you know and visit your neighbors? Is it that kind of a close community? Are you close to Publix or other Super Markets? I assume that you are quite close to us in Volusia County.
 
Pappy said:
Our park is a little different than most parks. No rent, we own our land and pay taxes, less tham $300 a year. Insurance in Florida has gone through the roof, no pun intended, no matter where you live on the east coast.
We have a HOA and have a very nice clubhouse, pool, courts, etc. Joining the HOA is not required due to the deed restricted park. We are very lucky to have great neighbors. The first photo is the whole park. Our place is the blue dot upper left.
View attachment 184248View attachment 184249View attachment 184250View attachment 184251
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Holy toledo! Our park has 20 mobiles. I have never seen a park with that many mobiles , huge!
 
We have 2 pools here at our condo complex and they are cleaned daily. We each have patios where you can grow things. I have grown tomatoes and peppers. Also I had a Meyer lemon tree that did great until we actually had a couple of days of winter. It is gone for sure. We tried cutting it back but did not work. It was about 15 years old. Time for a new one.
 
Daytona Al said:
This looks great. Do you know and visit your neighbors? Is it that kind of a close community? Are you close to Publix or other Super Markets? I assume that you are quite close to us in Volusia County.
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All the stores you mention are a mile up Palm Bay road. We are in Brevard county, real close to space center and Atlantic Ocean. Very few problems here as we have a community watch program and suspicious activity is reported right away.
 
@Daytona Al It's a big decision. I'm a single female and I've made a lot of mistakes. The only place, after looking at many, that I bought was a house that turned out to be a disaster.

Prices are going up in my area due to fires and inventory is low. I sometimes wish I had bought a condo when they were cheap but my thought was I'd feel more secure in a 55+ mobile park so I didn't buy a condo. I'm still looking.

Is your condo all ages? It sounds like you'd like a small yard perhaps? Or if you had a bigger one, can you afford someone to do yard work for you? I know people in mobile parks even hire yard care. If you have just moved, give it some time to adjust perhaps also.
 
I'm still not entirely clear what the difference is between a Condo and an apartment... ( we don't have Condos' here.. well I mean whatever they are we must call them something different)
 
Pink Biz said:
@hollydolly A condominium is a building structure divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. Wikipedia
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thanks PB...so we have buildings like that here too, all over the place, probably more of those than houses in many parts of the uk ..... you can have a building that has say..8 apartments in it.. and all of them are owned privately... or equally 4 may be rented, and 4 may be owned.. is that the same there ?...

..and again what makes it different from an apartment block which has 20 floors , don't people own their own places in apartment blocks as they do here ?
 
@hollydolly The main difference between a condo vs. apartment is ownership. An apartment is a residence that is rented, often as part of a larger residential building. A condo is similar in structure to an apartment, usually a unit within a larger residential building, but condos are owned instead of rented.

I live in a large-ish apartment building and pay a monthly rental to the building's owner. I do not own my unit or have any financial stake in it.

More info here: https://www.apartments.com/blog/difference-between-renting-an-apartment-or-condo
 
Pink Biz said:
@hollydolly The main difference between a condo vs. apartment is ownership. An apartment is a residence that is rented, often as part of a larger residential building. A condo is similar in structure to an apartment, usually a unit within a larger residential building, but condos are owned instead of rented.

I live in a large-ish apartment building and pay a monthly rental to the building's owner. I do not own my unit or have any financial stake in it.

More info here: https://www.apartments.com/blog/difference-between-renting-an-apartment-or-condo
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OK got you...thanks PB. The difference here in the UK is that what you call a Condo.. would just be called an apartment in whatever building it was in..low rise or high rise, and everyone has the opportunity of owning one... even if it's in a predominately housing association building ( I think you might call it public housing in the USA).. so even in a low rise or high rise, private or local authority owned , everyone here can have the opportunity of owning, and they are all called Flats..or maisonettes if they have 2 floors which some have within a multi family building...or to a lesser extent, apartments
 
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