Do you want to know the difference in buying a house and buying a condo?
Besides the size there's actually a lot of differences. In this video I talked
with a condo buying expert so you know the difference between buying a home
and buying a condo so you can make an informed decision.
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Hi everyone, welcome to another edition
of Homebuyer's School. Today I'm joined by Karen McDonald, community
manager with Brookfield Residential. And today the question we're gonna answer is,
is there a difference between buying a condo and buying a house?
Yes there is, and
really depends on the the level of ownership that you have within your
condo or townhome versus a single- family home so when you're buying a
condo or a townhome there's really three
levels of ownership. There's three types of
multi-family homes within Alberta, so
you would have--say if you're buying
an apartment style, your ownership
is really technically the space or the air
within your units parameters.
And when you're buying a townhome,
it's generally from drywall to drywall,
so that's a stud. So the space in between
drywall that your ownership is and
everything else is common property.
And then when you're buying a bare
land townhome, it's your level of
ownership is from the pegs of--pegs in
the ground, the land that you own as well
too. When you're buying a single-family
home, you're buying the home, the land
everything in there.
Okay, and so, what do I--so you kind of mentioned this already--
what exactly do you own, so a condo you own the space, townhome you
own peg to peg, and if you bare land townhome, you own--
Well really what it is, is apartment style it's called conventional and
that's the space in between. A townhome can be re-divided, fairly blended so that
is stud to stud. Bare land condo is the bare land, peg
to peg within there. And the home would be essentially the same thing peg to peg,
you own everything within there.
And so what is the level of--I guess changes I can make to those
various--through those three different types?
Yeah and I would say you would
have to refer to your bylaws in advance for that because it'll vary depending on
what kind of home ownership you have. Really there would be changes that can
be made with board approval to a lot of condo townhome developments as long
as you have condo board approval on that, that you're getting somebody that
can do the work responsibly, that is not changing any of the party walls with the
structure of the home that would change any of the other you know, structure of
anybody else's home within that. But doing things like painting and changing
your floor and doing kitchen renos, you should be able to do all of that
with board approval in a condo townhome. So there's no strict
restrictions on that but again consult your bylaws in advance, know what you're
buying because it may restrict you in the future.
So the--so if I wanted to paint my walls or change my kitchen, I do I always have
to go ask board approval?
Not necessarily all the time. If you're painting a
wall, that doesn't really affect anybody it's not going to change the structure
of the home--it's painting a wall. So things like that I wouldn't
necessarily worry about. Again, consult your bylaws, making sure that they
don't require you to consult them for changing your paint colour, but any of the
large ones--it's gonna create noise or it's gonna change the overall
structure of the home, you need to get approval on. So how about for bare land
townhomes? How much--how much flexibility would somebody have
in terms of changes there?
Well you own everything within that land, so typically there's fairly few
restrictions on anything in a bare land condo, but again
bylaws, they reign supreme so check those ones out first.
Okay perfect. Did you have anything else to add?
I think it's a good idea to review
bylaws in advance, think about how you're living within
your home, making sure that any kind of changes you want to make down the road
would be approved, that it wouldn't be something that would cause you strife
in the future. Check the bylaws.
Is there--before I guess I finish off, is there
like some sort of a legal protection that that condo owners have in Alberta?
For your ownership I would say check out condo law for Albertans and check their
website, it has all sorts of information on you know information that you need to
make your decision.
Perfect, well thank you very much Karen.
Thank you very much for joining us and we'll catch you next time.
That's another edition of
Homebuyer's School. Tune in next time
for more expert tips and tricks and visit
homebuyerschool.ca to bring you one
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