Condos that look like townhouses - is there an upstairs/downstairs neighbor?

[Anonymous]

I am confused, they look like townhouses on the outside but it is not one home but two units? Is this true?

[Anonymous]

I have seen them. 2 separate entrances. 1st floor occupies the first 2 levels. Other neighbor has to walk 2 flights of stairs to get to their unit, and occupies floor 3 and 4.
If you are in 1st floor unit your bedroom is directly beneath their living room. Top unit has those stairs.
You really need to know some good moving companies if you plan to live in one

[Anonymous]

I lived in one of those. We lived in the bottom unit that was a half basement (half above ground level) and the first floor and second unit had the 2nd and 3rd floor.

Our set up was the bedrooms were in the basement in our condo and on the top floor in the above condo so it was the living spaces that were direct beneath/on top.

We really didn't have any issues with noise, it was a quiet place. Out only issue was the above neighbor was lazy and let her dog pee off the balcony onto our patio furniture below!

[Anonymous]

It totally depends on the condos.

I've lived in 2 condos that looked like townhouses from the outside -- 1 where we had all 3 floors as one unit and another where we had the bottom 2 floors and there was a smaller unit on the 3rd floor with a separate entrance. I live down the street from one now where one owner has the top 2 floors and another owner has the bottom floor of adjacent units (so same size as the 2 story one but 1 story underneath 2 separate units).

[Anonymous]

Sometimes they are piggy-back condos where the lower level occupies 1 1/2 floors and the top unit occupies the upper 1 1/2 floors and enters on the other side of the building.

Or sometimes they look like 4-story garden apartments with two 2-story TH-style units on the ground floor, and then a set of stairs accessing two side-by-side 2-level condos on the top two floors (so one facing the front and one in the back).

[Anonymous]

There are also condo developments where the homes are essentially no different than a typical townhouse (share walls, but no neighbor above or below). It all depends on the individual property.

[Anonymous]

It irritates me that they call these 'town houses' when a more accurate description is two-story condo.

[Anonymous]

Yes, they have them in Cameron Station. One on top and one on the bottom. They look like they are 4 stories from the outside. For the upstairs one, you will go up a flight of stairs, go in the front door, and then immediately go up another flight of stairs.

[Anonymous]

My ex has one of the ones in Cameron Station - you have to climb a LOT of stairs to get to his unit. (which is the third and fourth floors.) It's very much like a traditional 2-story townhouse, just up some stairs. Also, Cameron station piggy-backs the houses perpendicular to each other so that the ground-level units face the street and the higher units face the side wall staircase.

My friend also owns a piggyback townhouse. In her case, you walk down a half-flight of steps to get to the front door - that level has the bedrooms. Then down a flight of stairs to get to the living/dining/kitchen area. I wouldn't like having my front door on the bedroom level, personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It irritates me that they call these 'town houses' when a more accurate description is two-story condo.

When I bought as an original owner in the Gables on Tuckerman in the late '80s, they called them "town home condominiums". Go figure.

[Anonymous]

I live in one of the ones in Cameron Station (in the downstairs one which is smaller- 2 br). You walk in to the living room and there is also a kitchen and dining area on the main floor, and a half bath. Upstairs there are two full baths, two bedrooms, and a laundry "room" (closet).

I like it in the sense that it looks much nicer on the outside than a traditional condo, and I love being on two floors. The drawback is that we have the noisiest people IN THE WORLD living above us and that part is really hell. Luckily we rent so we aren't locked in, but I'd never buy one of these for that reason.