It depends, have done both. I love our current, small, historic home. We loved our previous, even smaller rented condo. I disliked the apartment I rented before that and disliked the condo I owned in another city. Do you like the neighborhood, do you like the layout, neighbors, how much in fees, do you garden, is privacy or time an issue? What is your lifestyle and budget like?

Mixed feelings about actually sharing so much living space with people who don't always share my habits and concerns, but the bottom line for us is that we prefer dense, vibrant neighborhoods where apartment buildings predominate. Also, we're middle income, so if we want to live in these central neighborhoods, condos are the natural choice.

Vastly prefer detached home.

I always felt at the mercy of other peoples noise, odours, safety. When I'd smell someone else's cigarette smoke I'd think "dear god don't fall asleep with that one night" and when I'd see odd characters malingering I'd think 'please don't notice me". I don't like dealing with parking issues or slogging the rubbish and recycling all the way out and I don't like someone having a key to my home. Also, after having seen hoarders and exterminators shows I'm thankful that everyone elses bugs are a lot farther away from me and I'm not inheriting someone elses roach/rat/whatever problem. Also we are night owls with two children and I would feel like I was always shushing everyone. We have dogs and a dog door so they come and go as they please as well.

Condo. We have one four-year-old child, and we don't plan to ever move to a house. We like to travel, so we don't really have time for maintanence, and no desire to make time for it. We are very outgoing people, so we like socializing in the common spaces. I love living on one floor. We don't have any more noise issues than we would anywhere else, and I haven't ever heard a complaint about my child. Then again, I make great effort to make her part of a community, so maybe they aren't telling me, but I don't get that feeling. There aren't many children her age around, but she has plenty of playtime and she likes meeting new people out. I also like living where we live - downtown - and think that a condo is much safer than the houses nearby, as we have many levels of security and lots of eyes on the building. Most of all though, I really love the community, I would feel very isolated in a stand-alone house.

23:54, many folks on this site either grew up in affluent suburb or grew up poor enough that apartment/TH living does represent the ghetto.

FWIW, women are almost always the fussier ones when it comes to house style selection.

If you plan to have a family, buy a house NOW while interest rates are low and have not sky-rocketed back to the 80s levels. otherwise, by the time you decide to move, rates might be too high already and you might be majorly priced out of a lot of places you can afford now.

What is your kids status? Like many DC residents we lived in a (small) apartment before we had kids, then moved to a SFH when our first was ~6 months. From our sample of DC residents this seems to be a very common pattern, so while I think DC apartment living with babies / toddlers can be great, when the kids get older there can be fewer playmates around, and having convenient friends for preschool and up age kids is a significant quality of life factor.

Now - demographics in apartment buildings outside the district may be different, I can't speak to that.

I've always lived in a SFH but have recently been considering apartments. Another virtue of apartments is lower heating closts due to shared walls and spaces.

I love apartments and can't understand obsession with SFHs much less town-homes. I hate gardening, house repair and climbing stairs 50 times a day. Yet, there are people here that would rather live in 1400 sqft 4-level town-home than 1600 sqft condo. I just don't get it. But I am an immigrant, and like virtually every person I every knew as a child/young adult, I grew up in an apartment building and took it for granted that this is how people were supposed to live.

As a rule, apartments have better layouts. You have a much better shot of having a view. There are likely to be brighter during night because there are a lot of lights nearby. There are likely other buildings nearby which increases density which makes businesses set their shops nearby which increases walkability. I don't get the noise issue - never really had that problem. Even though buildings are supposedly not family friendly, they are so big that there will always be plenty of other kids just an elevator ride away.

Condo associations can also vote for special fees for things such as building improvements or repairs that the unit owners are required to pay. These can be very expensive and are usually unexpected.

I think if you have young children, a SFH is better.

I have done both and having to constantly tell the 4 year old to stop jumping, running, shouting so as to not bother the neighbor below is exhausting. Makes the home very tense and I couldn't fully relax.

I prefer a house.

1) I like to garden
2) It's easier to take the kids to the back yard
3) SFHs make it easier to have a pet
4) With our condo, I grew tired of listening to the neighbors having sex.
5) I don't like condo fees or HOAs (some houses have HOAs too)
6) My husband likes to work on cars, so he prefers the extra garage space we found (really had to search for it) and the fact he can do what he wants without regards to HOA regulations.

Breaking into house

Anonymous wrote:We are planning to buy and stop renting. We like the idea of buying an apartment because it doesn't entail all the work that we might have to do to a house in terms of maintenance and other stuff. Also we think apartments are safer. The only problem is the relatively high condo/coop fee. All our friends/agent think that we should buy a house with a 700k budget. Convince us otherwise!

What does it mean?

We are planning to buy and stop renting. We like the idea of buying an apartment because it doesn't entail all the work that we might have to do to a house in terms of maintenance and other stuff. Also we think apartments are safer. The only problem is the relatively high condo/coop fee. All our friends/agent think that we should buy a house with a 700k budget. Convince us otherwise!