Depending on where you are in your life and your personal preferences, you may choose a different type of housing for your home.
The United States are famous for their suburban life-style with two-story single-family homes, but there are other types of residence popular among Americans and foreign nationals relocated to the U.S. for permanent or extended stay.
Single-Family Home
First, let’s take a look at single-family homes (also known in the real estate world as a “stand alone house” or “detached residence”). It’s a building structure maintained and used as a single dwelling unit. A single-family home has its own land lot and direct access to a street. It doesn’t share any essential facilities, such as heating, water supply, or air-conditioning system. An average single-family home has a garage (usually, for one or two cars) or a carport with a driveway. One of the stereotypical manifestations of the “American dream” is a happy and quite family life in a detached house with a luscious lawn and spacious backyard for hosting BBQ parties.
See Most Popular Architectural Home Styles in North Carolina
Multifamily Home
Multifamily residence is a type of housing with multiple dwelling units contained within one building structure. This type of housing has several subtypes.
Condo and Apartment
A condo/apartment building is a building with multiple residential. Usually, a condo/apartment building has more than one floor and several condos/apartments on each floor. Such building has inside hallways, the main entrance, and inside entrances to each apartment/condo.
Difference between an apartment and a condo
An apartment building and a condo building will look absolutely the same. The physical characteristics are the same. The difference is in the type of ownership. Apartment complexes are owned by a single legal entity, such as a corporation or an LLC, and leased out to individual tenants. So if you rent an apartment in an apartment complex, your landlord will be the owner of the entire complex. You may as well rent a condo, but in this case your landlord will most probably be a person who owns this particular condo, as condo units are owned by individuals. Since condos share some common space and facilities, it is necessary to have a property manager. Therefore, nearly each condo building is maintained and managed by a homeowner association (HOA) known as a condominium and each condo owner pays HOA dues.
Townhome
A townhome or a townhouse is a house attached to another house in such a way that they share a wall. There can be only two townhomes attached to each other (also called a “semi-detached house”) or as many as you wish. A typical townhome suburban townhome will have two floors, however in larger cities, where land is extremely expensive, townhomes may have multiple floors (sometimes six or more), thus providing a large living space.
Duplex
A duplex looks like a regular two-story house, except that it’s occupied by two households and therefore must have two separate entrances. In order for a house to become a duplex, each of the floors must become a separate dwelling unit with a separate entrance.
Triplex
A triplex has the same idea that a duplex, except that it must have three separate dwelling units and entrances. Usually, it is a three-story house, with one dwelling unit on each floor.
Quadplex
A quadplex (also known as “fourplex”) is similar to a duplex and a triplex, but with four dwelling units and entrances.