What to Look for While Buying a Condo?
If you are planning to buy a home, you will get a number of choices one of which is a condominium. If you don’t know what it is, a condominium is a big property divided into individual units one of which you can own. Vis-à-vis a single-family residence, a condo’s ownership is partial in a shared “common property”. If you want to consider buying a condo, here’s a little more information for you to help you decide better.
What is a Condo?
In a condo, some parts are owned privately while others are owned by all the residents of the condo. Speaking in a less technical way, a condo is an apartment owned by you.
Condos are particularly popular where properties cost very high. Thus you can find them in urban settings and vacation hotspots. This is mainly because purchasing a single home can be exorbitantly expensive in places where there is a scarcity of space. Condos can offer opportunities to new big groups of people. So, if you are looking for your own home, but can’t really afford a house in a place like Calgary for example, condos in Calgary can be the best option for you.
How to Search for the Right Condo
You just have to look for the same things which you would have if you would buy a single-family home. If there is a general idea in your mind about what you are looking for, approaching a real estate agent can be a right solution to know about properties that you can’t find on your own.
However, if you are more interested in doing it all yourself, you can look for real estate websites and lists of condos in areas you are interested in. If you are considering a particular building or complex, you can get many onsite sales offices where you can know more about the condo and even can visit a show suite.
Condo Agreement
It’s not only the sales contract that you should consider while buying a condo. Condos have an agreement too, like a declaration that states how condominium works and is governed. Before purchasing a condo, you should ask for and read these documents that are applicable to the management of the complex. Are there any hot issues of this complex and what are they? How large is the reserve fund of the condominium? How does the management respond to the requests and complaints of the owners? Do they impose any strict guidelines and rules on owners that you wouldn’t like?
Before buying a condo, you should find out if your living will be happy in the condo and only then, you should sign the contract.