[quote=nostradamus]I guess it’s subjective what one calls a condo, for me if you pay an HOA and share any walls and share common areas, that’s a condo. Sellers/owners/agents use nice euphemisms like “duplex” or “townhome” but… these are subsets of the definition of condo.

They are very nice condos but the houses are in the same locale, bigger, better, and cheaper. IMO.[/quote]

Actually, my mother (an ex-realtor) corrected me on this. There is in fact a substantial legal difference between a townhome/twinhome and a condo.

In a townhome, you own the house fee-simple, meaning you also own the land under it – even though you have an HOA taking cared of the shared elements. Unlike a condo, though, you actually own the entire home, and the land underneath it – so the owner, and not the HOA, is responsible for their exterior walls, their roofs, and so on. There are more shared elements than a SFR, but a lot fewer than a condo, where the HOA takes care of the exterior roofs, the walls, etc.

Theoretically, this would place more of the burden on home maintenance of the exterior variety on the individual townhome owners, and thus makes it less likely the HOA would levy large assessments for upkeep, but I have no idea how that plays out in real life.

Of course, there are a lot of “townhome” developments that are really condos – just have to check to see whether it’s a condo ownership, or a fee-simple ownership to tell which type you’re looking at.