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complex—is likely to hire a management company to take care of the common areas. You may also get valuable on-site amenities like a gym or pool.
    • Community. Because you’re all part of the same community association, you’ll get the opportunity to know your neighbors, whether you wish to or not.
     
    Every rose has its thorns. Some of the drawbacks to condo living include:
    • Rules, rules, rules. You’ll be subject to a document called the master deed or Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs). This sets forth not only rules for the community association management to follow, but rules governing all owners. You’ll be told what you can do in the common space, and even what you can do with or in your own unit.
    • Buy for less, sell for less. Condos generally appreciate at a slower rate than houses.
    Diet-Time for Fido?
     
    What kinds of things do CC&Rs limit? Common examples are:
    • whether you can have a pet, and if so, its maximum height or weight
    • whether you’ll get a parking space, or whether your guests can park in the lot
    • whether you can change the color of your curtains or paint the outside of your unit
    • the location or appearance of things like your mailbox, clothesline, TV antennas, and wreaths
    • how long visitors can stay with you
    • whether you can rent your unit to someone else, and
    • whether you can smoke in your unit.
     
     
    • Privacy. Since you’ll be sharing common areas and usually walls or ceilings, too, you’ll be giving up some privacy. Also, if having a large outdoor space to garden, entertain, or keep a pet is important, you might be frustrated by the outdoor spaces, which are usually either miniscule or communal.
    • You share all costs, whether you want to or not. It may be frustrating to see your monthly membership dues spent on things you never use, like the swimming pool. And if you’re the kind of person who can live without a repair until you have spare cash, tough luck—you’ll be forced to pay your share on the association’s schedule, sometimes in excess of your regular fees.
    • It can cost more than you expect. In addition to your monthly membership dues, you may have to pay additional fees called “special assessments.” These are one-time fees collected for major purchases the association can’t afford to make with its current reserves (for example, to replace the roof). Do your research: In recent years, with many new buildings not fully occupied, the few owners in some CIDs have found their special assessments very high.
     
     
    TIP
     
    Size matters in condo developments. Your experience will be a lot different in a Boca Raton megaplex than in a Brooklyn brownstone. In a building with fewer units, you may find the rules less constricting—but you may also be more responsible for day-to-day-operations and costs.
     

Townhouses and Duplexes: Benefits and Drawbacks
     
    One compromise between a single-family dwelling and a traditional condo is a townhouse. Townhouses are usually built in rows and share at least one common wall (also called “row houses”). Like single-family houses, each townhouse owner has title to the building and the land it sits on. Like condos, townhouses may share some common areas, governed by a community association (but unlike condos, the community association usually owns the common area).
    Just be sure, when you start househunting, to find out for sure what type of property you’re looking at. If a careless ad or agent calls a property a townhouse, but it’s really a condo, you’d own a little less personally (because the land isn’t yours, nor is the outside of your unit) and should pay less accordingly.
    Celebrities Who’ve Owned Co-ops
     
    Among the big names who’ve made a co-op home (or maybe one of their homes) are Jimmy Fallon, Chloe Sevigny, Sean Combs (a.k.a. Diddy), Matthew Perry, and Kelis.
     

Co-ops: Benefits and Drawbacks
     
    Co-ops sounds so glamorous, don’t