Should You Buy a House or Apartment?

Should You Buy a House or Apartment?

Should You Buy a House or Apartment?

 

Summary

– House or apartment: purchase price

– Cost of maintaining a house or apartment

– House or apartment: local taxes

– Setting up a house or apartment

 

The majority of Canadians own their own home. The

single-family home seems to be the preferred housing option, but both housing

types have advantages and disadvantages. Before buying a home, choosing a house

or an apartment is essential.

The choice is guided by several more or less subjective

criteria. Still, the most important one seems to be the financial criterion,

even if the setting also appears to be a determining factor.

Let’s compare the cost and the environment for the

purchase of a house or an apartment.

House or apartment: purchase price

With the m² of living space, the construction cost is

lower for a house than for an apartment.

The price of a house or an apartment varies according to

the structure of the house and the geographical area.

The cost of a house in the city center is much higher

than that of an apartment in the suburbs.

Cost of maintaining a house or an

Apartment

Should You Buy a House or Apartment

The maintenance cost is a budgetary criterion that should

not be overlooked when deciding whether to buy a house or an apartment.

The maintenance of a house is the sole responsibility of

its owner, as well as the cost of this maintenance (heating, painting, garden

maintenance…).

An apartment is under the status of co-ownership. Thus, there is a sharing of the cost of the charges by all the

co-owners.

A recent study states that the average annual charges and

maintenance costs are $2,844 for a house versus $2,100 for an apartment.

Heating costs are $1,788 per year for a house and $900 for an apartment.

In addition, the average cost of repairs and major work

to be done is $600 per year for a house and $300 for an apartment.

Thus, overall maintenance costs and expenses are much

higher for a house than for an apartment.

House or apartment: local taxes

The main criterion for determining local taxes (property

tax and housing tax in particular) is the surface area of a property. Thus,

they can be higher for a single-family house due to the existence of annexes

(garden, garage…). But this is not always the case because local taxes can

vary from one geographical area to another.

The setting of a house or apartment

Should You Buy a House or Apartment

This criterion is more subjective in the sense that it

depends:

– the composition of the family buying,

– the place of work (number of kilometres, means of

transportation…),

– the place of the school (number of kilometres, means of

transport…),

– the habits of the family members (extra-professional

activities…),

– their tastes (calm, countryside, city…).

Therefore, the property’s location is a criterion

specific to each buyer.

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