I don’t get the “cheaper” aspect. Presumably these are still quite upscale and expensive. So they would have big, luxurious baths and all that stuff that you can live without.
I’d take a “regular” house on its own, thank you.
The point is that they’re probably less expensive than similarly-apportioned freestanding single-family homes in that area (though they still may not be “inexpensive” in the absolute).
Here is the breakdown of home types and their differences as used in insurance and real estate circles:
Single Family Dwelling (SFD) - detached home, owner of house generally owns the property it sits on and most often a yard space as well (front, back and often sides).
Multi Family Dwelling (MFD) - detached, multi-unit house (duplex, quadplex, etc) owner of dwellings also owns the property it sits on and most often a yard space as well (front, back and often side(s)).
Apartment - Unit occupies part of a building and generally shares one or more walls with another unit. May have upstairs and/or downstairs neighbors.
Townhouse - A bit confusing, because townhouse is a style of construction (as opposed to a management/ownership type) where individual units are built with one or more shared walls, generally 2 or more stories in height and generally no upstairs or downstairs neighbors.
Condominium - Typically attached to one or more other units. Condominium is a type of management where the owner of the unit generally does not own any property, it is all held in common. Maintenance responsibilities are set by HOA rules. Construction can be townhouse or apartment style.
Planned Urban Development (PUD) - Typically attached to one or more other units. This is also a management type, but the owner of the unit generally owns the property the unit sits on and often a small yard (front and back, generally no side yard). Construction can be townhouse, apartment style or, more rarely, detached.
Manufactured Home - Usually a “mobile home”, but built after 1976 when HUD enacted construction standards for these type homes. The term “mobile home” still applies to any unit built prior to the HUD standards. Can also be applied to some “pre-fab” homes.
Any of these housing styles can be owner or renter occupied.
Houses are built on land. Land costs money. Townhouses take up about half the land (or less) that fully detached houses do. Therefore, other things being equal, townhouses will always be cheaper than detached houses.
If one particular townhouse is the same price as one particular detached house, then clearly the other things are not equal. It has something else going for it. Almost certainly “better neighborhood”, but could be “better constructed / more modern” too. Lots of people are willing to trade space for other features. And of course, depending on the person, “no garden” could be either a net positive or a net negative.
Also, townhouses are not really like flats. Sound travels up and down waaay easier than it travels side to side. Your neighbors are basically irrelevant once you go inside the house. Does impact the window situation, I’ll admit - but again, not everyone cares about having lots of light (and if your townhouses are tall rather than long, that’s not so much of an issue either)
We don’t know anything about this neighborhood so it is hard to judge.
There are townhouses springing up in the neighborhood adjoining mine. They are much cuter than the big blocky houses that dominate the rest of the neighborhood, which are much more suited for families than singletons and couples. And the townhouses are new construction, surrounded in a sea of old homes that are in various stages of fix-er-upedness. Plus, the townhomes are close to everything. They are right on the bus line, within walking distance of the university and shopping.
So perhaps these townhouses are attractive because they tick many boxes instead of just one (affordability). A person can buy a bare bones home with just the essentials, and then have regrets when they realize they that their cheap house is expensive to heat and keep cool. Or they realize that being able to live across the street from a park/shopping center/subway station more than makes up for a steeper price tag on a slightly smaller house. No one buys a home just because of one thing.
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When I was growing up in Philly we called them twins or semi-detached. Duplexes were two storeys. Here in Montreal they are called semi-detached and we have two and three storey duplexes and triplexes.
I have been living in a semi-detached house for 47 years and I see no particular disadvantage to it. I never hear the neighbors and I assume they never hear me. I doubtless save a bit on heat since the other half is northeast from me. In about three weeks I will be moving into a condo since I am findind the maintenance and stairs a bit much these days. I grew up in a row house, incidentally, and the main problem there was not the neighbors, but the absence of light from the side.
The terminology may differ by area, but around here “semidetached” means two houses connected side-to-side, but which otherwise are normal houses with a driveway, garage, back yard, etc. As opposed to “townhouse” which is at least a whole row of connected dwellings, and possibly another row attached at the back. The amount of outside land is usually quite limited in a townhouse, often basically just a patio. There may or may not be a driveway or garage. With townhouses you also get into the condo-type situation where you may or may not be responsible for property maintenance fees.
How much land you get depends on how much land you get. The house I grew up in, attached to a neighbor, had more land than the single family unattached house we owned in New Jersey. Both had extensive gardens. The “new” houses near me (now 20 years old) are unattached but have tiny little backyards and front yards.
I have hear them referred to as being a Half Plex.
Here in Taiwan, detached homes are several times more expensive than townhouses. We didn’t even look at them, there were none in our budget, even used.
We owned a detached home in Tokyo. It had absolutely no land and a good 60 cm between us and the neighbors.
Yes, pretty much. The victorians built them by the million during the explosion of cities caused by the industrial revolution - and they built them well, so they are still a very popular form of housing - particularly in inner cities. My home is a terrace, built in 1880 (here’s a pick some houses very similar to mine). These go for about £500,000. ($600k ish?)
Townhouses are also terraces, but tend to be much larger and smarter - think more ‘Washington brownstone’ in scale. Here’s some examples, also in my home town. They’ll cost you about £2 million, probably.
This is what we have. A two-story townhouse in a building of four, in a large, nice complex. We didn’t want a house because we didn’t want to have to take care of large front and back yards. We have a small backyard, with no grass. The hardest part of the upkeep is raking up leaves in the fall. The HOA takes care of everything else - the front, clearing the roofs and gutters, etc. Water and garbage are included in the HOA fee, and the HOA carries an “all-in” insurance policy, meaning our homeowners insurance only needs to cover our personal belongings.
The only downside, as you might imagine after reading this, is that the HOA fee is on the high side…
FWIW, in North Carolina the difference between a townhome and a condominum is determined by how much of it the owner owns.
Also, regarding HOAs: long before we bought this place, I always wanted a house, and swore that my first condition for buying a house would be that it was not part of any kind of HOA. I’d always heard horror stories about them. And, my thinking was that if I own the place, I’m not going to have some organization telling me what I can or can’t do with the place; it’s mine. I’m not saying I would put a broken down pickup in the front yard and leave the Christmas lights up all year round, but dammit, I won’t have someone telling me I can’t.
My wife eventually brought me around to her way of thinking, and when the time came to shop for a home we chose to look at townhouses. Going in, I was still leery about being under an HOA, afraid they would be all up in our business. But they haven’t been, at all. I’m not the least bit sorry we went this route.
To try to answer a few of the questions asked in the posts:
There are only 2 homes attached - the garages being in the center
All are one level. I don’t think any of them have basements. Neither do the single residence homes.
They are not like row houses. Each set of townhouses has a small front and backyard with woods abutting the backyard and a patch of wild trees and bushes between the units. In the summer you can’t see the townhomes next to you. The development is on a quiet cul de sac. Our neighborhood is suburban.
In our neighborhood houses sell anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000. There are a few that are in the $600,00 range. I think the townhomes have been listed around $300,000. I’m not sure what the singles in that development are worth. Most of those were built by the first owners. The townhomes were built by the developer and then sold. Most of the townhomes are 2 BR, 2 Bath. I also don’t know if there is an HOA. I’ve seen homeowners snowblowing their driveways.
The set-back allowances for a true single-family home can mean that a small lot is nothing but a strip of green around a larger home. There is no really useable space. By making these houses semi-detached, the builder has removed that allowance on one side of the lot. This way, a much smaller lot still contains enough open yard for a small fenced area big enough for a little dog or a swingset.
Around here most of the newer subdivisions squeeze single family homes so close together they might as well just build townhouses, as there’s basically no usable space between them anyway. But I guess people are willing to pay more for a freestanding house and not have a shared wall, so that’s what gets built.
It’s especially ridiculous when the architect allows the windows to sit opposite each other. You could just jump from house to the next, and there is zero privacy without full blackout curtains.
But there is a gain in sound dampening that is worth a lot if you’ve ever lived with noisy neighbors. SFHs are not impervious to noise, but with a shared wall providing a solid avenue for the sound to travel, there is just no escaping it.
What gets me are some of the neighborhoods really rich people live in where the houses are seemingly inches apart.
If I was a Hollywood actor making a million bucks an episode, I’d find a place with a little elbow room.
I just have to say that it cracks me up that they’re called “townhomes.” I grew up in the Baltimore suburbs in a row house. My grandparents live in row houses. most of my aunts and uncles lived in row houses. Three of my sibs started out in row houses.
I look at pictures of my old neighborhood, and the thought of calling that 1000 sq ft brick end unit a “townhome” makes me giggle.
OMG - Zillowis calling it a townhouse.