If you are looking for a smaller place, you should purchase a single-family home instead of a condo. A single-family home offers many advantages over owning a condo, even if you are only interested in purchasing a smaller home.
A Single-Family Home Comes with Land
When you purchase a condo, you are not purchasing the land that the condo sits on. You are just purchasing the space within the building, and almost all condo buildings have associations that you have to pay money into either each year or each month to take care of the building that your condo is located inside and to take care of the land, but you own neither the building or the land, just your space.
With a single-family home, even when you purchase a small home, you also own the land where the home sits. When you purchase a single-family home, you get the land with the deal, even if it is only an 1/8 of an acre. That belongs to you and no one else. With that ownership comes the right to customize the land however you want to. You can grow a garden, have a dry rock bed, or a big yard. It is your space to use.
Space to Expand
When you purchase a condo, you get the space you get. If your family size changes over time, you can't add more space to your condo. When you purchase a home, you have the ability to expand your home. You can build upward or outward on your home, and add more space as your family needs change.
Greater Ability to Express Yourself
When it comes to purchasing a condo over a home, you have more of an ability to express yourself. With a home, you can customize and change the inside of your home whenever you want. You can paint the outside of your home and decorate the yard in a way that expresses who you are. You can also decorate the outside of your home. You can put up Christmas lights, or Halloween decorations. You have more of an ability to outwardly express yourself when you purchase a condo.
If you value owning the land your home is located on, and you value having the ability to change and modify your home as you see fit, a small single-family home for sale would be a better situation for you than a condo. With a condo, your space, and how you use it is much more restricted.
