Townhouses?

Anybody live in a townhouse? Can you please share the pros and cons.

Re: Townhouses?

I do not live in a townhouse now but I lived in one for almost ten years. It was a ranch style, end unit with an attached garage. my unit was on the end so I only had one shared wall and windows on three sides. My next door neighbor was really loud but our shared was so thick we never heard her. Our unit had an enormous attic that I still miss.
I loved the lifestyle, having all of the landscaping and exterior maintenance done was great. Our community was very small, I loved our neighbors. We had a small clubhouse, pool and tennis courts. Some communities have more upscale amenities.
The reasons why we chose to move to a single family house instead of a larger townhouse were we wanted a bigger private yard were I could plant anything I want. We wanted more private outdoor space for entertaining. At the time my DH had commercial vehicles that he sometimes wanted to keep at home and that was not allowed.
I really can't say anything bad about it.

Re: Townhouses?

I used to live in one and really didn't like that there are no windows on the sides, just the front and back of the house.

The layout is also pretty restricted - you usually get a railroad type of layout.

Also, if walls are thin you may hear your neighbors and hopefully you like them because you'll be sharing a wall with them....

Re: Townhouses?

DH & I lived in one. It was a corner house and the way it was designed, we only had half of a shared wall (in the kitchen) and we NEVER heard our neighbors. We had a lot of windows (on 3 sides of the house plus sliding glass door to patio deck) and skylights so we got plenty of sunlight into the house.

The greatest pros are that landscaping and snow removal are taken care of for you. The biggest con for me was lack of a yard and outdoor privacy. DH and I were the youngest couple there--the rest was a mix of elderly and young families. I went to the pool every day in the summer (have the summers off) and there was never more than 5 people there (all elderly woman lol).

It can get a little pricey though with the taxes and the maintenance. Our taxes were over $10,000 and the maintenance was $400 per month so around $15,000 per year and rising. We lived there for 4 years and ultimately came to conclusion that for that much money, we wanted a bigger, private yard and larger home.

Re: Townhouses?

i like it, i'd probably prefer a single family with a big yard but i don't know how i'd feel about having to maintain all of that (it would either be a lot of extra work for us or it would be an expense to have someone else do it) with our townhouse we don't really have much outdoor maintenance which is nice because its done through our HOA...i can hear neighbors sometimes but i grew up in a townhouse so that doesn't really bother me....i would like more windows like others said, really the only place i'm missing a window is my kitchen...for the price of our mortgage its worth it and it makes up for the cons, but if money wasn't a question we would have bought a single family....we can grow in this house for sure b/c we have 4 bedrooms but we do talk about maybe moving in the future but that would depend on our finances...