Stupid but true

[james_davis_nicoll]

I like to look at online real estate listings to see how people use interior spaces. I've come to the conclusions that:

A: Few people use more than 2000 square feet effectively. Above that, they seem to run out of ideas about how to use each room*.
B: Lots of houses have gratuitous features whose purpose seems to be to make them unusable to mobility impaired people.
C: (this is the stupid one) Townhouses are fine but I hate the idea of a duplex. For some reason, having to cooperate with 50 people bothers me more than having to get along with one specific person or family.

* More libraries is always the right answer.

There was a place for sale just up the road from me whose entire basement was given over to sturdy-looking bookcases.

Comments

Translation?

[(Anonymous)]

Braxis

So, do I have this right?

A duplex is a semi-detached house when side by side or a maisonnette when up and down?

A townhouse is a terraced house?

A condo is, I've no idea ...

Re: Translation?

[rwpikul]

A duplex is the next level of merging up from semi-detached:

Semi-detached: Each house shares a garage wall with one neighbour.
Duplex: Each house shares a full wall with one neighbour.
Townhouse: Each house shares a full wall with both neighbours, (except for the two at the ends).

Condo, (short for condominium): Actually an ownership model, each unit is owned individually and includes a share in the ownership of the common areas. If not otherwise specified it tends to refer to condominium apartments.

Re: Translation?

[melita66]

I assume this is for Canada?

Where I grew up in Ohio, a duplex is a building that contains 2 side-by-side apartments or maybe condos. In the last few years, I learned that a duplex in NYC means a two-floor apartment (or condo).

Re: Translation?

[magedragonfire]

Maybe? I've seen it two ways in Canada - mostly the above-mentioned detached house that is split into two side-by-side dwellings. They can be a single story or two/three/whatever. I've also seen units described as duplexes that are essentially a three-story house, with a two-story dwelling on top and a one-story ground level one below.

(This was probably to avoid calling the lower level a basement suite, as there was no basement involved.)

Re: Translation?

[james_davis_nicoll]

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Re: Translation?

[rwpikul]

You're right, duplex does get used for other "two homes, one building" setups, (although your Ohio version could describe what I was thinking of¹). I was mostly answering in the context of it being something between semi-detached and townhouses.


1: Here's a streetview of what I mean: Random downtown Toronto duplex

Re: Translation?

[(Anonymous)]

Braxis

Making more sense now...

In the UK the it would be very unusual to see two houses with garages, where the garages share a wall. Our semi-detached houses always share a house wall. Garages, if they have them, would be on the opposite side of the house.

Townhouses sound more like the posh Georgian terraces that you'd find in places like Bath and Leamington Spa and less like the workers houses you'd see on Coronation Street.

Condo is like a block of flats where everyone is responsible for upkeep of the common infrastructure? I don't think we use that model for separate housing.

Re: Translation?

[autopope]

UK translation chart:

"Duplex" is unknown. The term for "shares a garage wall or a full wall" is "semi-detached". (Note that > 50% of the UK housing stock was built before garages were a Thing because car ownership really only caught on in the 1960s-1970s and our houses average 75 years old.)

"Townhouse": really posh shares-a-full-wall-with-both-neighbours. Normally called a "Terraced house".

"Back-to-back": cheap terraced house that shares a back wall with one neighbour and each side-wall with another neighbour. (Pretty sure this style doesn't exist in North America; it's Victorian-era factory worker accommodation.)

"Maisonette": a split-level apartment in a block of flats.

"Condominium": unknown term in the UK. Substitute would probably be "leasehold" plus the added context of "in a block, under common management".

"Tenement": where I live right now. (Not a slum: it's a grade 1 listed building in a posh-adjacent part of town. Individually owned apartment opening off a stairwell.)