From caves to modern architecture, people are looking for the ideal shelter, significantly affecting their quality of life. Indeed, owning a house has become crucial for stability and comfort. As the real estate industry has been steadily developing to cater to all kinds of societal needs, different types of home styles have been created. Todays’ houses are well designed to use the space efficiently and overcome natural obstacles. Let’s see what types of homes you can encounter when buying a house in Canada.

Detached Houses

As the name indicates, detached houses are separate houses that don’t share any walls with other residents. These types of houses in Vancouver are called single-family houses in Canada and are usually the most expensive ones to buy or rent. The detached houses usually have a yard at the front or the back. Moreover, this type of house has one address not attached to any other building. The single-family house is a common detached house in North and West Vancouver, West Point Grey, Burnaby. Kitsilano, Deep Cove, New Westminster, Surrey, Delta.

Interesting to know

Detached houses give you the advantage of not sharing party walls with neighbors, which means you should be able to make more noise in your property without attracting complaints, an important advantage if you like to sing or play music at high volumes.

Semi-Detached Houses and Duplexes

As you may presume, semi-detached houses are not completely isolated from other houses, having a common wall with another resident. These types of homes have less privacy than detached houses. Two residents living there may have a fence to share. Duplexes provide similar conditions to semi-detached houses at a lower price. Such multi-level homes, correspondingly with double units, have different entrances for each unit where separate residents live. In other words, the entire building is divided into units, and a separate resident takes each unit with his/her own entrance. They often share the same yard and parking space. Sometimes, duplexes are single-homes divided into two units.

Interesting to know

Semi-detached houses built from the late 1950s to the 1980s are more likely to be brick-set (without render), with large-paned windows. These are variable in size but usually fairly compact, and often have one large reception room instead of two smaller ones.

Townhouses

Townhouses are also known as row houses, and like semi-detached houses, they share walls with neighbors, but this time on each side of the house. The townhouse gives a sense of community living. It typically features a full basement and two levels for the living area and bedrooms. Many condominiums have townhouses as their basement, ground floor homes being the townhouses while blocks above being condos. North Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, Port Moody, Coquitlam, Mount Pleasant are among the areas where you will commonly see townhouses.

Interesting to know

A defining feature of townhome living is the sense of community and camaraderie one experiences. Townhomes generally have shared walls, which means residents live close to one another. When you’re that close, it’s hard to go on with daily life without even learning your neighbor’s name.

Apartments and Condominiums

Condominiums, often called condos, are private residences in multi-unit buildings operated by a strata corporation and governed by registered rules. The owners of the building maintain the common property that the condo residents are sharing. You may wonder what’s the difference between condos and apartments. Even though they have similar conditions, the difference is in the ownership. Apartments are not owned by unit residents, rather by a corporation that rents out each unit to residents. Condos are also rented but again not by a corporation, but rather by a unit owner. You can commonly see condos and apartments in Downtown Vancouver, Coquitlam, Metrotown, Brentwood, Lonsdale.

Interesting to know

A major disadvantage of most flats is that you will most often have to buy them leasehold, which means that when you sell them on, you will be selling only the remaining portion of the lease, so if for example you purchase a flat with a 70-year lease at the age of thirty and live there until you decide to move to serviced elderly care accommodation at the age of ninety, there will be only ten years of your lease left at the time of sale, and it will accordingly be worth very little compared with the price you paid for it adjusted for house price inflation.

Laneway Homes and Coach Homes

As you may guess from the name, laneway homes are in the backyard of a single-family home accessible by an alley or lane. This type of house is relatively new for the real estate market in Vancouver. No wonder it can’t be stratified and sold individually. Instead, it is sold as part of a single-family house by not having its own legal title. This is how laneway homes differ from coach houses. Similarly, coach homes are part of a single-family house. However, as mentioned, this type of home can be stratified and sold independently, unlike laneway homes. Coach homes require yard space as they are typically larger, whereas laneway homes don’t require it. Common areas for these two types of houses are East Vancouver and South Vancouver.

Interesting to know

Coach houses cannot be sold separately and the lot may not be severed to produce two separate residential lots with houses on them. A coach house must remain part of the property on which the main house is located.

Final Note

Every type of house in Vancouver has its unique features to consider. You need to consider budget, privacy and required space to choose the best fit for you.