[missw005]

We're looking to move to a large city as soon as our house sells. The suburb I'm looking at has a lot of townhomes and condos - but also twinhomes.
Has anyone bought one? Lived in one? What are the pros and cons? What do you wish you'd known before you bought/moved in?
Having lived in a single family home all my life, I'm not sure if I could adjust living not only right next door to someone, but sharing a common wall as well!
Any opinions/suggestions greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Sandy

[loveajax]

Sandy, I grew up in a two family house which was somewhat different because we had tenants downstairs (for many years, my grandparents...which was awesome) and we lived on the top two floors. The "problem" with it is that A) you may have great people on the other side, but they can always move and you could get "stuck" with a not so great neighbor and B) depending on how the condo rules are, etc., you could end up "butting heads" with your neighbor over repairs, expenses, etc. Also, I wonder if it would be "weird" sharing a yard with someone else (we lived in the city so there wasn't much "yard" to worry about!). Of course, you could end up with a beautiful place and the difference in price between single family/townhome may be substantial....Good luck!!!

[shy_bear]

We just moved out of a twinhome after living there for three years. Advantages; we still had a decent sized fenced backyard, the house was really good size, it was in a great area. Disadvantages; we lived side by side with an older couple at night in our room you could hear their TV blarring!! It would drive me nuts; you could also hear them if they were yelling, but normal conversation was not heard.

[Eponine]

I lived in a twinhome some time ago - ours was set up GREAT because there was a double carport between the two houses - so we didn't have a common wall or anything. The only thing that was awkward was sharing the driveway or when either of us had visitors there wasn't much parking so we had to shuffle cars around a bit.

We had 2 different neighbors while living there and one we got on with really well, the other was a pain but no more than a neighbor who is a pain in a single-family house.

[cbrink7]

We just moved from a twinhouse (only shared one side of the house) and we loved it. We still had a garage (although we shared the driveway, but it was never a problem) and a nice patio and screened in porch in back. We also had a nice size back yard. We could hear when there baby was crying, but it was very faint and that was only if it was quite in our house. Our only complaint about moving was that we could not take the house with us!

[binkybear]

It really just depends on the house, when it was built, how it was built, etc. I've been in older victorian twins where the walls are paper thin and you can here the person next door sneeze. From what I've heard newer condo's and townhouses are great for heating and cooling if you're in a center unit (insulated on both sides). If you have dogs (large ones) those same homes might not work if you're use to putting the dogs in your own yard as many don't allow fencing or when they do it's a little area right off the back slab. Our twin was built in the 70's. The common wall is concrete, I've never heard my nieghbors and they always joke about whether or not we really have dogs in the house because they never hear them. We have a huge private backyard and seperate driveways. After living in a single family home my whole life I've found our home no different.
(When you go to look at homes try to go when the neighbors are there...after work, weekends, etc. Go back several times, all at different times, to get a real feel for what you're moving into)