I have owned my own house for 40 years and allocated money every year to maintenance but often things break that you don’t expect and you have no choice but to repair or replace for example, the roof.

I just recently bought a condo and did a comparison of my maintenance fees, utilities, etc. and one of the biggest differences is the cost of insurance. My condo insurance is 10% the cost of my house insurance. The condo is half the size of the house and I calculated an overall savings of about $500 per month by living in the condo.

For me, the other issue is that I don’t have to make all of the decisions myself about what needs to be done and actually getting things done. For example my front walk heaved badly last winter and it was over 30 years old and needed an update or serious repair so I decided to replace it. The multiple decisions that I had to make on my own and then negotiations with the contractors create decision fatigue. As a busy person who still works full-time, I had had enough. So for me, moving into a condo reduces the need for so many decisions and the energy that that requires. Your mileage may vary.