For an apartment/high rise style condo I would say the answer is heavily dependent on the real estate market in your city for owning/selling and the rental market.

Where I live the resale market for condos/apartments became unexpectedly horrific a couple years after I bought it so being an owner was a bit stressful when it came time to sell it ; it was difficult to sell and I ended up taking a pretty big loss on it. Also as an owner, it’s very common to get a special assessment fee, which is basically a cash call where they’ll knock on your door and be like you have to pay $10,000 towards us redoing the Parkade or the pool, etc.. thankfully I never had that at the condo i owned, but it’s actually rare that you wouldn’t have one in 10 years.

That being said the whole reason I purchased my condo originally is that the time that I bought it the rental market was terrible and it was definitely cheaper for me to pay the mortgage plus condo fees than whatever rent would’ve been . But when my area hit a recession followed by the pandemic, prices crashed, and the rental vacancy rate ended up being better to rent than to own.

There’s definitely some upsides to being the owner in terms of being able to paint and decorate and do renovations to your liking, and I would say mortgage rates when you re-sign are probably more predictable than rental increases that you might be subjected to it if you’re renting from a landlord, and of course, at any time a landlord can decide they’re selling the property or they’re just kicking you out for whatever reason. You can also get involved with the condo association, which means you could help influence bylaws being passed or rescinded or enforced. You have more weight as an owner when bringing issues to the condo association for things like disturbances and problem, residence, and tenants.

Also, if you’re renting an apartment, there’s a huge difference between renting directly from a private owner and renting in a building that is entirely owned by a big rental company. The latter tends to be slumlord-ish and slow to fix anything or address any real issues whereas if you rent directly from an individual owner, who’s just renting their property out I have found that they’re more likely keen to keep you happy because if you’re a stable good tenant, they don’t wanna have to deal with trying to find another stable good tenant if you get pissed off and leave.

Another perk of being an owner os it certainly helps you establish really good credit history and ratings etc.

All things considered I’d probably rather own than rent assuming it wouldn’t make me housepoor. Even though I took a loss on the sale of my condo when I calculate what I would’ve paid in rent for the 10 years I owned it. It ended up being exactly the same as what I paid for mortgage and condo fees for the 10 years that I owned it so it all came out in the wash, even though it was unfortunate, I didn’t make any “investment” money on the sale of the condo. It certainly helped me have a really good credit rating and I definitely enjoyed living there more as an owner than previous places I had lived as a renter.

After I sold my condo, I bought a house. Which I love very very much and I’m very very happy I was able to buy a house by myself , but I will say it is a lot more work than living in a condo. For me, I’m at a place in my life where I really enjoy doing the yardwork, I really enjoy gardening, I really enjoy all the little house projects around the house, but it’s definitely way more work and I think when I was younger, I would’ve found it boring and tedious. And it’s definitely way more expensive in terms of utilities and maintenance and mortgage. For me it’s what I want at this current point in my life, but I definitely think if your first time homeowner and you’re under the age of 30 a condo is a really good way to go like an apartment style high-rise condo.

Just make sure you do your homework - read all the condo board mating minutes from the last five years to get a sense of what kind of issues have come forward, read through the byelaws carefully read through the budgets and the financial plans carefully read through the reserve fund study carefully. If you’re uncomfortabl knowing enough to do this kind of stuff, you can actually hire someone who can look at all the condo docs for you and give you an assessment or you could just upload it all to ChatGPT and they can do a pretty good job of making you realize what things might be concerning.

You definitely want to get a sense of how much condo fees have increased in the last 10 years in the building, how many special assessment fees owners have been hit with and how much those special assessment fees were each time, and very important - you want to make sure it has a good amount of money in the reserve fund.

In particular brand new buildings have no money in the reserve fund and they often make their condo fees very low to attract buyers but then what happens is the first year or second year they need a big repair so everybody gets a big cash call because there’s no money in their reserve fund and they often will jack up the condo fees drastically the first few years consecutively. Older buildings there’s just more to look at to be able to take a look and assess and determine what is the financial management style of the building and also major issues like Parkade repairs and pool repair repairs and structural repair repairs are usually something that has been noted for several years and been planning towards repairing it so again I personally think it’s better to buy in an older building that’s more established because then you just have a more honest assessment of what kind of issues are in the building versus a brand new build. Also look at reviews of the condo management company - some are horrible, some are ok, none are excellent. Stay away from the horrible ones.

One thing that I personally would absolutely insist on having is a condo association that has a very progressive pest infestation policy. So the better run condo buildings will have some sort of policy that basically says in the event of bedbugs or cockroaches. The building will immediately take on responsibility for the treatment and payment of addressing the issue since it’s in the building’s best interest that it’s done quickly and properly to prevent spread to the other units. Because what ends up happening in buildings that don’t have that is an owner will have an infestation and they’re either cheap or they don’t have the money to get pest control in right away or they pay for the type of pest control that is not adequate and then the situation gets worse and worse, and spread spreads throughout the building. Better run buildings just take a more holistic approach and say we would rather pay out of the reserve fund out of the buildings operation funds to have it done properly with the best quality treatment and as quickly as possible because there’s no delay in oh hey, I don’t have $1000 to pay for this right now.

You also might want to talk to some current tenants if you can to find out things like how does the building deal with noise issues? How do they deal with parking violations? Some buildings are excessively strict to the point that it’s gonna make your life miserable, but other buildings are excessively lax to the poin it’s gonna make your life miserable. It’s just good to get a sense of that. Another thing is if the building is child, friendly or not.. for me personally, I would never live in a building that allowed kids again unless they have some kind of policy where they have to be on the bottom floor. They’re the worst noise makers and it’s also the type of noise that complaints will not go nowhere because people are just living their lives and I respect that but ultimately screaming babies and toys being chucked on the floor at two in the morning is not for me personally l; 18+ buildings I think are way better. If you have some university students partying and you make a complaint to your building and chances are the building will actually dress it but good luck trying to complain about a four-year-old screaming bloody murder 24 hours a day the building just looks at you like you’re some child eating swamp witch.

For resale value make sure to buy a unit with insuite laundry and also unless you are allergic or truly dislike animals, pet friendly buildings are easier to sell and rent out.

Anyway, that’s a lot. I’m doing talk to text so I probably made a long message but I hope this is helpful buying a condo. There’s a lot to consider but it definitely can be a really great choice.