After working through the building codes of various communities in the Greater Toronto Area, it might be useful to work out how to decide between a condo and a house, especially in this market. Sometimes the best way to make difficult choices is to make pro and con lists. Each family is radically different and has unique needs, so this list is necessarily broad. Each of the pros and cons assumes that a choice has been made to buy.

The pros of buying a condo include:

1. A condo is buying shares in a larger building, and so it is like building into a community. This community helps with a sense of identity and also can work like a neighbourhood.  
2. A condo is often physically smaller than a house, and though that might seem like a disadvantage, it is easier to maintain. It is also easier to maintain because that community you are buying into includes things like snow shoveling.
3. Many new condos are being built, often downtown, or often near transit. This new stock considers the neighbourhoods they are built in. This is especially true in Hamilton, where you can now live in beautifully refurbished buildings like the Royal Connaught, or in Toronto where churches, industrial spaces, and schools have been made domestic.
4. Often, condos are less expensive than houses. This suggests that they are a good way for young people to build equity, or people have spent a life building equity to find a place that is smaller in retirement.

The cons of buying a condo include:

1. There is a sense of place, that you own your own space. This pride of place is often under rated.
2. Even if you have to mow or shovel, there are certain pleasures that are to be had with yards. Though new condos have upgraded common spaces, they do not have the same yards.
3. Though the building of  a house often features bureaucrats, the condos have another layer--up to and including choosing the colours you can paint your walls. As well, condo association meetings can be a place for petty politics, and tiny infighting. It is understandable to want to avoid that.

The pros of buying a house include:

1. Houses provide independence, where you do not have to live with other people, or battle the condo board.
2. As well, the presence of a yard can provide a sense of pride of place.
3. Condos can be small. Though the housing stock can be limited, there is more of a chance for houses to be a wide variety of sizes, or to be build according to families that are larger than a single person or married couple.

The cons of buying a house can include:

1. Condos which are new builds will have less maintenance problems, if they are built well. (There is some discussion about whether they are built well.)
2. Housing is often in inconvenient locations. The more affordable a house is, the farther out it is--while you can buy a townhouse or an apartment condo in Liberty Village, or even downtown in Toronto, for the mid 300s, even a house that has the same floor space can be bought for that at the very edges of towns. The same can be seen in Hamilton--where affordable houses have moved from neighbourhoods like Beasley, to far up the mountain or in the suburbs of Ancaster or Stoney Creek.  
3. They are building new condos in ways that they might not be building new houses, especially outside of the suburbs.

Keywords: Condo, Stoney Creek, Suburbs, Toronto, Real Estate, Housing, Housing Stock, Rentals, Beasley, Hamilton, Liberty Village, Pride of Place, Association, Royal Connaught.