Condos as investment vehicles

Residential condos were conceived as single-family residential housing, mainly for people who could not afford to by a detached house, starter homes for singles and the newly married and housing for seniors who could no longer handle stairs.

The governance was based on people living in the same building(s) running their affairs through a democratic board of directors.

As time went on, both the developers and condo buyers saw condo units, not only as residential housing but also as business and investing opportunities.

Since then, investors who were once just bit players in the condo industry have, in all their forms, have become the major force in new and re-sale condominium sales.

The investors that people focus on are the persons who buys one or more condo units to flip before they're built and the buyers who plans to become landlords and rent the units.

The developers and real estate sales pitches often promise huge returns for little effort. (See the ads above.)

Yet, there are more goods on the investments supermarket that condo buyers are choosing, many that get little attention. They include:
• boarding houses
• rooming houses
• furnished short-term rentals
• furnished hotel rooms
• commercial offices
• personal service businesses
• take-out restaurants and bakeries
• slumlords

Most of these business opportunities, some perfectly legal and some that are not, take less knowledge, work and initial capital than buying a licenced hot dog cart.

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