ChazYEG
Senior Member
Won't cost you as much if you're into DIY.
These days, just getting the exterior of a typical SFH costs between 15-20k, redoing roofing is going for at least that same amount, if it's a small house.
Not everyone is able, or willing, to do stuff like this themselves. I'd honestly sell my house and buy a new one rather than do ANY of this work myself. Build a deck? Finish a basement? Fix anything more than an electric outlet? No thanks. Painting or roofing? A snowball's chance in hell.
Not to mention more mundane inconveniences like snow shoveling, lawn mowing, etc, that honestly kill me a little bit on the inside every time I have to do one of these.
As both of you have pointed out, as long as you do the due diligence properly, you can find a good condo. But same goes for houses. I have a good amount of anecdotes from people who bought houses and had serious issues with electrical, plumbing, etc, and had to spend loads of money and time to fix these, or let it damage their houses to the point in which they had to spend way more money after to fix stuff.
While you have more control, claiming that it's flat our cheaper to own a house is definitely poor logic. Under the same set of circumstances (if both are poor builds or both are good builds) it can actually get way more expensive (again, unless you're willing to do a lot of the work yourself, and that's a personal choice, and involves a certain amount of additional risk, as well).
