Life is expensive. As an owner in an older condo building that's now undergoing very expensive renovations (windows) I can attest to the real risks of condo ownership. However, if you step back, there's no way to avoid the costs of keeping a roof over your head. Everybody needs to decide what works best for them.
The way I see it your choices are:
- Condo ownership: you get less square footage and you don't get a direct say on when renovations and upgrades take place. You risk being victimized by a bad condo board. But, a condo typically costs much less than a house in the same neighbourhood, and you save a lot of time by not having to do your own daily maintenance work like lawn cutting and snow shoveling (time that some of us can spend working to bring in more income.) In an urban environment where most condos are, you can save tons of money (roughly $7K-$10k per year) by not owning a car, or owning fewer cars.
- Standalone Home ownership: you pay a lot more up front, and you're responsible for all your own repairs, which can cost a lot of time and money. You need to purchase and maintain an arsenal of tools and equipment like lawn mowers, etc. You're at the mercy of unscrupulous contractors when you have renovations done. When you initially buy, you never know exactly what you're getting, and home inspectors are untrustworthy. You have more say over the exact timing of repairs and renovations than a condo owner, but only to a certain degree: if your roof or basement is leaking badly, you can only leave it so long before disaster ensues. If you let the state of your home degrade over time, you lose a lot of value when you go to sell. Also, the most affordable homes are further away from city centres, where you need to rely on a car, or multiple cars, in order to get around, which can cost you $7K-$10K per year.
- Renting: you avoid all the hassle and responsibility of ownership but you pay a lot more per month than an equivalent mortgage would be on a unit: for example, my mortgage and condo fee payments are well under $1000/month but identical units in my building rent for $1500/month. And you are at the mercy of your landlord, whether an individual (who may decide to sell, causing you to have to move, or who might just be plain crazy) or a corporation (a rental company who can, for example, decide to do massive noisy year-long balcony repairs on your apartment building at any time.) And, of course, after 40 or 50 years of renting, in your old age, you have nothing to show for all that rent money: you have no investment you can sell or leverage, as you would with a condo or home.
Basically, pay now or pay later, pay Peter or pay Paul, but unless you are a very wealthy person who can afford to have the best of all worlds, it all comes down to compromise and priorities. All you can do is choose what works best for you, and live a bit beneath your means so you can keep a nest egg for unexpected expenses.