Those are easy to investigate, and I encourage you to do so. Don't know how awful the market is in your area, but in mine, the extra cost of a townhome/rowhome is sometimes offset by the lower association fee. For example, a townhouse development near me is about ~$100/month, and a nearby condo is ~$700/month. TH is $700k (and bigger) and the condo is $500k. However these are all highly specific to the properties and associations. Sports club, swimming pool, gym, tennis courts? Expect bigger fees. Full-time attendant? Yep. Condos add in a lot of extra building maintenance to the fee (which theoretically you pay in the TH), but IME the condo boards don't always... dare I say rarely... use the money efficiently. I've seen them attempt ineffectual repairs several times because they didn't want to pay for the proper fix. Only ending in the fix being much more expensive from adding in all the failed attempts. Anyway, if you get into the buying process, you can usually request to see the books and how money is spent. Oh, and another example... one association where a friend of mine lived, they decided they didn't want to put a snow removal company on retainer ($3k/year) and instead just pay hourly. Well... one year there were several blizzards, and snow removal cost tens of thousands. Which turned into an assessment. On and on it goes.