What is a Townhome?

So some of you might be wondering: what exactly is a townhome (or a townhouse, if you wish to be more colloquial)? Strictly speaking, a townhome is any home unit that is connected to other home units by means of a wall. Some people think that apartments could be considered as townhomes because of this, but we simply must point out that a townhome, despite sharing a basic building with other homes, is part of a horizontal set of homes, not a vertical set of homes (the way an apartment building is) and is pretty much set up in a subdivision-type area. What this means is that townhomes are home units that are connected to other home units, and are home units that do not have separate home units above or below it.

While you can buy or rent a townhome that is a single-story affair, most people have come to prefer townhomes that are multiple stories in height. The differences tend to be this way: the single story affairs have a little more floor space, but considerably less privacy while the multiple story houses allow more private areas but tend to have more cramped floor space than the former. The preference for the latter just may be some sort of reaction against the single-floor units that apartment buildings and condominiums tend to offer.