If you are considering buying a condo you will also have to think about where you will park. Whether you buy an apartment condo or a townhouse condo you could have either a titled stall, a leased or assigned stall.
A titled stall(s) means you own that piece of the parking lot. You will have a title certificate for it. If it’s leased you are essentially renting your parking stall(s) from the Condo Corporation and you would have a contract with a specific end date. An assigned stall is when the Corporation owns the whole lot and they assign you a specific spot the difference between this and leased is that it can change at any point. Each Condo Corporation can have slightly different rules so reading the bylaws is another important step. Consider how many parking stalls you will need. The unit you buy may only come with one so you may want to inquire if you can rent or buy another one.
The location of your parking stall is important too. You may want something close to the elevator or stairs. If it’s outside you may want to be able to see your spot from your unit so you can use a remote starter (I’d get one if you park outside in Alberta!).
Consider visitor parking too. When you look at the unit you may park in the visitor parking, think about how easy it is to find and how close it is to your unit/building. Beyond that look around at the street to see if street parking is available. In Calgary you may need a permit to park in certain areas so look in to that as well.
Since parking stalls aren’t pretty we don’t always give them a lot of thought but they can really affect your day to day life and they are something that needs to be thought about both when purchasing and for resale.
