What is your preferred Home in Retirement? SF, Condo, Townhouse, APT?

[kcowan]

We only have one common wall and it is a dual wall with big fat insulation between. Even handball will not penetrate. We do hear people on the roof but that is exceptional. During the last earthquake, the rolling rocks on the roof scared our cats as the building swayed.

 

[Perryinva]

These townhomes have 6 inch walls between units with a fireproof rock board, insulated, then OSB sheathing, with Sheetrock over that. We each went to a side of adjacent units and tried yelling at each other and couldn't hear each other. It was impressive. We spoke with a few current residents and they all said they've never heard anyone next door. And of course the design is such that no adjacent walls have living spaces on each side. Its closets, laundry room, or foyer on each bedroom or living room wall. About $600-650k.

 

[Bestwifeever]

These townhomes have 6 inch walls between units with a fireproof rock board, insulated, then OSB sheathing, with Sheetrock over that. We each went to a side of adjacent units and tried yelling at each other and couldn't hear each other. It was impressive. We spoke with a few current residents and they all said they've never heard anyone next door. And of course the design is such that no adjacent walls have living spaces on each side. Its closets, laundry room, or foyer on each bedroom or living room wall. About $600-650k.

Our friends moved into a new building that must be constructed as you describe--we feel like we are in a tomb (in the good way ) when we visit them as it is so quiet, even though they have units above them and on either side and across the hall. You can't even hear their television in their own den when you are around the corner in their kitchen.

 

[Perryinva]

It was advantageous to see the units being built, which I went to during various stages. We originally were looking at an end unit so there would only be one shared wall for noise.. But when we spoke to residents there, they mentioned that the end units were noisier because the outside wall had so many extra windows (15!) so outside noise was higher, plus you lost a lot of wall space, making furniture placement harder.

 

[PawPrint53]

We bought a 1350 s.f. single story condo, end unit, about seven years ago and rented it out for several years before we moved in a couple of years ago. It has a courtyard in the front and a patio in the back with about 40 sf of dirt so I can play in it. The patio looks out over a beautiful common area with a stream, grass, trees and shrubs, all taken care of by contractors. We figured this is the closest we'd get to living on a river. While it's not a 55+ community, most of the people are retirees who've downsized.

Most of the time I really like living here, particularly when we travel since it's so easy to just leave. But sometimes I want to have a yard. However, mowing the lawn in 100+ degree heat was awful and spending all that time fertilizing it, fooling with irrigation, etc. was annoying. I need to keep remembering that.