Condo Living 101

The two share a lot of similarities except for the ownership part where in condominium associations, you are part of a group of owners who owns the units per se. In housing co-op’s the cooperative owns the unit and you are merely a renter, when you move, you either have to sell the unit back to the cooperative or to other buyers and pay the cooperative the cost you bought it for and keep the profits should you have gained any. The ownership of a condominium is similar to single unit homes except for the fact that your piece real estate is on a vertical rather than a horizontal plane.
Housing Cooperatives allows people to live in condominiums that are bought by the cooperative whose only asset is the building itself who also serves as the management of the building entasked for maintenance and other matters that need attention. When you move into your unit in a coop, you sign a proprietary lease which is actually an occupancy agreement that may be annual or for any specified time frame you and the coop officials agreed upon. One advantage of Coops is the fact they are given by the government a lot of tax incentives for they are considered to be small economic business units adding to that the fact they are in the housing business, the amount of taxes you pay are smaller than if you were living in a condo unit you owned which entails taxes as if you were in a single unit home.