Real estate has likely been the topic of many household conversations. Whether it’s with your parents, siblings, grandparents or friends, most agree that by some time in their life, they’d like to be homeowners.

The question I have always asked myself is what type of home I’d like to be the owner of. Is it a single family detached home, a townhome or a condo? Well the truth behind the matter is that my answer has always defaulted to a single family detached home. – Why you ask?

I honestly believe it has to do with my upbringing. I have always been told to set a goal of buying my own single family detached home. My rebuttal would be that single family homes these days are just not affordable. But they would insist that it was the right purchase decision for the following reasons:

1. “Buy a house with lots of land. You don’t want your children to be deprived of a back yard”
2. “A house will never depreciate.”
3. “It’s a great investment”
4. “A house is great for hosting”

Now, these reasons are not necessarily true and so I’ve also struggled with the idea of whether going into that much debt for a house vs a condo or a townhome was the “right thing” to do. One can buy a condo or a townhome for half the price of a single family home. Multi-family homes have done well in terms of value in the greater Vancouver area and have proven to be solid investments for many. Open concept layouts make hosting parties easy regardless of the size of home. Therefore, does it make sense to have a bigger mortgage just so you can have a house vs a multi family residence? What if you don’t need all that space?

The bottom line is that the points made by my elders over the last 10 years of my life have stuck in my head until this day. Even though a condo makes sense for a lot of reasons, I still have that inner desire to own a single family home thanks to the constant reinforcement by my elders. It comes down to personal choice and in my case, my upbringing.

Over the years I have learned that a lot of first generation Canadian South Asians have been taught the same thing yet feel as I do. But in the end, they too often also end up purchasing a detached home.

My findings are only based on my own experience and from what I see and hear around me. I’d like to read your opinions as I’ve always been curious with how ones ethnic background influences lifestyle decisions. If you would like to post your opinion you can do so by clicking here.

Is it the Indian in me or is a similar message taught across other backgrounds?

Irshaad Ahmad