Home-buying is serious business and something that most people do just once in their lifetime. This makes it all the more reason why you need to be extra vigilant when investing your hard-earned money. There are numerous types of homes available these days making the homebuyer spoilt for choice. You have a choice of apartments, villas, villaments and independent homes.

Though the traditionalist naysayers will always be there shaking their heads in disapproval, apartments are the best option today when it comes to buying a home. But don’t just go into that decision blindly, take the opinion of others, and weigh the pros and consequences in your mind, and then decide.

Since apartments come in all sizes, you can buy the size that suits you and family’s needs. It’s not just the size, but the standard of the apartment that comes in varying levels too, with the designing, fittings, and amenities being some of the deciding criteria. Apartments are great for small families with growing kids. The community atmosphere and the easy availability of friends of similar age groups provide lots of friendships for your children; well, not just the children alone, as parents also get to make lasting friendships with other occupants of the building.

Apartments come loaded with amenities including gyms, swimming pools, indoor gaming area, children play park, badminton courts, barbeque pits and in some cases, even a mini theatre! Installing these features into a villa or independent house would dig quite a deep hole in your savings if you had to do it alone, but their easy availability in apartment-life makes living here invaluable.

Aside from these amenities, there is the all too important feature of a multi-tiered, 24×7 security system available that keeps you and your family safe in your absence. With many people having jobs that require frequent traveling, apartments suit them the best as their homes and property remain secure in their absence.

There are numerous other perks to apartment living including designated parking spaces, power back-up, alternative water supply back-up, reticulated gas, fire safety mechanism, etc. The best part is that you don’t have to go out and queue up in dusty government offices to pay the bills for these facilities.

And then there is the major question of property maintenance; while in an independent home, you will need to make all the effort to get someone to fix your problem, in apartments, these problems are taken care of by the caretaker committee. You can also enjoy the beauty of the manicured gardens and lawns without having to struggle for their maintenance too.

An added feature is that apartments are available throughout the city area and not limited to city fringes due to space constraints. This way you can get to choose the apartment that’s closest to your workplace or the kid’s schools, without having to move away from all the facilities available in the city center.

While all the above are very relevant points, a glaring fact is that apartments are always cheaper by almost one-third the cost of independent homes and villas, even when they are luxury apartments. So a major advantage with apartments is that they aren’t so heavy on the pockets, and you still get to have your own four walls to call home.

So taking all this into consideration, looks like apartments come out tops when buying a home!