If home is truly where the heart is, then a home doesn’t necessarily have to be a single family home. In fact, home can be just about anywhere. Whether it’s on a primitive homestead in the great outdoors, a mansion fit for an Egyptian queen, or the luxury apartment communities sprouting up in suburbs across the country. Home is anywhere you make it to be, even an apartment community.
With the rapidly increasing number of apartments for rent from coast to coast and everywhere in between, it’s hard to believe there was a period in American history when renting an apartment was actually frowned down upon. Owning a home — better yet a home in the suburbs complete with a white picket fence, a stay at home wife, 2.5 kids, and of course the family dog — was considered the ultimate sign of “having made it” in life. In some schools of thought, it still is, but oh how the time are a changin’.
An apartment community in many if not all of America’s largest cities are just as much of a home to its residents as Grandma’s house in the country is to you. The sentiment has spread like rapid fire across the country, fueled by the bad taste the real estate crash of the Great Recession left in the mouths of American homeowners. Living and renting an apartment in an apartment community seems a whole lot more convenient and a whole lot safer than owning a home that could be the bank’s again at any time.
Living in an apartment community has several benefits over home ownership. Aside from the obvious financial benefits, living in apartment makes creating and facilitating a true sense of togetherness and community that much easier. Doing so in a suburban neighborhood can be a little bit more difficult, especially with everyone being preoccupied with keeping up with Joneses, those showoffs!