American Homes
In the US there is plenty of space, except in big cities, so many houses are large and have a lot of garden around them. Most arc detached (not joined to another house), but there are also duplexes, which are similar to British semi-detached houses. A duplex house is a dwelling comprising two units on two different floors. By contrast, a building comprising two units side-by-side is typically considered as being two distinct semi-detached or twin homes (and thus usually, separate property) sharing a wall.
Confusingly, some areas also call this a duplex. The term "duplex" can also be extended to three-unit and four-unit buildings, or they can be referred to with specific terms such as triplex and or quadplex. Especially in dense areas like Manhattan, a duplex apartment refers to a single dwelling unit spread over two floors connected by an indoor staircase. These properties can be quite expensive, and include the most expensive property in Manhattan.
Houses can be built in a large variety of configurations. A basic division is between free-standing or detached dwellings and various types of attached dwellings. Both sorts may vary greatly in scale and amount of accommodation provided.
A single-family detached home, or single-family home or detached house for short, also variously known as a single-detached dwelling or separate house, is a freestanding residential building. Most single-family homes are built on lots larger than the structure itself adding an area surrounding the house, which is commonly called a "yard" in North American English or a "garden" in British English. Garages can also be found on most lots, in older homes, they are typically detached, standing as a separate building, either near a driveway or facing an alley in urban areas. Newer homes in North America favor attached garages, often facing the street, as most recent developments dо not include alleys.
There are advantages and disadvantages to single-detached homes. Advantages are that the entire space around the building is private to the owner and family, in most cases (depending on federal, state, provincial and local laws) you can add on to the existing house if more room is needed and there are generally no property management fees such as the ones associated with condominiums and town homes.
There are also many disadvantages to owning a single-family detached home. All maintenance and repair costs - interior, exterior and everything in between - are at the owner's expense. There is often a lack of amenities such as pools and playgrounds. Landscaping and lawn upkeep costs are at the owner's expense.
Large, inner city neighborhoods are so densely populated that there is generally no room for houses devoted to just a single family. Among the wealthy industrialized nations, single-detached homes are most common in the United States, Canada, Australia, Northern Europe and New Zealand. Many Americans prefer to live in suburbs rather than in a city center, in order to have a pleasant environment and plenty of space. Most of the 97 million households in the US have a home with at least five rooms and more than one bathroom. Most also have a front yard and a back yard.
Other house types include: a cottage, a small house, with a typical floor plan of four main rooms, two either side of a central corridor. It is common to find a lean-to added to the back of the cottage which may accommodate the kitchen, laundry and bathroom. In Australia, it is common for a cottage to have a verandah across its front. A bungalow - a medium to large sized freestanding house on a generous block in the suburbs, some rooms in a bungalow typically have doors which link them together. Bungalows may feature a flat roof. A villa, a term originating from Roman times, when it was used to refer to a large house which one might retreat to in the country. In the late 19th and early 20th century "villa" suggested a freestanding comfortable sized house, on a large block, generally found in the suburbs. A mansion is a very large house, usually of more than one story, on a very large block of land or estate.
In architecture and city planning, a terrace(d) or row house or townhouse (though the latter term can also refer to patio houses) is a style of housing in use since the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls. The term "terrace" was borrowed from garden terraces by English architects of the late Georgian period to describe streets of houses whose uniform fronts and uniform height created an ensemble that was more stylish than a "row". In the United States the term commonly describes a two story, owner-occupied housing unit that shares a wall with one or more neighboring units.
The counterparts to single-family homes are apartment complexes, condominiums, where several families live in the same structure. In the cities many people rent an apartment in an apartment building.
In the United States "apartment" specifically must contain both, a kitchen, bathing facilities and sleeping accommodations, or else the term may not be used. Apartments usually have no more than three bedrooms, and are often rented furnished. An apartment with only one room may be called a studio or a loft. In some places "apartment" denotes a building that was built of such units, while "fiat" denotes a unit in a building built originally as a single-family house and later subdivided into a multiunit house type. Apartment tower, block of flats or tower block is a high-rise apartment building. A building in which the apartments are owned by the people who live in them is called a condominium or, in some places a co-op.
Poor people may live in apartments in tenements (large old buildings) in the downtown area of a city, in small, very basic houses or in mobile homes. Despite the name, many people keep their mobile home in a trailer park and never move it. Mobile homes or static caravans are prefabricated homes built in factories, rather than on site, and then taken to the place where they will be occupied. They are usually transported by tractor-trailers over public roads to sites which are often in rural areas or high-density developments. While these houses are usually placed in one location and left there permanently, they do retain the ability to be moved as this is a requirement in many areas. While site-built homes are rarely moved, mobile home owners often "trade", or sell their home to a dealer in the form of the reduction of the purchase of a new home.