The guideGetting prepared2 min read
Types of properties
House, townhouse or apartment, and the line on the listing that matters more than any of them: what kind of title you're buying.
By Paddy Carroll · Founder, HomePlanner
Most buyers start by choosing between a house, a townhouse and an apartment on feel — space, budget, how close to the city. That is a reasonable place to start and it skips the thing that actually changes what you own.
Torrens or strata: the line that decides everything else
Torrens title means you own the land and everything on it. Your decisions, your maintenance, your bill. Strata title means you own the space inside your walls and a share of everything else — the roof, the stairwell, the pipes, the pool — jointly with every other owner, run by a body corporate you automatically join.
That single distinction determines who fixes the roof, whether you can renovate without asking, what you pay quarterly, and whether a stranger's decision can cost you $30,000. It is worth knowing before you fall for the kitchen. You will also meet community title and company title; the second is rarer, older, and harder to finance, so ask your broker early if you see it.
House
Torrens title. All of it is yours.
- What you own
- Land and building outright.
- Ongoing costs
- Council rates, insurance, all maintenance — and it is all yours to find.
- Control
- Renovate within council rules.
- Land content
- Highest. Land is the part that appreciates.
- Typically
- Cheaper further out.
Townhouse
Usually strata, sometimes Torrens. Check.
- What you own
- Your dwelling, plus a share of common property.
- Ongoing costs
- Rates plus body corporate levies, usually lower than an apartment's.
- Control
- Interior mostly yours; anything external goes to the committee.
- Land content
- Moderate, and shared.
- Typically
- The middle option on both price and distance.
Apartment
Strata, effectively always.
- What you own
- The space inside your walls, plus a share of the building.
- Ongoing costs
- Rates plus levies, which fund the building's insurance, upkeep and sinking fund.
- Control
- Interior mostly yours; almost nothing else is.
- Land content
- Lowest — a fraction of the footprint, split many ways.
- Typically
- Cheapest way into an inner suburb.
Why land content keeps coming up
Buildings wear out; land does not. Over long periods the land component is what drives growth, which is the honest argument for a house over an apartment at the same price. The counter-argument is just as real: a house at that price is often an hour further out, and an hour each way is a cost you pay every day rather than realising once.
Off the plan is a different decision
Buying something not yet built is not a fourth property type so much as a different transaction: you commit now, at today's price, and settle on a valuation taken years later. Sunset clauses, build quality and completion risk all belong to it. That is covered in new versus established.
Do this in HomePlannerProperty search Filter by what you've decided you're buying rather than browsing everything, and keep the shortlist comparable.Free account requiredBefore you move on
- You know whether you're looking at Torrens or strata title
- You've asked for the levies on anything strata, before getting attached
- You've compared total monthly cost, not just purchase price
- You've decided how much land content matters to you