Remember when they called China dystopian because of that picture of the highway that goes around a house where the homeowner refused to sell it? Or the picture of the houses in a mall parking lot which also refused to sell to the developer? Well luckily good old Freedomland has an elegant solution that upholds the rights of the homeowner way better than the evil XiSeePee!
It makes sense to live in it though, and to own it at that point.
It doesn’t make sense to own it and then rent it out.
I am talking about the property.
The building itself is owned by some sort of real estate/development group, they sell you rooms inside their building but the building itself is still theirs. So what happens if the owner group sells the building, who guarantees the property you bought inside the other property! Its like buying land inside the metaverse or something like that. It is the thing that is going on in the video!
That’s not how it works with condominium ownership in the US, once the units are sold originally. The building is owned, collectively, by the owners of the units.
For example, I own, as part of the collective condominium association, 1/36th of the building and grounds. I can’t sell that individually except as part of selling my entire unit to someone else. I, along with the other 35 unit owners, get to elect a volunteer board of directors for the condominium association each year.
Now the Association may decide to hire a professional management company to do the bookkeeping, the repairs and maintenance, etc., but that management company works at our board’s direction - not the other way around.
As to why anyone would choose to buy an “apartment” in a condo building (or larger complex of buildings)? In much of the USA, especially in urban, suburban, and even exurban areas, a condo is the only affordable home type for sale for retirees, young workers, even multiple-earner families. Where I live in the southeastern United States, a condo starts at about $150,000 while even a small single family standalone home that isn’t falling apart costs at least $350,000.
At least with owning a condo instead of renting a similar apartment, I actually own something, and benefit from rising property value as increased equity, rather than as increased rent bill. Yes the condo fee for that collective management and maintenance can and does go up with increased costs (as voted by our elected board) but the value of my property goes up faster (mostly). And as an owner, I can pass it down to family, I can take a home equity loan against it if that makes financial sense to me, I can rent it out if I move but want to keep it in the family.
Yet the real state lawyer in the video clearly mentions that the developers have the ability to terminate these associations in that state (idk about other), which effectively means they are the owners. He also mentions that there are more cases coming up too.