A Condo in the U.S. refers to a specific type of apartment that you can buy, and usually cannot rent out or modify. Typically they have all the trimmings out of the latest catalogues when they are built, so they fetch expensive single family home prices due to all that granite. They are popular for downsizing after your kids have moved out of your house, or find yourself widowed or divorced. Due to their illiquidity and lack of space, they are less popular for younger people who might want more bedrooms some day if they have children.

In most major cities in the U.S., any sort of property, even an empty dirt lot, is prohibitively expensive to the majority of the population. In LA in particular, the median home is unaffordable to 75% of the population. And the median home is a rotting bungalow precariously positioned on wooden posts built in 1947.