Condo versus Single Family Home

I am always confused about what to buy for investment? Single family home or condo. Condo seems to be a safe investment, especially if you live far and that too in a different country and can't look after the property on a regular basis. But I don't like the HOA i.e. the maintenance fee to be paid each month. Let looks at the pros and cons of each:

Condo

pros:

1) Safer, managed by strata. Less chance of break-ins etc.
2) Some have really good facilities, like community center, fitness center, swimming pool.
3) Really good bargains, condo have been hit really hard with this recession
4) Property management fee might be less. I have see that property management companies seem to prefer condo over single family homes as it is easier to manage. Their might be more condos in the same complex being managed by the same company and it's really works out good for them from economies of scale perspective.
5) HOA fees covers some of the expenses like building insurance, sewerage etc. This depends from condo to condo, so please check with your strata

Cons:

1) HOA fees i.e maintenance fee. This could be substantial ranging from $100-$400 depending on the amenities and location etc. If you are going to be using the property most of the time then this might be OK but if a condo is empty most of the time then this is just a useless cost. Also, HOA fee is not tax deductible like property tax.

2) Less Privacy. This is obvious
3) Less capital gain. Generally condos are the worst hit when market goes down and the last to come up when the real estate market picks up. Your capital gain could be less compared to a single family home.
4) Harder to get financing. It's harder to get financing for the Condos in this market. I had a discussion with few realtors and they told me it's quite hard to get financing for the condos. One of the reason is the unstable HOA fee. Many people have just abandoned their condos, leaving the ones still holding their condos with higher HOAs. This is because the total strata fee is shared among the current owners of a complex.
5) Unstable HOA as discussed in the previous point. You have to be careful about this one and make sure you clarify with your agent and the strata about the HOA going up.

Single Family Homes:

Pros and Cons are pretty much opposite of Condos. One thing you have to be careful about SFR is the insurance which could be substantial if you buy a property in Florida as you might have to get hurricane insurance as well and this could make is insurance costs quite high.