In North American lingo, "apartment" exclusively means a multi-family unit that you rent and don't own. If you own a multi-family unit it is a Condo (condominium) and never refered to as an Apartment. I know, confusing.
#1 is a common assumption, but really condos are a subset of apartments. "Apartment" can refer to a leased unit, a co-op situation, or an owned condo unit. The only thing that defines an "apartment" is that it is a housing unit contained within a larger unit.
What I have encountered is that the word apartment is accepted for any residential unit while words that specifically relate to the nature of occupancy are not always used because that may be ambiguous. Is an apartment the only residential unit in the building? Is an apartment a condo, joint or fractional ownership, rental, or timeshare? All of these tend to be referred to casually as apartments unless more is known and needs to be communicated.
When an American says they have roommates, do they literally mean they share a bedroom with another adult they're not romantically involved with? Or does 'room' mean the whole apartment?
I don't think apartments have any real bearing on this conversation, I don't know of any apartments built by a single person for their own use. They should rightly be held to a higher standard than a single occupancy home.
A studio apartment is a one room apartment that usually has living space, bed and kitchen utilities all in one room. I’m not sure if you understood that. People tend to go for them because they’re cheaper.
Roommates? This discussion is perplexing. Don't you have apartment buildings where you're from? An apartment in a multi-story house is more space efficient than a single-tenant house is what the observation was, unless I'm missing something.
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