What's the benefit of live/work?

I don’t understand the question, Andrew.

From the topics, it looks like he’s talking about condominiums that are zoned live/work.

Many condos (especially lofts) are classified as “live/work”.

It has a lot to due with artists.
It also has to do with zoning. Most residences are not zoned for running, most businesses. If you have people coming to your place of business at your residence you are required to have a special use permit.
Also some associations prohibit you from running a business from your unit in the CCR’s to maintain a level of quiet and parking for other units.

It starts out as a variance type given by a city to artists to reside in a building
normally not zoned residential. Not all artists need mammoth macho abstract-expressionist-type workspaces, but many do need more physical floor space than the average apartment, and don’t want to pay for fancy carpeting anyway. An older, perhaps rougher building will give more square footage for the buck. In savvy cities such buildings are made legal for artists to live in because the cities understand that artists draw tourism.
However, give any city with AIR (Artist-in-Residence) variances about twelve years, and all of these spaces will be entirely filled with stockbrokers whose wives have painted one painting in case the inspector comes. The inspector never does come. So the stockbrokers are happy, the building owners are happy, the city is happy (because the tax base on these cruddy buildings skyrockets); no one is sad except the artists, who move to Brooklyn, Omaha, Berlin, and Marfa, Texas, where it all begins again.

Andrew, I think a “live” condo would serve your purpose very well! I don’t recall that you are doing artwork at this time of your life. You could certainly do computer work from your condo office without a zoning variance! And you can claim your condo “office” (including a percentage of heat, water, electricity, and mortgage payments) as a tax writeoff. Anyway, I was able to do that during my “working” years.

Andrew, peggylou is right. A live/work is usually a raw space. As a computer artiste,
you don’t need to live like that. Enjoy! Enjoy!