Condos are actually not expensive, just in the USA where they are mostly luxury products. In many other countries, condos are normal (and are called apartments or something similar) and much more affordable than single family homes or town homes.
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.
They would have to be really cheap though, because in NA condos can generally not be rented out.
You can own a condominimum townhouse (a row of single family homes with front yard, driveways, garage attached by common walls) or a condominium apartment (in say a 30 storey building with 10 parents per floor)
And yes, you can rent out a condominium apartment. Approx 60 % of the rental units in the Greater Toronto Area are condominium apartments.