Low Buy in high maintenance the norm now?

I used to believe the avg price was $1k / sqr foot for a decent place in Manhattan but I've come across a bunch of pricing thats upto half that for places (e.g 301 63rd, 301 64th, Excelsior 57). The inverse though is ridiculously high maintenance fees! My fiancee and I were initially thinking about renting a 1-2br but with rents going so high now we're wondering if its better to just purchase. We are in a unique situation that we have a healthy amount (~500k) to drop onto an apartment. I'd rather have no mortgage to deal with though so some of these buildings look appealing offering apartments at 300k-500k, but the maintenance fees seem a bit ludicrous. Is this the new trend? Any thoughts on it?