Maintanence Question

In Manhattan? I have not looked at any apartments, at all, with maintenance that low. I will be paying 1.56/ft2.

Look on urbandigs.com. he talks about maintenance lows/highs/average. It is well laid out there.

Bunch of penny pinchers..... you want the cachet of living in Manhattan, you have to pay.

when you multiply that out by a 1200 sq ft 2BR, then it's not penny pinching. Every 10cents increase in maintenance on such a property is an incremental $1,440 annually.

But of course, maintenance scales up with how high your floor is (since it's usually measured by Price per share internally). for example, i'm on 15th floor and i'm paying $717/mo CC. the same apartment on 2nd floor is about $620.

OP

#3, thank you. Very useful. Did not find the depreciation amount. More for my curiosity what the experts think but the

#4, grow up, you are an a$$hole and have nothing useful to say

#5, thank you too

re #3 :

the Urbandigs.com numbers came from Nov 2005. If you factor in 4% appreciation over the year and a half, those numbers should be $1.20-$1.72/sq ft for today's average range.

Then the doesn't take in the account for neighborhood, amenities (pool, roof deck, gym, cable tv, etc), and which floor.

how much on average does maintenance increase every year? (in percent terms)

how much on average does maintenance increase every year? (in percent terms)

i dont know of any statistics, but on well-maintained buildings, it should approximately mirror the inflation rate (e.g. 3.5% over the long run). of course, each board decides whether to do special assessments or just raise the maintenance.

if there are temporary assessments (a couple years), and there are still maintenance increases, is this typical?

boards do not (good ones) raise the maintenance just to keep up with inflation. Maintenance costs in a well run coop remain as fixed as possible until a raise is necessary. And yes, an assessment AND a corresponding maintenance increase is ridiculous. An assessment is normally done to take care of a one-off expense that either the board hasn't the money to cover (i.e. unforseen) or does not care to dip into the reserve to cover. For instance, a shareholder suit causing reimbursement to shareholders. Funny thin in a coop is that when a shareholder brings a derivative suit against the corporation and wins, the shareholders pay said shareholder or shareholders back. Often by means of an assessment. Therefore if there is an assessment AND a maintenance increase, this is a red flag PARTICULARLY if the assessment is long term (i.e. more than a year) and the mainenance increase occurs in successive years. Fiscally, there is no reason a board would have to raise maintenance while simultaneously having an assessment aginst the shareholders uless there are financial difficulties with the coop. It just does not pass muster to me.

re : #12

have you considered higher tax assessed as well as increasing labor costs? even if the board requires ZERO renovations for years, they still need to pay more for the doorman and the super-intendent with each contract renewal...

unless you impose a flip tax, and your building churn is high, then you can get enough extra revenue to compensate for the lack of CC increases. but that also means depressing the value of all the units because some buyers are not too keen with a flip tax.

#13--taxes are not re-assessed annually. coops I know employ union workers (i.e. doormen) which are contracted sometimes years in advance therefore any increases are foreseen. I would expect a flip tax to keep the turnover low. Half the point of a coop is to contain and control the residence. I do not expect annual maintennace increases.

...what about unexpected fuel costs? I've heard that many coops have been hit with these..how are some blgs coping?