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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a lot of complaints about condo living but the condo fee isn't one of them. Before buying a condo, you should get copies of the condos last financials for at least the last few years. This will pretty instantly give you an idea of whether the fees are reasonable or not, plus will give you a good idea of whether the building issues a lot of special assessments and what their approach to maintenance is. There is zero reason to be surprised or confused about condo fees.

Actually, one of my complaints about owning a condo is how often other owners are totally clueless about the purpose of fees and want to do dumb things with the condo's money because they see the amount of money in the condo general fund and think it's time for a spending spree. Our building always has exactly one owner who wants to spend money on random projects that are not necessary and will not enhance the value of anyone's unit, because they have no concept of how money works.

I remember one condo board meeting where the owners of one unit were suggesting doing a [b]14k landscaping project [/b]to "beautify" a small strip of  property that people used as a pass through to our parking area. When it was pointed out that not only would suck up our entire condo fund but would also create a maintenance need going forward that wasn't within the budget of our current fee structure, this person literally said "who cares, it's just money." They were young owners who likely had bought with a down payment provided by parents and I don't think understood the concept of ROI. Fortunately the majority of owners in the building have always gotten this and we've never had to acquiesce to the idiotic demands of the less practical owners, but fighting with them over stuff that honestly shouldn't even be a question is the worst part of owning a condo and the main reason I look forward to seeing ours in a couple years time.

But condo fees themselves are fine. Ours pay for things we'd otherwise have to pay for ourselves, and it's honestly much easier to just pay one set fee to the building once a month than to have to deal with things like water and bulk trash and landscapers individually.[/quote]

ok, this is nothing. it's like a round error for big buildings. your condo fees are likely less than $500. condo fees can be in the thousands.[/quote]

That is often the case in larger buildings because the capital upkeep can be massive. When the main chiller unit went out on our high rise, it cost a million dollars to replace in part because we had to hire a crane to get the old unit from the top of our 20-story building and send up the new one. But my high fee also paid for the electric, water, and even the cable, plus the pool, lifeguards, desk clerks, security guard, building engineer, janitors landscaping, plowing, and everything else.[/quote]

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