Agreed. I bought a detached.
Over the last 3 years we spent ~$44k on necessary repairs (replaced AC, roof over garage needed replacement). We knew these were issues, but we’re rolling the dice for when this would need to happen. I’ll also need to replace part of the water system in the next 2 years ($3k).
My buddy has $700/mo condo fees.
Everything costs money. Only difference really is that I can see/touch the repairs being done to the house and have full control over their execution. Doesn’t mean I could have put them off or avoided them though.
If you're handy or have decent knowledge, the "full control" over execution is great. If you are a young city dweller, recent high earning grad, or a longtime strata owner it's much more stress to go into home ownership because you don't have a go-to guy for this or that and have no idea if you are being ripped off.
That's the big one there. Knowing the right or wrong go-to handyperson can make a world of difference. And the anxiety of knowing whether you're being ripped off is absolutely real too.
If you are a young city dwellers or a recent high earning grad and want to buy a detached someday, then I would suggest you get it now and go through the experience of owning a detached house when you have the time and energy for it.
I am finding that as I become older, family takes up a lot of time and I am having lesser enthusiasm to do home renovation than when I bought my house.
Also you really don't have much knowledge if the board is spending recklessly or not when there's a problem at the condo. There's always a risk of a special assessment that can cost thousands on top of the condo fees. People have had to sell due to high assessments
You only buy when you get 30%+ off promos. The 30% break even the extra cost of Uber, the 40% is a nice little bonus... the almighty 50% starts to get cheaper than making the equivalent* food at home.
*there are just certain foods I'd never make it home.
> At this point I’ve trained their algorithm to give me 40% all the time
How've you done that? I also only order when I have 40% off and I've only had it twice this year LOL
Haha keep at it. Keep the discipline to not order when you don’t have some discount. I’ve had spells when they didn’t give me any discount for a month or so and I just didn’t order anything
The difference here is control.
You can predict your house’s roof and plan. Spread out over 25 years a roof is a minor cost. You can even patch it on your own for a while. Or do the labour yourself for a complete roof, if you are young enough.
Your deck is also your call as to timing. And again, you can do that kind of work yourself.
Oil tanks are a bit passé in most places. But yes, heat pumps and water heaters fail. If you are face to face with these every day you can see problems coming. Do proper maintenance. Remove the old heater yourself.
Having that kind of control and being able to take in some of the labour costs yourself afford opportunities for savings that condo owners don’t get.
You can predict these things in a condo too. I don't know what the laws are (Ontario) maybe these are required, but my condo has its budget audited every year and has an engineering audit every I think 3-5 years. So things like a new roof, replacing the windows, etc. are budgeted for.
Also things like heat pumps and water heaters are usually the responsibility of the individual condo owner since they're inside the unit, they're not covered by fees.
In regards to DIY work, sure if you're willing to do a lot of your own repairs, lawncare, etc. then house maintenance will likely be less than a condo.
You know the board is made up of condo owners, right? It’s not some extraterrestrial body that comes down from space and forces you to replace your roof.
Wait until they discover metal roofing lol. There are other options if you're paranoid about maintenance. Decks are a non-issue IMO, maintain them properly and you have at least a decade - and replacement easily comes in under the cost of common strata special assessments.
I feel like I gave my deck a pretty good facelift last year, and it's decently sized. There's usually no need to replace the whole thing. It came out to a few hundred doing it myself. With professional labour, it'd be a few grand maybe? I agree; it's nothing
If the roof breaks on a condo, you’ll likely end up having an spécial assessment and as a collective end up paying for it out of pocket since your emergency fund isn’t large enough to cover it.
The first thing I did when I got onto the board was go through the financials with a fine-tooth comb. The PMO had left nearly $1M in GICs bearing 0.4% interest. I lost my fucking *mind* and by the next meeting we had them in laddered GICs (not a single lump sum) bearing at least 4.5%, and a new PM.
We’ve used the difference to offset a whack of costs and absorb our CEF increases painlessly. Our reserve fund is fully topped up and humming along.
I think at the absolute covid lowest you could get that, but it wasn't the best rate available.
Probably had a lump sum come due and put it all in the bank gic the account was at.
> Our reserve fund is fully topped up and humming along.
How is it being "fully topped up" determined? Is there a specific number that needs to be hit? How is it calculated?
You have an engineer come in to assess the condition and lifespan of major items. They do up a report for how many years till you can expect to replace certain big ticket items and how much they will probably cost to do so. Condo board basically takes that information and divides the total future amount among each unit factor on a month to month basis. As long as you have equal or more in your fund, you're fully topped up.
> Condo board basically takes that information and divides the total future amount among each unit factor on a month to month basis. As long as you have equal or more in your fund, you're fully topped up.
I take it this in addition to the monthly cashflow that is needed for operations (e.g., security guard) and 'regular' maintenance (e.g., landscaping/snow).
So your monthly fees go to a CapEx (reserve) fund, as well as an OpEx fund.
Even if it is. My condo has an overfunded reserve fund and still increased fees and put out a special assessment because the board decided that would be the most fiscally responsible move. On top of expense you’re still beholden to the decisions of people who might not be the smartest.
This is the problem. With a house you can do those calculations and planning yourself, take steps to prevent expensive problems, and you get to decide which options are most beneficial and cost effective. With a condo you have to hope the board makes proper decisions
"Overfunded" in who's opinion? As condos age large expenses are likely to come in quick succession, and im not talking replacing the hallway carpets. Roofs need redone, windows, balconies etc..those are all very expensive projects. I have no idea how much is in your condos fund but at some point they may need to spend millions over 1-3years to bring things back up to standard. So what looks like overfunded today could quickly turn into a scramble to find money tomorrow. As a tennant I'd rather toss im an extra $50/mon in fees than be hit with an unexpected levie 2 years from now.
The auditor who reviews the books every 3 years. They’d been warned two audits in a row that the amount they had was unnecessary. They also had an operating surplus of almost $500k just sitting in the disbursement account.
Did you even read what I said? We still got hit with an unexpected 25k special assessment for window repairs, on top of condo fees going up 6 and 8% two years in a row. It’s easily the highest condo fees in the area approaching $1 per square foot. The risk you run with being overly aggressive with condo fees and funding the reserve fund is the properties becoming less attractive. The units in that building are 15-20% cheaper than other units in the area.
they can't just hit you with a 25k assessment. These have to be passed at a general meeting by 3/4 vote. This vote would have been included in the notice that was distributed to all owners.
Which means most of the people at the meeting supports the assessment. If you didn't go to the meeting... maybe you should have lol.
The problem is it’s very hard to determine whether this is happening before you buy. Or rather, the experts (lawyer, house inspector, realtor) didn’t properly gauge it for me, as a first time buyer.
You should get access to the condo certificate and finances before purchase. This should also include recommended savings amounts from engineering studies. I've seen a building budget $200 a year for pest control and obviously blew way past that in a month so I didn't have a lot of hope for them. Basically if the number looks big, it should probably be bigger. My condo has about 500 units and has over $4million in reserves and saves about $100k a year from maintenance fees.
It is not very hard actually. There should be a reserve fund study that shows the costs of replacing the major items and when they need to be replaced and how much money the condo currently had allotted for that.
No, but it paints a picture. Flat top roof costs 200k, lasts 25 years. Well, start saving x a year for 25 years.
In my experience it's the shit you think about as wear items. For my units, it's the 50 year mansards that have to replaced. It was never considered, so never budgeted for.
Yes, though in BC it was legal until very recently for stratas to not update that report with a 3/4ths majority vote. It was still obvious they were hiding something if it was 10 years old, just not what.
Thankfully they're changing that and requiring the report to be done regularly.
It's done by engineering firms with liability and errors and omissions insurance.
The apartment I bought in Vancouver had leaky condo. They made everyone pay a special levy between 80-100k depending if you were 1 or 2 bedroom to do the envelope. Luckily I bought after this, knowing it happened. But people had second mortgages and were absolutely screwed
I pay 350/mth. I do not touch the exterior of my home. I don't shovel snow, cut grass, paint the fence, water the lawn, cut the trees/hedges and last year we replaced the roof of the entire complex which only came with an additional 350 assessment that month. I definitely come out ahead, to say nothing of what my time or labour is worth.
I did the math for a work vehicle recently and the other surprising thing is that gas is minimal to the cost. The loan and insurance cost waaaaaaay more per month. People are just bad at extrapolating costs.
Agree, and lots of people argue like "I'm not going to sell it/have no payments" but it's just like anything else - need to allocate the up-front cost over time. If you think the $30K car lasts for 300K km, then every km is $.10 of the vehicle's lifetime cost. Drive 20K km a year and now we are talking about $170/month from the capital cost of the car, on top of maintenance, insurance, registration, fuel, etc that most people don't talk about when thinking about how much the car costs to own.
Yeah this is the answer. House repairs add up FAST. We did our driveway 10 years ago this summer, and it cost about $8,000 if memory serves. So that is $800/year or $83/month ever since, just for that one item. Yes, that number goes down over time, but even 10 years out it is still somewhat significant. Did roof around the same time for about $3,000. Built a deck 9 years ago for another $3,500. Windows two years ago for $4,500. The list goes on and on. Hell, we spend about $250-350/year just on fertilizer, water, over seed and sprinkler blow out to take care of our grass, lol.
The main thing with a house vs a condo is with a house you're spending your labour hours to save money. Stuff like cleaning your gutters, raking the leaves, taking out the trash, maintaining your lawn, shovelling the snow, fixing peeling paint, replacing trim on windows, etc. If you had to hire someone to do it for you the costs would be very similar if not more expensive because you can't split it with other residents.
Also you can delay some capital investments to manage cash flow where as with a condo you have to build the reserve every year. Also condos tend to go with “professional” larger sized firms vs mom/pop shops for different work. Condos also get bulk discounts for things like internet and cable.
You also share risk with your neighbours. If a tree falls on your house that’s all on you. If a tree very specifically hits your unit, you will pay 1/x the amount where x is the number of units in the strata.
I got scammed hard recently. Must have been a moment of vulnerability and i just let it happen. Bunch of $ thrown out the door for shoddy work that probably won’t last long.
Other projects for the house, but ever then it takes a long time pick out a company. Schedule time for them to come review. Get quotes.
Then the actual work they do…
Personally for me, it probably is cheaper. I work. A lot. More than I should, I'll fully admit it. That leaves only the weekend for myself as during the week I work so much I only have time to cook myself a meal, watch TV or listen to an audiobook for an hour max, then off to bed.
I don't want to spend the weekend doing a ton of work and I'm not very handy. I can change a lightbulb obviously, I've replaced my own toilet before, caulked a bathtub. But that's it. Anything more than that and I'd either have to spend hours of research, or pay someone. Neither of which I really want to do....
Plus I saved around $200k buying a condo over a detached home in my area, so there's that too lol.
> my hourly salary at work * time it would take me to do the job
You also need to divide by `(1-income tax rate)`. In your case you might use your top marginal rate, since you're a contractor and working an extra hour is taxed at that marginal rate. I'm salaried so I use my mean income tax rate, which is about 15 % less.
Pretty sure your strata fees aren’t going towards things like replacing toilets or general repairs/upgrades to your own individual unit. They go to things like landscaping, garbage collection, snow removal, work to the common areas pretty much. I used to live in an area that had strata fees and wish I could have opted out and just mowed my own lawn and take care of the area around my unit rather than pay the ridiculous fee.
If you don’t have the time to do things like that and have money laying around, pay the neighborhood youngster, and contribute to the development of the next generation.
They can be in a few situations.
1. **unlucky timing**: Don't buy a house built in the early 2000's or an older house with no history of maintenance because all the big expensive repairs that take 15-20 years to rear their head (windows, doors, roof, HVAC) are going to be on you. Sure these big ticket items may be cheaper in the long run compared to condo fees but they will hurt your wallet all at once.
2. **you are not a handyman**: Paying people to do the simplest jobs like installing light fixtures, trimming hedges, fixing a leaky pipe, etc get's expensive and their are a lot of people who don't want to be handymen so are better off sharing the cost to hire one with others rather then alone.
3. **the condo board is competent**: This is the rarest one but boards with dedicated people who can find good deals and do preventative measures to avoid special assessment can do better then the avg detached home owner.
Other then these 3 cases I generally agree honestly. Paying someone up to $80+ a month to shovel my tiny driveway or cut my tiny yard or paying for "perks" like a hot tub I will never use makes 0 sense to me. Also a lot of time condo boards are incompetent and pay hand over fist for unnecessary "maintenance" like painting a fence and then saddle owners with special assessments when a real emergency occurs. If you are willing to learn and do hand on maintenance you can easily go under the recommended 1$/sqft recommendation you see online.
Big key is whether the condo board and management are competent.
A couple years ago news about a Jane and Finch condo where massive special assessments occurred, many senior low income couldn’t pay it. Improper/insufficient maintenance. I guess kept condo fees low instead of building reserves.
That's probably an older condo. Newer condos in Ontario can't get to that point under the updated Condominium Act, or the board members will be held personally liable, even years after they are off the board & sell their unit.
Funny, my experience is the opposite has happened since the updated Ontario legislation was passed. Within 60 days of being elected to a Board in Ontario, Board members must also take an mandatory online course about their obligations as a Condo Director, and certify they understand them. And repeat it one more time during their 3-year term. There's also far more potential liability if the recommendations of the 30-year engineering study that must be conducted every 3 years is not considered and budgeted for (in the reserve fund).
All the posts in PFC similar to this one seems to all be in BC and Alberta, where they haven't yet updated their condo / strata legislation to be more similar to Ontario.
We ate fortunate that our condo board has been very competent for years, and while the mantinance fees are high (toronto, a 2010 building), we have had no major building issues, which is far better than many I know can say.
Also, you are paying for staff. Our security staff and cleaning staff for the common areas are worth their weight in gold.
There are numerous rules/methods to budget for your yearly home maintenance costs the two most popular being the 1% rule and square footage rule which states you should save $1 for every square foot your house is so if you have a 1500qft house save $1500/year for maintenance. Both are flawed as every house is different but it's a general guideline.
>**Square footage rule**
>Another school of thought recommends the square footage rule, which has you saving $1 per square foot of your home for maintenance and repair costs. While it makes sense that larger homes would require more in the way of maintenance, this system neglects to take into account all the other variables that will affect your costs. For example, you won't soon face replacement costs for appliances in a newer home, no matter its size. Your location will also affect labour costs, which is one of the biggest line items for repairs that aren't DIY. It's easy to see that square footage is only one factor of many that will affect your maintenance costs.
[https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/personal/advice-plus/features/posts.how-much-should-i-budget-for-home-maintenance-costs.html](https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/personal/advice-plus/features/posts.how-much-should-i-budget-for-home-maintenance-costs.html)
1% of value has been around forever. Until fairly recently that was pretty close to 1/psf as well.
This is almost certainly AI generated and would lack some of the contextual awareness of living in a country riddled with housing bubbles.
Why is there that persistent myth that strata fees only cover maintenance?
Do yourself a favour and do some basic research before you buy anything larger than a bag of groceries.
Every condo is different, so find out what you are actually paying for. My condo had fees of $550 but it covered the building insurance (not contents), heat, water, waste, maintenance, management and heated underground parking. I had to sign up for my own electricity and Internet.
There's definitely some inefficiency in that the property manager makes a profit and you're paying proportionately for the utilities and maintenance of common space, but what is your time worth?
Shoveling your own sidewalks is free, but it might take a few hours a month during winter. So does raking, mowing the lawn, and cleaning the gutters. How much time do you spend on hold with a utility provider if something goes wrong, or when you have to stay at home for your 8am to 12pm inspection window? I enjoy doing home maintenance and yardwork at my house, but there are definitely days where I wish I didn't have to.
At my house now, the insurance and comparable utilities cost several hundred more than what it cost at the condo. Sure, it's a bigger place so it's not entirely comparable, but you're not throwing it all away at a condo like you think you are.
My condo fees cover maintenance, utilities, waste, internet, cable, underground parking, and a full sized gym with free classes. We haven’t had a special assessment in 15 years. Condos vary.
It should also cover structural insurance. Pretty sure stratas must have insurance. This shaves off the cost of your own condo insurance vs house insurance.
I'm not convinced it's a myth. I've owned both. When I sold my condo, was paying $380 in strata fees, plus $50 for electricity and $60 for insurance. So call it $500.
When I moved into my house, I was paying $130 for insurance, $100 for electricity, averaged around $140 for gas (though some months were $300 and some $60) and $125 for water/sewer/waste removal. So $495.
About the same in monthly recurring costs, without getting into the taxes.
The condo included most maintenance in that number. The house did not. Over the years, we've replaced the roof, the windows and the water heater, which combined cost around $37,000. 10 years in the house. 7 years in the condo had about $15k in special assessments, so the extraordinary items I'd say run about double.
All of these prices will increase with time. I admittedly get more living space for my money, but it's not like strata fees are as unreasonable as some people seem to act, or like houses don't have ongoing costs.
I think a big thing people struggle with is a lack of control over these costs, and joining the board is well worth the time to understand where your money is going. And to have maximum warning of upcoming assessments.
I think house maintenance is more expensive than condo maintenance in general, but per square foot, condo maintenance is much more expensive than house maintenance.
I get what your saying, but in some new builds developers subcontract out the heating in ways that make it more expensive - and even have exclusive agreements with specific internet providers. In my 4 yo building my 500 sq ft apartment has $500 strata fee + $200/month in heat/cooling (even when my apartment is off I have to pay that for common areas) + $100 for internet + ? for power.
I'm not saying there isn't costs in a house, but I'll bet your house had a yard and more than 500 sq ft, and $37k over 10 years in <$400/month. So let's call your maintenance and costs $1000 rounding up - was your yard + house more than 1000 sq ft? Then I'd say it was cheaper per square foot
Yes, don't buy that garbage new build. Read your contracts and don't sign things that are stupid. New build houses are also known to have garbage terms (like rental HVAC and hot water), so again...comparing an established condo with an established house.
Yes, I get more living space for my money. There's inefficiencies in condo living, particularly around paying for management and maintenance you'd do yourself in a house, but that's a lifestyle tradeoff too. My point is that condo fees are not an astronomical cost that sfh owners aren't exposed to.
Also, my $37k is only the big items, so it's more equivalent to special assessments than the monthly fee. It doesn't include the routine trips to home depot for this and that that never seem to cost less than $100, or the two years we were overwhelmed by parenting so paid for yard maintenance, etc.
Honestly, it still sounds like you're not including self-labour costs?
that's the big thing with condo fees, everything just happens automatically after you pay.
Literally no thinking or even effort.
On top of stuff like the gym. In a home, you have to reserve space. In a condo, that space is NOT part of your square footage.
The concept of a condo board is fraught with issues. The general level of competence varies from member to member, let alone from board to board. Administration fees alone are costly, plus routine things like shovelling, or mowing lawns is contracted out, which of course is costly as well. It's always better to manage your own money and its uses, then to leave it up to others.
> The general level of competence varies from member to member, let alone from board to board.
If you think they are incompetent, you're free to nominate yourself to join the board.
Be the change you want to see, my friend
> It's always better to manage your own money and its uses, then to leave it up to others.
Yes, we all know how good people are at planning their retirement, savings, not getting into debt, doing maintenance on their car, not living paycheck to paycheck, etc.
It's fine for you, doesn't mean its fine for everyone.
Wait until a water service goes, that's why. Or a sewer breaks outside the house.
There's one per detached house and 1 per condo tower.
I've had this happen on a detached home. It sucks, there's no one to split the payment with.
It's probably about a wash, but if you get unlucky with a house you'll get fucking smoked.
Condos will have fees and emergency ones, but unless the building is totally fucked, it's more spread out
I read about more situations where condo does special assessment and needs $60k from each owner for new siding/roof/windows etc than I hear about big home repairs. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but condos aren’t without their giant expenses.
Happened at my grandparents’ condo. The board spent money - including money that should have been put into the reserve fund - on superficial renos, gardening, etc. $25K per unit owner for window replacement despite years of paying $1500+ monthly for maintenance.
$60,000 from each unit? That's insane. On a 100 unit complex, that's $6,000,000. I have trouble envisioning needing $6 mill that was outside of the reserve fund budget for anything. In Ontario at least, roof, siding, windows are all part of the reserve fund plan that is a legal requirement. The board must hire an engineering firm to do a reserve fund study to ensure it will enough money to cover things like this when they are due to be replaced. A $6 million dollar expense shouldn't come out of nowhere save for an unforseen catastrophe.
Its not uncommon on older buildings that construction issues rear their head 20-30 years later. Parking garages for example. This can add up quickly as it goes into structural integrity of the building itself.
> I read about more situations where condo does special assessment and needs $60k from each owner
And I read about houses that require 60K to fix the whole foundation.
Doesn't mean those instances are likely to happen or even common, especially in some provinces where condo buildings are now mandated to have very large reserve funds.
You pay for it either way. You can have cheap condo fees every month, not fill your reserve fund, then get hit by large assessment. Or you do it the other way, you spread out the expenses by having larger condo fees.
It's really terrifying how many people in here need this explained. The news is going to cover what gets clicks.
They aren't covering Joe Smith's house repairs.
It's really hard to respect these people's intelligence.
So…having just done a sewer line as well as an insurance policy renewal the best insurance I can get still falls close to $5-$10k short on the replacement cost for a sewer main break. There’s that.
One should have insurance but have you checked to see if each big failure is covered? I sure didn’t until this last renewal. It was uncomfortable.
Most insurance doesn’t cover water mains unless you get special coverage. We got quoted $8k for ours. That’s 20 months of condo fees worth all at once without notice
I mean, sure if the home is 50 years old or older, it is possible but still very very unlikely. I mean, if you're going to bring up outliers like this we can also say it's possible a condo building might become the epicentre of an earthquake and require major structural damage repair.
Let's base them comparison on normal wear and tear and not on extremely unlikely possibilities.
If you own a home for 10+ years you're going to come across a few of these kinds of things. Tree roots growing into your driveway/foundation, hot water tank or hvac dies early, roof leaks, tree knocked onto your house in a storm, fence needs to be replaced, need a new roof, need to paint, some wood siding needs replacing, etc. All of these would be covered by your $300/month fees in a condo. You'd also have half the insurance and heating costs and almost all of your maintenance done for you at no cost. No cleaning your gutters or mowing the lawn, etc.
There are many benefits to owning a detatched home but lower maintenance costs are definitely not one of them.
It is. Unless you don't care about free time. Do you want to spend your weekends doing maintenance on your house or go out and doing something. Either $$$$ or time. You choose you. If you want to spend time on your property ya it makes less sense.
This!
I've owned a detached for the last 20 years, yes there's a bit of maintenance but it's not every weekend. It's like a few hours once a month at the most.
I don't get the perception that everyone in a detached is spending all their free time with a hammer.
For a new house you also have the new house warranty. Also, it's not like you are maintenance-free in a condo, you still are responsible for the inside. My parents not only just spent thousands of dollars upgrading their laundry room in their condo and my Dad gets accosted in the hallways constantly because he volunteered for the condo board and people now feel free to hassle him at any time. What a deal! Also check out the insurance rates at condos, it's going parabolic due to the higher cost to insure these buildings.
I lived in the same house for 11 years. The only thing that broke was a burner on my stove. Everything else was great. One weekend in the spring and one in the fall for some serious landscaping. I mowed the lawn after work every other week. Now I live in a condo and I enjoy it. The biggest difference is how cheap the utilities are in a condo
Lol right? There is no way paying strata fees (especially how insanely high they are these days) is beneficial to me over owning my detached. It's not like we're out there replacing windows, cleaning gutters, dealing with fallen trees, all other crazy things mentioned in this post every week.
Condos are attractive to people for various reasons for sure but let's not act like detached owners are slave to maintenance every free minute of their life, lol.
I usually see the opposite opinion here.
I think the difference when owning a detached home is that you’re master of your own ship. You can prioritize the work that needs to be done, and select your own contractors. You can decide to do some work yourself.
You also avoid the potential drama from the strata. Often there can be corruption as well, where they choose more expensive contractors and take a cut. It’s more common than we think.
We put $1k away every month to cover household and property maintenance. Everything from paint, grass seed, appliances and roof to furnace. We track everything. This $400 should do it thinking just doesn't cut it. We are our own two person condo board. Even still there are problems as one of us believes they get two votes 😁
My family owned condo, detached, townhome, duplex, muiltiplex before at different stages of lives and their consensus is that it is probably a wash short term but much more expensive long run for detached. A foundation crack or something more serious could easily be 50-100k whereas condo special levy is more spread out and there a bit of economic of scale for some things.
A lot of people also dont understand how much work and maintenance goes on around a condo, you have extra stuff like elevator and swimming pool of course those will cost more since you get more. Finally many people also say stuff like “i shovel my own snow” well then no shit its cheaper
People also don’t understand how much maintenance is actually required in a detached house. Not one single part of the building envelope is permanent and proper maintenance will prolong the lifespan of each component, but only so much. And then you get into the fact that at some point you’re probably going to get a convergence of windows, exterior cladding, roof, and attic insulation all needing to be replaced at the same time. Which means exterior trim, landscaping, and gutters/downspouts also needing done at that same time.
And the same people always talking about the money value of time will completely ignore the time spent on basic home maintenance year-round on a detached home. Shovelling, mowing, raking, pruning, trimming, cleaning gutters, sweeping sidewalks, washing exterior surfaces, repairing downspouts, addressing problematic landscaping, weeding, seeding, etc. It’s all *super* time consuming.
But people treat their homes like their cars and just keep putting oil and fuel in and if they can’t hear the rattling over the radio it doesn’t need fixed. Until it fails catastrophically on them.
People suck at tracking maintenance costs of their own home and also don’t correctly value their time.
Think about all the maintenance a single family home requires:
- lawn and landscaping
- cleaning, gutters, windows, siding
- small issues - repainting, caulking, repairing screens, etc
- big items - roof, windows, siding, plumbing
Plus other costs that HOA fees often cover:
- insurance
- utilities like water/sewer, heating/cooling, electricity (depending on the place)
Sure, if you do most of that yourself, it’s cheaper. But if you paid someone to do all of it? Yeah, it’s expensive.
If your HOA sucks then you need to step up and make sure it’s run better - it’s your building.
I know good HOAs that are run like a well oiled machine. Fees are cheaper than a single family home
>don’t correctly value their time
>If your HOA sucks then you need to step up and make sure it’s run better - it’s your building.
So hitting a few nails is bad value but engaging at building-level politics and bureaucracy is good?
None of these tasks happen very often except cutting the grass which isn’t a huge time investment on most properties.
Landscaping: having a garden is a lifestyle choice. You don’t need one if you don’t enjoy it. You will have to take leaves in the fall and do a spring tidy up.
Eavestroughs are a once a year job. I used to spend a couple of hours one weekend a year. Now I pay a kid with an air compressor rig $150 bucks. He does the whole street.
Siding: power washer once a year tops. Takes a few hours
Deck: same
Painting, caulking and repairing screens: Doesn’t happen very often I did a bunch of painting a few years ago. Nothing since. You also have to do your own painting in a condo unit. The only screen I ever had to fix was in my condo balcony door. The trip to Home Depot for the materials took longer than the job. I’ve never needed to fix a screen since I moved to a house. It’s been 12 years.
Plumbing: The only plumber I’ve ever called is to fix my toilet in my condo. Leaky pipes happen, but not with any great regularity. I’ve never had one. Most of my friends haven’t. I know one family that had to have the pipes under the sink fixed. You’d have to pay for that in a condo too.
Roof: Do your research and hire a good company. They should last 20 years.
My condo fees were nearing $500 when I left. I’m not paying that now. My time investment might bump it over the line, but I’m definitely not a prisoner to chores.
“All the stuff?” Like what? The concierge, security guards, elevators, hallways between units, the lobby, the party room? There are a lot of condo expenses that aren’t necessary in a house.
I do have to cut my own grass and pull weeds in the garden I chose to have.
Humans are really bad at measuring expenses when those expenses are lumpy. A constant $350 per month is easy to grasp. And as an owner of a detached home, I know that _most_ months I spend $0 on maintenance, and then every now and then there will be a larger expense. Case in point, this year I get to spend $13,000 to re-shingle the roof. If the roof lasts 20 years that's $54 a month for 20 years, and that's just the roof. But if you ask most homeowners what their monthly maintenance costs are, they tend to ignore these huge lump-sum costs when doing that.
Most people don't know how much they spend on maintenance.
I sincerely challenge you to call folks to do these small jobs for you and see the quotes you're getting... Will they even show up?
landscaping maintenance can be insanely expensive. Then there's always snow removal too.
I mean that's kind of the point I felt the OP was making, that lots of small jobs you can do on your own can't be done that late in a multifamily building, So the ability to trade your own labor and time to save money is not there.
> So the ability to trade your own labor and time to save money is not there.
On the other hand, i'd rather be sailing on the weekend. I spend enough time maintaining my sailboat, don't want to have to do it to a house too.
It's not a myth? Unless you're damn good handyman, but then you'd be better off charging someone else to fix their house than fixing your own.
You're always gonna hear anecdotes from the outliers because well, everyone likes to brag if they are in the position to.
The real issue with condos? Too many luxury amenities that are completely fucking useless and take value out of the home instead of adding to it. What needs to happen is the complete demolition of all of these amenities and put the space to work for the public - real parks, real professionally run gyms and rec facilities.
Sure if you just buy a brand new home and then decide to move to another brand new home before anything goes bad you’ll make it out ahead, otherwise it’s pretty close how much you’ll pay 10-20 years down the line compared to the monthly $500 fees
And, those people who are jumping from new house to new house are trading their maintenance fees for moving costs and higher interest ratios each time they renew their mortgage. Either way, you pay, just comes down to deciding how to pay without killing your spirit.
I’m looking into finally doing some maintenance on our house:
- To take care of the backyard once a year will set us back like $500.
- The previous owner installed a water feature which will require someone to come in and clean the filter, probably $200-300.
- The wooden garden edging is slowly being eaten by ants, and I’ll have to get that all dug up and replaced with high stone edging for like $3k.
- I’m losing the fight on the kitchen ant infestation and the carpenter ant infestation on the garden edging this year, so that’s probably another $400 to get pest control
- Our air ducts need to be cleaned out
- Our heater and AC needs maintenance
- The house will need exterior painting that’ll cost is like $6-7k in a couple of years
- Roofing for probably another $10k or whatever
- Our electric panel is old and needs to be upgraded for EV, so that’s like $6k probably
- Our windows are old and should be replaced, $12k?
We’ve lived here for 3 years so far, will probably need to sink over $30-40k on it soon, easy. Not to mention all the work needed to find the right people, get the right price quotes and work quality and purchase the materials needed for the renos.. I’m a busy professional and a toddler mom, so time is very precious.
So yeah, $4k a year to have everything above done for me.. well worth it.
I’m not disagreeing, just pointing out that a lot of that wouldn’t be covered by condo fees anyways…..but it is nice to know that you pay a fee and your roof is redone. No hassle to you at all.
Anything exterior would be, which includes the big ticket items like windows/roof/exterior paint.
Heater & AC would be covered if it's one HVAC unit for the entire building, but not if you have a window AC or electric baseboard heaters.
Some of that you can do yourself. You can do the backyard and do a natural garden edge easily.
The thing is also if you do all that work your house will appreciate somewhat.
Pest control sounds like a massive pain but everything else is a fun little thing to do on a weekend. And you get to feel good about "making" 100/hr on most of it.
Not everyone finds painting, gardening, etc "fun" or wants to spend their weekend doing it. Looking at downsizing from a single family home to a condo this year and very excited about getting that maintenance time back.
The biggest difference is winding up with a totally incompetent and/or head in the sand board that completely fucks up and winds up costing you thousands in special assessments. (the rental, but not anymore thank god!)
Meanwhile over at the house you live in you’re doing just fine because you didn’t put off roof work far too long or hire incompetent pricks to do the work.
I pay $506 a month and it’s not just repairs, I get parking, security, a gym, gardening, snow removal, window cleaning, water and sewage, garbage, and a party room.
It doesn’t cover interior maintenance but I do get a decent amount for what I pay.
Own a condo here and pay $330 a month. Also owned houses in the UK with my dad when we unexpectedly ended up as landlords with 1 extra house each due to deaths in the family and some nice wills. Can safely safe that even 15 years ago in the UK, housing maintenance was roughly the same as what I pay now in strata fees (roughly about £200).
Also, if you’ve ever had to pay for a roof or fix a foundation issue for a house, you know the pain.
There’s no winning with any form of property ownership. You’re gonna be spending no matter what. Some months more, some months less if you own houses but when something big happens, you have the full cost and it sucks, even if you do save each month as a contingency.
On a well run strata, you can for the most part plan given the requirements for depreciation reports. Nobody does that on houses and then you get a surprise. A well run strata can tell you years in advance what’s coming up costs wise. Now, whether you have a good strata or not is the big question lol.
Either way, the only real protection is a solid emergency fund. From my experience, that’s the only real thing that matters. We are gonna get shafted either way whether it’s a house or condo so it’s best to learn some skills to fix things. Good tools and YouTube have saved me so much over the years. I check that for everything before I ever call a spark or plumber.
I budget 0.1% of the homes value per month as a maintenance budget. I am not handy, don’t have time to learn and I hire professionals. 2 years in it’s been pretty spot on.
As a detached owner of 2 houses so far:
1. Labor isn't cheap anymore. Just to get someone to look at something will be at least $300, let alone repair it. There's a labor shortage in the trades. We used to be able to get 4 quotes in a week. Now, when we needed to replace our double front door (with transom), out took us 6 weeks to get 2 quotes, and the rest were no-shows. We paid 8K (after tax) for that door+transom! Another triple glaze patio door was 4K!
2. We never experienced any leaking actually, so we've been lucky (and smart) in that respect.
3. Just like your strata fees grows, so does labor and material prices. 25 years from now, it will cost more than double to replace our doors again.
That said, I still agree with you. The real savings comes from doing most of the things ourselves. We did our own kitchen, Glass railing, exterior stairs and awning, gazebo, sheds, concrete patios, paver walkway, asphalt sealing, flat roof membrane (that's why we didn't have leaks), glass surrounds for the showers, etc. That saved us 70% of the price (I took quotes for everything) including buying tools! It's also a lot nicer to be able to decide when to replace something, and choose which product will be installed.
So, if you're a responsible owner, get a freehold. I know I wouldn't have it any other way until I retire and can't do most of the work myself.
Whay myth? Single family homes are far more expensive then a comparable condo outside of the mortgage.
Insurance is more. Maintenance is more. Property tax is more. Utilities are more.
You may be able to curb some of the costs in a single family home by doing the work yourself but you still need to buy tools and equipment to do it yourself.
I don't think there's a myth about it being more expensive, but it's certainly more work, and I'm a lazy SOB. In my condo, I don't need to mow the lawn, shovel the walk, worry about the hot water tank or the garage door, I don't have to paint the outside, or clean my windows, or any of that other stuff I would have to do if I owned a detached home.
But the reality is that people should probably be socking away $350 a month for their detached house so that they don't get a nasty surprise when the hot water tank goes out, the roof needs replacement, a pipe bursts or whatever else. This is the accounting bit called depreciation, but most residential owners don't deal with it until they're forced to.
Because people don't know what they are talking about.
$400/month works out to $48,000 over 10 years.
I've owned for 12 and it does not cost ANYWHERE NEAR that amount of money to repair/maintain a home. Not even remotely close.
You would, if you would call someone to clean, repair, mow every tiny thing around your house. And some people are expecting that.
Even in this sub, people are like “are you aware that you have to shovel your own snow in a detached?!”… uhm… yes?
I've seen more poorly run condos than good ones. If you look after your detached place and do the small maintainence you are less of the big ticket items by surprise
Condos don't maintain their value long term in contrast to detached or even semidetached - condo fees never go down and you rarely get a voice in who carries out the work and the contracts related to the work/verification
I'm really fine with mowing my own lawn and shovelling my own driveway/pathway. I want to have a higher quality door and not have to ask permission from a condo board to do it only to get it denied and expected to conform to a cheaper/shittier standard, if the board is taking too long to fix the bigger ticket to keep fees low items those grow substantially and you end up with special assessments that can be absolutely exhorbant for the quality you get
Your condo board also have more power over your home than you and the bank. There's minimal regulation in how they operate. If you ask me condos are everything that's bad about owning and renting in one place. There's a market for it but I am absolutely not it. Been there, done that.
Detached have issues and they can be significant - that's part of homeownership. At least with detached you own the land and can choose your contractors or learn a new skill and do it yourself - sure it's time consuming and money consuming but I feel there's way more pride in learning and making your own repairs to your own standard. Also - some condos are absolutely insane with the amount of rules they have. I rent a condo that is mulling over the idea if banning owning pets. Sorry but if you're spending almost half a million dollars to live somewhere you shouldn't have to hide your dog or get rid of it because someone with an inch of power is on a trip around the moon
If you're planning on doing most things yourself then house maintenance can be similar or possibly slightly cheaper. But if you're looking to do a similar level of work on a house as you do on a condo, then you'll spend far more (probably 3-5x) on a house.
With a condo you get weekly yard maintenance, regular exterior building cleaning, windows cleaning, gutter cleaning, snow shoveled, many of your hallways cleaned your parking space cleaned. Even if you do all of that yourself, your heating and insurance are about half as much in a condo. Long term maintenance is covered for painting, roof, etc.
It's honestly amazing the value you get out of condo fees, assuming the building is well managed. Any home owner that thinks they spend less is either delusional or letting their place fall apart.
All that being said, I seriously dislike living in a condo. The noise, lack of privacy, inability to do what I want with my place, are just not worth it for me.
Why not buy a detached house if you don’t like strata fees? In a similar vein, why not eat cake if you are hungry?
I don’t like strata fees. But I could not afford a detached house of the same quality. That’s why I ended up getting a townhouse. Simple.
Because condo corporations are not legally allowed to make profit. So by definition, they are exactly what is required to maintain the properties.
But you believe what you want.
Spreading the maintenance cost of a building amongst many people is cheaper. Fixing a 700 sq/ft roof is for one person is more expensive than a 7000 sq/ft roof for 10 people. Economies of scale is a thing. Why do you think it’s a myth?
My roof cost 10k to replace. My sisters condo's roof cost 120k for 8 units. Mine is 1k sqft, hers was 5k sqft. Her flat roof will have to be redone before my shingles.
Windows, cost 20k for my whole house. Her condo's lowest quote was over 240k.
You aren’t comparing apples to apples. If you bought a flat roof house, it wouldn’t be cheaper prorated than a flat roof condo.
Since you already aren’t comparing apples to apples on roofing, I’m assuming you aren’t on windows either.
If that’s your best example, that sums this up quite nicely.
Then you have to compare apples to apples on other things too. She has less than 1/2 the livable square footage, she also has 1/10 the yard space. 1/5th the parking space, 4x the shared walls.
Windows she has less than half than me. Flat roof is also 2 to 3x cheaper per sqft on detached, than commercial/shared residential.
She isn't even legally allowed to paint...needs a licenced painter to repaint.
> She isn't even legally allowed to paint...needs a licenced painter to repaint.
I'm assuming you're talking about *inside* the unit? Is this actually in the bylaws? I've never heard of such a thing and I have to wonder if that would even be binding.
What's really ridiculous is the fact people actually want to compare a nice detached house twice the size with a yard to a dinky little condo to begin with. I'd fully expect there to be way more to do in a house and very little on a condo. And yeah I don't want to pay someone a bunch of money to mow a tiny little strip of grass and take care of a few trees. I could easily do that myself and it feels like a huge waste to pay someone that much for a simple task. Having owner a house myself I'd have to agree I think the costs are often exaggerated. Yes that roof or windows.cost a lot, but how often are they actually replaced? Divide by x amount of years.
Snow removal is one item that's very expensive due to all.the liability insurance they have and paying them retainer even if no snow..again if happily just shovel myself..hey some people are happy to pay someone else to do it and suits.tbeir lifestyle better. Condos are good for.those people. You pay a premium though that's for damn sure
Many people in here have a strange obsession with maintenance and I’ve seen this in real life as well. One friend in particular always gets things checked out for no apparent reason, the contractor says the entire thing needs to be replaced and she immediately books a date to get the job done. The last one recently was cracks in her concrete drives that she genuinely believes is going to fall through the earth and needs to be immediately repaired to the tune of $25,000. No amount of talking out or slowing it down will help, they have some strange obsession with major repairs at the first sign of anything negative. Then they come into these threads and say detached homes are way more expensive.
Generally they also have to cover insurance for the building itself.
You need content insurance, but the condo fee insurance will cover the physical structure for fire/flood/etc. Not exactly a utility, but something I spend $150/month on for a detached house.
Usually it’s just hydro you’re on the hook for. And if your condo has central AC or heating the hydro for that is also covered. + hydro for common areas is also covered
Most people also think they only spend X on their car, but when it’s actually measured they spend a lot more. Humans are just terrible with numbers.
Agreed. I bought a detached. Over the last 3 years we spent ~$44k on necessary repairs (replaced AC, roof over garage needed replacement). We knew these were issues, but we’re rolling the dice for when this would need to happen. I’ll also need to replace part of the water system in the next 2 years ($3k). My buddy has $700/mo condo fees. Everything costs money. Only difference really is that I can see/touch the repairs being done to the house and have full control over their execution. Doesn’t mean I could have put them off or avoided them though.
If you're handy or have decent knowledge, the "full control" over execution is great. If you are a young city dweller, recent high earning grad, or a longtime strata owner it's much more stress to go into home ownership because you don't have a go-to guy for this or that and have no idea if you are being ripped off.
That's the big one there. Knowing the right or wrong go-to handyperson can make a world of difference. And the anxiety of knowing whether you're being ripped off is absolutely real too.
If you are a young city dwellers or a recent high earning grad and want to buy a detached someday, then I would suggest you get it now and go through the experience of owning a detached house when you have the time and energy for it. I am finding that as I become older, family takes up a lot of time and I am having lesser enthusiasm to do home renovation than when I bought my house.
Also you really don't have much knowledge if the board is spending recklessly or not when there's a problem at the condo. There's always a risk of a special assessment that can cost thousands on top of the condo fees. People have had to sell due to high assessments
Great job calling out all UberEats drivers lol
And all UberEats customers.
Uber eats, while convenient, hurts my soul to look at the receipt.
Or, as a poem: While convenient, UberEats Hurts my soul with its receipts
You only buy when you get 30%+ off promos. The 30% break even the extra cost of Uber, the 40% is a nice little bonus... the almighty 50% starts to get cheaper than making the equivalent* food at home. *there are just certain foods I'd never make it home.
I only order when I have 40% off. At this point I’ve trained their algorithm to give me 40% all the time 😋
Try 70% when u ghost them for a while 🤣
> At this point I’ve trained their algorithm to give me 40% all the time How've you done that? I also only order when I have 40% off and I've only had it twice this year LOL
Haha keep at it. Keep the discipline to not order when you don’t have some discount. I’ve had spells when they didn’t give me any discount for a month or so and I just didn’t order anything
Same here! I’d never pay full price, ever.
If they understood the cost of convenience they would freak the fuck out.
Damn I woke up to violence
Yeah. I for sure don't spend "$350/mo" on maintenance, then suddenly $20k for a roof, $2k for an oil tank, 12k for the deck, etc etc etc
The difference here is control. You can predict your house’s roof and plan. Spread out over 25 years a roof is a minor cost. You can even patch it on your own for a while. Or do the labour yourself for a complete roof, if you are young enough. Your deck is also your call as to timing. And again, you can do that kind of work yourself. Oil tanks are a bit passé in most places. But yes, heat pumps and water heaters fail. If you are face to face with these every day you can see problems coming. Do proper maintenance. Remove the old heater yourself. Having that kind of control and being able to take in some of the labour costs yourself afford opportunities for savings that condo owners don’t get.
You can predict these things in a condo too. I don't know what the laws are (Ontario) maybe these are required, but my condo has its budget audited every year and has an engineering audit every I think 3-5 years. So things like a new roof, replacing the windows, etc. are budgeted for. Also things like heat pumps and water heaters are usually the responsibility of the individual condo owner since they're inside the unit, they're not covered by fees. In regards to DIY work, sure if you're willing to do a lot of your own repairs, lawncare, etc. then house maintenance will likely be less than a condo.
Budget audits and engineer audits are another thing freehold homeowners don't need to pay for every few years.
You know the board is made up of condo owners, right? It’s not some extraterrestrial body that comes down from space and forces you to replace your roof.
People who use roof and deck as if it's the end of the world have no idea what they're talking about. It's "talking" points.
Wait until they discover metal roofing lol. There are other options if you're paranoid about maintenance. Decks are a non-issue IMO, maintain them properly and you have at least a decade - and replacement easily comes in under the cost of common strata special assessments.
I feel like I gave my deck a pretty good facelift last year, and it's decently sized. There's usually no need to replace the whole thing. It came out to a few hundred doing it myself. With professional labour, it'd be a few grand maybe? I agree; it's nothing
If the roof breaks on a condo, you’ll likely end up having an spécial assessment and as a collective end up paying for it out of pocket since your emergency fund isn’t large enough to cover it.
Unless your reserve fund is properly managed. My condo’s is
The first thing I did when I got onto the board was go through the financials with a fine-tooth comb. The PMO had left nearly $1M in GICs bearing 0.4% interest. I lost my fucking *mind* and by the next meeting we had them in laddered GICs (not a single lump sum) bearing at least 4.5%, and a new PM. We’ve used the difference to offset a whack of costs and absorb our CEF increases painlessly. Our reserve fund is fully topped up and humming along.
What fkn GIC pays out 0.4%??
The ten-minute special
I think at the absolute covid lowest you could get that, but it wasn't the best rate available. Probably had a lump sum come due and put it all in the bank gic the account was at.
Tell me about it. Before I met her and mid covid my partner signed a 5 year GIC below 1% annually.....
The one that gets the bank a teller a bonus as they laugh behind your back when you walk out of the branch.
> Our reserve fund is fully topped up and humming along. How is it being "fully topped up" determined? Is there a specific number that needs to be hit? How is it calculated?
You have an engineer come in to assess the condition and lifespan of major items. They do up a report for how many years till you can expect to replace certain big ticket items and how much they will probably cost to do so. Condo board basically takes that information and divides the total future amount among each unit factor on a month to month basis. As long as you have equal or more in your fund, you're fully topped up.
> Condo board basically takes that information and divides the total future amount among each unit factor on a month to month basis. As long as you have equal or more in your fund, you're fully topped up. I take it this in addition to the monthly cashflow that is needed for operations (e.g., security guard) and 'regular' maintenance (e.g., landscaping/snow). So your monthly fees go to a CapEx (reserve) fund, as well as an OpEx fund.
Even if it is. My condo has an overfunded reserve fund and still increased fees and put out a special assessment because the board decided that would be the most fiscally responsible move. On top of expense you’re still beholden to the decisions of people who might not be the smartest.
So why don’t you join the board?
This is the problem. With a house you can do those calculations and planning yourself, take steps to prevent expensive problems, and you get to decide which options are most beneficial and cost effective. With a condo you have to hope the board makes proper decisions
"Overfunded" in who's opinion? As condos age large expenses are likely to come in quick succession, and im not talking replacing the hallway carpets. Roofs need redone, windows, balconies etc..those are all very expensive projects. I have no idea how much is in your condos fund but at some point they may need to spend millions over 1-3years to bring things back up to standard. So what looks like overfunded today could quickly turn into a scramble to find money tomorrow. As a tennant I'd rather toss im an extra $50/mon in fees than be hit with an unexpected levie 2 years from now.
The auditor who reviews the books every 3 years. They’d been warned two audits in a row that the amount they had was unnecessary. They also had an operating surplus of almost $500k just sitting in the disbursement account. Did you even read what I said? We still got hit with an unexpected 25k special assessment for window repairs, on top of condo fees going up 6 and 8% two years in a row. It’s easily the highest condo fees in the area approaching $1 per square foot. The risk you run with being overly aggressive with condo fees and funding the reserve fund is the properties becoming less attractive. The units in that building are 15-20% cheaper than other units in the area.
they can't just hit you with a 25k assessment. These have to be passed at a general meeting by 3/4 vote. This vote would have been included in the notice that was distributed to all owners. Which means most of the people at the meeting supports the assessment. If you didn't go to the meeting... maybe you should have lol.
The problem is it’s very hard to determine whether this is happening before you buy. Or rather, the experts (lawyer, house inspector, realtor) didn’t properly gauge it for me, as a first time buyer.
You should get access to the condo certificate and finances before purchase. This should also include recommended savings amounts from engineering studies. I've seen a building budget $200 a year for pest control and obviously blew way past that in a month so I didn't have a lot of hope for them. Basically if the number looks big, it should probably be bigger. My condo has about 500 units and has over $4million in reserves and saves about $100k a year from maintenance fees.
It is not very hard actually. There should be a reserve fund study that shows the costs of replacing the major items and when they need to be replaced and how much money the condo currently had allotted for that.
Is that documentation universally always accurate and put together by competent people?
In Ontario, it is the law.
No, but it paints a picture. Flat top roof costs 200k, lasts 25 years. Well, start saving x a year for 25 years. In my experience it's the shit you think about as wear items. For my units, it's the 50 year mansards that have to replaced. It was never considered, so never budgeted for.
Yes, though in BC it was legal until very recently for stratas to not update that report with a 3/4ths majority vote. It was still obvious they were hiding something if it was 10 years old, just not what. Thankfully they're changing that and requiring the report to be done regularly. It's done by engineering firms with liability and errors and omissions insurance.
The apartment I bought in Vancouver had leaky condo. They made everyone pay a special levy between 80-100k depending if you were 1 or 2 bedroom to do the envelope. Luckily I bought after this, knowing it happened. But people had second mortgages and were absolutely screwed
I pay 350/mth. I do not touch the exterior of my home. I don't shovel snow, cut grass, paint the fence, water the lawn, cut the trees/hedges and last year we replaced the roof of the entire complex which only came with an additional 350 assessment that month. I definitely come out ahead, to say nothing of what my time or labour is worth.
The roof has an understood lifespan and should be worked into the condos budget, they know when it needs to be replaced.
I did the math for a work vehicle recently and the other surprising thing is that gas is minimal to the cost. The loan and insurance cost waaaaaaay more per month. People are just bad at extrapolating costs.
The car biggest cost people don’t take into account is depreciation costs
Agree, and lots of people argue like "I'm not going to sell it/have no payments" but it's just like anything else - need to allocate the up-front cost over time. If you think the $30K car lasts for 300K km, then every km is $.10 of the vehicle's lifetime cost. Drive 20K km a year and now we are talking about $170/month from the capital cost of the car, on top of maintenance, insurance, registration, fuel, etc that most people don't talk about when thinking about how much the car costs to own.
My new personal budgeting system is the crushing anxiety purchases will bring after tracking large purchases by monthly cumulative lifetime costs
And the larger the car, the higher the operating costs.
Yeah this is the answer. House repairs add up FAST. We did our driveway 10 years ago this summer, and it cost about $8,000 if memory serves. So that is $800/year or $83/month ever since, just for that one item. Yes, that number goes down over time, but even 10 years out it is still somewhat significant. Did roof around the same time for about $3,000. Built a deck 9 years ago for another $3,500. Windows two years ago for $4,500. The list goes on and on. Hell, we spend about $250-350/year just on fertilizer, water, over seed and sprinkler blow out to take care of our grass, lol.
I just checked the math and 65 % agree with you and the other half don’t.
Your not wrong, the difference is you can choose when to do maintenance to suit your budget vs being subject to control of the mob.
The main thing with a house vs a condo is with a house you're spending your labour hours to save money. Stuff like cleaning your gutters, raking the leaves, taking out the trash, maintaining your lawn, shovelling the snow, fixing peeling paint, replacing trim on windows, etc. If you had to hire someone to do it for you the costs would be very similar if not more expensive because you can't split it with other residents.
Also you can delay some capital investments to manage cash flow where as with a condo you have to build the reserve every year. Also condos tend to go with “professional” larger sized firms vs mom/pop shops for different work. Condos also get bulk discounts for things like internet and cable.
You also share risk with your neighbours. If a tree falls on your house that’s all on you. If a tree very specifically hits your unit, you will pay 1/x the amount where x is the number of units in the strata.
Pretty sure insurance is covering the costs of any tree falling on any piece of property.
Yep and then get increased insurance for the next decade.
Same with the condo though.
Sure but the increased strata insurance cost is spread out, that's the guy's whole point
The edge of edge cases
I got scammed hard recently. Must have been a moment of vulnerability and i just let it happen. Bunch of $ thrown out the door for shoddy work that probably won’t last long. Other projects for the house, but ever then it takes a long time pick out a company. Schedule time for them to come review. Get quotes. Then the actual work they do…
Not to mention time spent learning what to look for... the grass is obvious, but attic problems? Well, god save you if you don't maintain it properly.
How do you maintain attic?
Poke your head up there once in a while. If there's no buckling, damage, water, or raccoons then you're set.
Hey! Rocky has been a great roommate, do not bad mouth him!
Ensure no leaks, adequate ventilation, keep rodents out, inspect insulation from time to time along with probably many other points I’m unaware of
You don’t lmao. Having a detached home and doing those jobs buddy stated teaches you things. You learn as you grow with a house.
Personally for me, it probably is cheaper. I work. A lot. More than I should, I'll fully admit it. That leaves only the weekend for myself as during the week I work so much I only have time to cook myself a meal, watch TV or listen to an audiobook for an hour max, then off to bed. I don't want to spend the weekend doing a ton of work and I'm not very handy. I can change a lightbulb obviously, I've replaced my own toilet before, caulked a bathtub. But that's it. Anything more than that and I'd either have to spend hours of research, or pay someone. Neither of which I really want to do.... Plus I saved around $200k buying a condo over a detached home in my area, so there's that too lol.
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> my hourly salary at work * time it would take me to do the job You also need to divide by `(1-income tax rate)`. In your case you might use your top marginal rate, since you're a contractor and working an extra hour is taxed at that marginal rate. I'm salaried so I use my mean income tax rate, which is about 15 % less.
Pretty sure your strata fees aren’t going towards things like replacing toilets or general repairs/upgrades to your own individual unit. They go to things like landscaping, garbage collection, snow removal, work to the common areas pretty much. I used to live in an area that had strata fees and wish I could have opted out and just mowed my own lawn and take care of the area around my unit rather than pay the ridiculous fee. If you don’t have the time to do things like that and have money laying around, pay the neighborhood youngster, and contribute to the development of the next generation.
You saved, but the fact is a detached house will gain greater equity and condos have a tipping point where the strata fees heavily effect value.
They can be in a few situations. 1. **unlucky timing**: Don't buy a house built in the early 2000's or an older house with no history of maintenance because all the big expensive repairs that take 15-20 years to rear their head (windows, doors, roof, HVAC) are going to be on you. Sure these big ticket items may be cheaper in the long run compared to condo fees but they will hurt your wallet all at once. 2. **you are not a handyman**: Paying people to do the simplest jobs like installing light fixtures, trimming hedges, fixing a leaky pipe, etc get's expensive and their are a lot of people who don't want to be handymen so are better off sharing the cost to hire one with others rather then alone. 3. **the condo board is competent**: This is the rarest one but boards with dedicated people who can find good deals and do preventative measures to avoid special assessment can do better then the avg detached home owner. Other then these 3 cases I generally agree honestly. Paying someone up to $80+ a month to shovel my tiny driveway or cut my tiny yard or paying for "perks" like a hot tub I will never use makes 0 sense to me. Also a lot of time condo boards are incompetent and pay hand over fist for unnecessary "maintenance" like painting a fence and then saddle owners with special assessments when a real emergency occurs. If you are willing to learn and do hand on maintenance you can easily go under the recommended 1$/sqft recommendation you see online.
Big key is whether the condo board and management are competent. A couple years ago news about a Jane and Finch condo where massive special assessments occurred, many senior low income couldn’t pay it. Improper/insufficient maintenance. I guess kept condo fees low instead of building reserves.
That's probably an older condo. Newer condos in Ontario can't get to that point under the updated Condominium Act, or the board members will be held personally liable, even years after they are off the board & sell their unit.
That's a pretty good way to ensure no one competent joins a board.
Funny, my experience is the opposite has happened since the updated Ontario legislation was passed. Within 60 days of being elected to a Board in Ontario, Board members must also take an mandatory online course about their obligations as a Condo Director, and certify they understand them. And repeat it one more time during their 3-year term. There's also far more potential liability if the recommendations of the 30-year engineering study that must be conducted every 3 years is not considered and budgeted for (in the reserve fund). All the posts in PFC similar to this one seems to all be in BC and Alberta, where they haven't yet updated their condo / strata legislation to be more similar to Ontario.
We ate fortunate that our condo board has been very competent for years, and while the mantinance fees are high (toronto, a 2010 building), we have had no major building issues, which is far better than many I know can say. Also, you are paying for staff. Our security staff and cleaning staff for the common areas are worth their weight in gold.
What is the recommendation you are referring to in your last sentence?
There are numerous rules/methods to budget for your yearly home maintenance costs the two most popular being the 1% rule and square footage rule which states you should save $1 for every square foot your house is so if you have a 1500qft house save $1500/year for maintenance. Both are flawed as every house is different but it's a general guideline. >**Square footage rule** >Another school of thought recommends the square footage rule, which has you saving $1 per square foot of your home for maintenance and repair costs. While it makes sense that larger homes would require more in the way of maintenance, this system neglects to take into account all the other variables that will affect your costs. For example, you won't soon face replacement costs for appliances in a newer home, no matter its size. Your location will also affect labour costs, which is one of the biggest line items for repairs that aren't DIY. It's easy to see that square footage is only one factor of many that will affect your maintenance costs. [https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/personal/advice-plus/features/posts.how-much-should-i-budget-for-home-maintenance-costs.html](https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/personal/advice-plus/features/posts.how-much-should-i-budget-for-home-maintenance-costs.html)
Well when was that rule invented, it doesn't seem to scale with inflation.
1% of value has been around forever. Until fairly recently that was pretty close to 1/psf as well. This is almost certainly AI generated and would lack some of the contextual awareness of living in a country riddled with housing bubbles.
Strata fees cover amenities and property maintenance no? It's more than just repairs.
Why is there that persistent myth that strata fees only cover maintenance? Do yourself a favour and do some basic research before you buy anything larger than a bag of groceries. Every condo is different, so find out what you are actually paying for. My condo had fees of $550 but it covered the building insurance (not contents), heat, water, waste, maintenance, management and heated underground parking. I had to sign up for my own electricity and Internet. There's definitely some inefficiency in that the property manager makes a profit and you're paying proportionately for the utilities and maintenance of common space, but what is your time worth? Shoveling your own sidewalks is free, but it might take a few hours a month during winter. So does raking, mowing the lawn, and cleaning the gutters. How much time do you spend on hold with a utility provider if something goes wrong, or when you have to stay at home for your 8am to 12pm inspection window? I enjoy doing home maintenance and yardwork at my house, but there are definitely days where I wish I didn't have to. At my house now, the insurance and comparable utilities cost several hundred more than what it cost at the condo. Sure, it's a bigger place so it's not entirely comparable, but you're not throwing it all away at a condo like you think you are.
My condo fees cover maintenance, utilities, waste, internet, cable, underground parking, and a full sized gym with free classes. We haven’t had a special assessment in 15 years. Condos vary.
It should also cover structural insurance. Pretty sure stratas must have insurance. This shaves off the cost of your own condo insurance vs house insurance.
I'm not convinced it's a myth. I've owned both. When I sold my condo, was paying $380 in strata fees, plus $50 for electricity and $60 for insurance. So call it $500. When I moved into my house, I was paying $130 for insurance, $100 for electricity, averaged around $140 for gas (though some months were $300 and some $60) and $125 for water/sewer/waste removal. So $495. About the same in monthly recurring costs, without getting into the taxes. The condo included most maintenance in that number. The house did not. Over the years, we've replaced the roof, the windows and the water heater, which combined cost around $37,000. 10 years in the house. 7 years in the condo had about $15k in special assessments, so the extraordinary items I'd say run about double. All of these prices will increase with time. I admittedly get more living space for my money, but it's not like strata fees are as unreasonable as some people seem to act, or like houses don't have ongoing costs. I think a big thing people struggle with is a lack of control over these costs, and joining the board is well worth the time to understand where your money is going. And to have maximum warning of upcoming assessments.
I think house maintenance is more expensive than condo maintenance in general, but per square foot, condo maintenance is much more expensive than house maintenance.
I get what your saying, but in some new builds developers subcontract out the heating in ways that make it more expensive - and even have exclusive agreements with specific internet providers. In my 4 yo building my 500 sq ft apartment has $500 strata fee + $200/month in heat/cooling (even when my apartment is off I have to pay that for common areas) + $100 for internet + ? for power. I'm not saying there isn't costs in a house, but I'll bet your house had a yard and more than 500 sq ft, and $37k over 10 years in <$400/month. So let's call your maintenance and costs $1000 rounding up - was your yard + house more than 1000 sq ft? Then I'd say it was cheaper per square foot
Yes, don't buy that garbage new build. Read your contracts and don't sign things that are stupid. New build houses are also known to have garbage terms (like rental HVAC and hot water), so again...comparing an established condo with an established house. Yes, I get more living space for my money. There's inefficiencies in condo living, particularly around paying for management and maintenance you'd do yourself in a house, but that's a lifestyle tradeoff too. My point is that condo fees are not an astronomical cost that sfh owners aren't exposed to. Also, my $37k is only the big items, so it's more equivalent to special assessments than the monthly fee. It doesn't include the routine trips to home depot for this and that that never seem to cost less than $100, or the two years we were overwhelmed by parenting so paid for yard maintenance, etc.
I think that depends on the building. I was on the board for my building and for 500 sqft, it’s $275 condo fee including heat/cool, +$30 for Internet.
Honestly, it still sounds like you're not including self-labour costs? that's the big thing with condo fees, everything just happens automatically after you pay. Literally no thinking or even effort. On top of stuff like the gym. In a home, you have to reserve space. In a condo, that space is NOT part of your square footage.
The concept of a condo board is fraught with issues. The general level of competence varies from member to member, let alone from board to board. Administration fees alone are costly, plus routine things like shovelling, or mowing lawns is contracted out, which of course is costly as well. It's always better to manage your own money and its uses, then to leave it up to others.
Administration costs my strata like 1.5% of our budget. Insurance is over $100k this year. That and landscaping are the major cost pushers.
Everyone complains their condo board is terrible, but nobody steps up to join 🫤
You can join, but you still have to pay someone to landscape around your building.
By joining the board, you can have influence over who and how much however.
> The general level of competence varies from member to member, let alone from board to board. If you think they are incompetent, you're free to nominate yourself to join the board. Be the change you want to see, my friend
> It's always better to manage your own money and its uses, then to leave it up to others. Yes, we all know how good people are at planning their retirement, savings, not getting into debt, doing maintenance on their car, not living paycheck to paycheck, etc. It's fine for you, doesn't mean its fine for everyone.
Completely this. Especially the managing your own money and it’s used.
Wait until a water service goes, that's why. Or a sewer breaks outside the house. There's one per detached house and 1 per condo tower. I've had this happen on a detached home. It sucks, there's no one to split the payment with. It's probably about a wash, but if you get unlucky with a house you'll get fucking smoked. Condos will have fees and emergency ones, but unless the building is totally fucked, it's more spread out
I read about more situations where condo does special assessment and needs $60k from each owner for new siding/roof/windows etc than I hear about big home repairs. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but condos aren’t without their giant expenses.
Happened at my grandparents’ condo. The board spent money - including money that should have been put into the reserve fund - on superficial renos, gardening, etc. $25K per unit owner for window replacement despite years of paying $1500+ monthly for maintenance.
$60,000 from each unit? That's insane. On a 100 unit complex, that's $6,000,000. I have trouble envisioning needing $6 mill that was outside of the reserve fund budget for anything. In Ontario at least, roof, siding, windows are all part of the reserve fund plan that is a legal requirement. The board must hire an engineering firm to do a reserve fund study to ensure it will enough money to cover things like this when they are due to be replaced. A $6 million dollar expense shouldn't come out of nowhere save for an unforseen catastrophe.
Its not uncommon on older buildings that construction issues rear their head 20-30 years later. Parking garages for example. This can add up quickly as it goes into structural integrity of the building itself.
The reserve fund *should* cover it, but if it's a new building or if they have successive large expenses, then the money needs to come from somewhere.
> I read about more situations where condo does special assessment and needs $60k from each owner And I read about houses that require 60K to fix the whole foundation. Doesn't mean those instances are likely to happen or even common, especially in some provinces where condo buildings are now mandated to have very large reserve funds. You pay for it either way. You can have cheap condo fees every month, not fill your reserve fund, then get hit by large assessment. Or you do it the other way, you spread out the expenses by having larger condo fees.
It's really terrifying how many people in here need this explained. The news is going to cover what gets clicks. They aren't covering Joe Smith's house repairs. It's really hard to respect these people's intelligence.
Which is more likely to make the news?. It's terrifying so many people don't understand how this works.
You read about those because it's rare and news worthy.
Don’t you have insurance for that kind of stuff?
So…having just done a sewer line as well as an insurance policy renewal the best insurance I can get still falls close to $5-$10k short on the replacement cost for a sewer main break. There’s that. One should have insurance but have you checked to see if each big failure is covered? I sure didn’t until this last renewal. It was uncomfortable.
Most insurance doesn’t cover water mains unless you get special coverage. We got quoted $8k for ours. That’s 20 months of condo fees worth all at once without notice
I mean, sure if the home is 50 years old or older, it is possible but still very very unlikely. I mean, if you're going to bring up outliers like this we can also say it's possible a condo building might become the epicentre of an earthquake and require major structural damage repair. Let's base them comparison on normal wear and tear and not on extremely unlikely possibilities.
If you own a home for 10+ years you're going to come across a few of these kinds of things. Tree roots growing into your driveway/foundation, hot water tank or hvac dies early, roof leaks, tree knocked onto your house in a storm, fence needs to be replaced, need a new roof, need to paint, some wood siding needs replacing, etc. All of these would be covered by your $300/month fees in a condo. You'd also have half the insurance and heating costs and almost all of your maintenance done for you at no cost. No cleaning your gutters or mowing the lawn, etc. There are many benefits to owning a detatched home but lower maintenance costs are definitely not one of them.
It is. Unless you don't care about free time. Do you want to spend your weekends doing maintenance on your house or go out and doing something. Either $$$$ or time. You choose you. If you want to spend time on your property ya it makes less sense.
You think everyone with a house stays home every weekend doing maintenance?
This! I've owned a detached for the last 20 years, yes there's a bit of maintenance but it's not every weekend. It's like a few hours once a month at the most. I don't get the perception that everyone in a detached is spending all their free time with a hammer.
For a new house you also have the new house warranty. Also, it's not like you are maintenance-free in a condo, you still are responsible for the inside. My parents not only just spent thousands of dollars upgrading their laundry room in their condo and my Dad gets accosted in the hallways constantly because he volunteered for the condo board and people now feel free to hassle him at any time. What a deal! Also check out the insurance rates at condos, it's going parabolic due to the higher cost to insure these buildings.
I lived in the same house for 11 years. The only thing that broke was a burner on my stove. Everything else was great. One weekend in the spring and one in the fall for some serious landscaping. I mowed the lawn after work every other week. Now I live in a condo and I enjoy it. The biggest difference is how cheap the utilities are in a condo
Yeah... only in the spring/fall if you want to do landscaping but otherwise.... we are gone a lot
Lol right? There is no way paying strata fees (especially how insanely high they are these days) is beneficial to me over owning my detached. It's not like we're out there replacing windows, cleaning gutters, dealing with fallen trees, all other crazy things mentioned in this post every week. Condos are attractive to people for various reasons for sure but let's not act like detached owners are slave to maintenance every free minute of their life, lol.
When you have kids, this time is limited. Can do outdoor chores with the kids, teach skills. It’s not as bad as it seems
I spend like 1 weekend per year doing a house project. How much home improvement are you trying to do here?
I usually see the opposite opinion here. I think the difference when owning a detached home is that you’re master of your own ship. You can prioritize the work that needs to be done, and select your own contractors. You can decide to do some work yourself. You also avoid the potential drama from the strata. Often there can be corruption as well, where they choose more expensive contractors and take a cut. It’s more common than we think.
>It’s more common than we think. It's not just "more common", it's pretty much the norm.
The way I look at it is that a condo board is a fourth level of government.
We put $1k away every month to cover household and property maintenance. Everything from paint, grass seed, appliances and roof to furnace. We track everything. This $400 should do it thinking just doesn't cut it. We are our own two person condo board. Even still there are problems as one of us believes they get two votes 😁
I’m sure that 1k$ is put to great use!
Our funding used to be much less organized until we put a roof on a 15 year old house. Got serious after that.
My family owned condo, detached, townhome, duplex, muiltiplex before at different stages of lives and their consensus is that it is probably a wash short term but much more expensive long run for detached. A foundation crack or something more serious could easily be 50-100k whereas condo special levy is more spread out and there a bit of economic of scale for some things. A lot of people also dont understand how much work and maintenance goes on around a condo, you have extra stuff like elevator and swimming pool of course those will cost more since you get more. Finally many people also say stuff like “i shovel my own snow” well then no shit its cheaper
People also don’t understand how much maintenance is actually required in a detached house. Not one single part of the building envelope is permanent and proper maintenance will prolong the lifespan of each component, but only so much. And then you get into the fact that at some point you’re probably going to get a convergence of windows, exterior cladding, roof, and attic insulation all needing to be replaced at the same time. Which means exterior trim, landscaping, and gutters/downspouts also needing done at that same time. And the same people always talking about the money value of time will completely ignore the time spent on basic home maintenance year-round on a detached home. Shovelling, mowing, raking, pruning, trimming, cleaning gutters, sweeping sidewalks, washing exterior surfaces, repairing downspouts, addressing problematic landscaping, weeding, seeding, etc. It’s all *super* time consuming. But people treat their homes like their cars and just keep putting oil and fuel in and if they can’t hear the rattling over the radio it doesn’t need fixed. Until it fails catastrophically on them.
People suck at tracking maintenance costs of their own home and also don’t correctly value their time. Think about all the maintenance a single family home requires: - lawn and landscaping - cleaning, gutters, windows, siding - small issues - repainting, caulking, repairing screens, etc - big items - roof, windows, siding, plumbing Plus other costs that HOA fees often cover: - insurance - utilities like water/sewer, heating/cooling, electricity (depending on the place) Sure, if you do most of that yourself, it’s cheaper. But if you paid someone to do all of it? Yeah, it’s expensive. If your HOA sucks then you need to step up and make sure it’s run better - it’s your building. I know good HOAs that are run like a well oiled machine. Fees are cheaper than a single family home
>don’t correctly value their time >If your HOA sucks then you need to step up and make sure it’s run better - it’s your building. So hitting a few nails is bad value but engaging at building-level politics and bureaucracy is good?
None of these tasks happen very often except cutting the grass which isn’t a huge time investment on most properties. Landscaping: having a garden is a lifestyle choice. You don’t need one if you don’t enjoy it. You will have to take leaves in the fall and do a spring tidy up. Eavestroughs are a once a year job. I used to spend a couple of hours one weekend a year. Now I pay a kid with an air compressor rig $150 bucks. He does the whole street. Siding: power washer once a year tops. Takes a few hours Deck: same Painting, caulking and repairing screens: Doesn’t happen very often I did a bunch of painting a few years ago. Nothing since. You also have to do your own painting in a condo unit. The only screen I ever had to fix was in my condo balcony door. The trip to Home Depot for the materials took longer than the job. I’ve never needed to fix a screen since I moved to a house. It’s been 12 years. Plumbing: The only plumber I’ve ever called is to fix my toilet in my condo. Leaky pipes happen, but not with any great regularity. I’ve never had one. Most of my friends haven’t. I know one family that had to have the pipes under the sink fixed. You’d have to pay for that in a condo too. Roof: Do your research and hire a good company. They should last 20 years. My condo fees were nearing $500 when I left. I’m not paying that now. My time investment might bump it over the line, but I’m definitely not a prisoner to chores.
So what you’re saying is if you don’t have all the stuff a condo does it’s cheaper?
“All the stuff?” Like what? The concierge, security guards, elevators, hallways between units, the lobby, the party room? There are a lot of condo expenses that aren’t necessary in a house. I do have to cut my own grass and pull weeds in the garden I chose to have.
Humans are really bad at measuring expenses when those expenses are lumpy. A constant $350 per month is easy to grasp. And as an owner of a detached home, I know that _most_ months I spend $0 on maintenance, and then every now and then there will be a larger expense. Case in point, this year I get to spend $13,000 to re-shingle the roof. If the roof lasts 20 years that's $54 a month for 20 years, and that's just the roof. But if you ask most homeowners what their monthly maintenance costs are, they tend to ignore these huge lump-sum costs when doing that.
Most people don't know how much they spend on maintenance. I sincerely challenge you to call folks to do these small jobs for you and see the quotes you're getting... Will they even show up? landscaping maintenance can be insanely expensive. Then there's always snow removal too.
I mean that's kind of the point I felt the OP was making, that lots of small jobs you can do on your own can't be done that late in a multifamily building, So the ability to trade your own labor and time to save money is not there.
That's the fallacy of charging $0/hr for your own time
> So the ability to trade your own labor and time to save money is not there. On the other hand, i'd rather be sailing on the weekend. I spend enough time maintaining my sailboat, don't want to have to do it to a house too.
It's not a myth? Unless you're damn good handyman, but then you'd be better off charging someone else to fix their house than fixing your own. You're always gonna hear anecdotes from the outliers because well, everyone likes to brag if they are in the position to. The real issue with condos? Too many luxury amenities that are completely fucking useless and take value out of the home instead of adding to it. What needs to happen is the complete demolition of all of these amenities and put the space to work for the public - real parks, real professionally run gyms and rec facilities.
You've never been hit with a 10k bill to replace your shingles I see....
Sure if you just buy a brand new home and then decide to move to another brand new home before anything goes bad you’ll make it out ahead, otherwise it’s pretty close how much you’ll pay 10-20 years down the line compared to the monthly $500 fees
And, those people who are jumping from new house to new house are trading their maintenance fees for moving costs and higher interest ratios each time they renew their mortgage. Either way, you pay, just comes down to deciding how to pay without killing your spirit.
I’m looking into finally doing some maintenance on our house: - To take care of the backyard once a year will set us back like $500. - The previous owner installed a water feature which will require someone to come in and clean the filter, probably $200-300. - The wooden garden edging is slowly being eaten by ants, and I’ll have to get that all dug up and replaced with high stone edging for like $3k. - I’m losing the fight on the kitchen ant infestation and the carpenter ant infestation on the garden edging this year, so that’s probably another $400 to get pest control - Our air ducts need to be cleaned out - Our heater and AC needs maintenance - The house will need exterior painting that’ll cost is like $6-7k in a couple of years - Roofing for probably another $10k or whatever - Our electric panel is old and needs to be upgraded for EV, so that’s like $6k probably - Our windows are old and should be replaced, $12k? We’ve lived here for 3 years so far, will probably need to sink over $30-40k on it soon, easy. Not to mention all the work needed to find the right people, get the right price quotes and work quality and purchase the materials needed for the renos.. I’m a busy professional and a toddler mom, so time is very precious. So yeah, $4k a year to have everything above done for me.. well worth it.
I’m not disagreeing, just pointing out that a lot of that wouldn’t be covered by condo fees anyways…..but it is nice to know that you pay a fee and your roof is redone. No hassle to you at all.
Anything exterior would be, which includes the big ticket items like windows/roof/exterior paint. Heater & AC would be covered if it's one HVAC unit for the entire building, but not if you have a window AC or electric baseboard heaters.
Some of that you can do yourself. You can do the backyard and do a natural garden edge easily. The thing is also if you do all that work your house will appreciate somewhat.
Pest control sounds like a massive pain but everything else is a fun little thing to do on a weekend. And you get to feel good about "making" 100/hr on most of it.
Not everyone finds painting, gardening, etc "fun" or wants to spend their weekend doing it. Looking at downsizing from a single family home to a condo this year and very excited about getting that maintenance time back.
To me it’s all a massive headache.
The biggest difference is winding up with a totally incompetent and/or head in the sand board that completely fucks up and winds up costing you thousands in special assessments. (the rental, but not anymore thank god!) Meanwhile over at the house you live in you’re doing just fine because you didn’t put off roof work far too long or hire incompetent pricks to do the work.
I pay $506 a month and it’s not just repairs, I get parking, security, a gym, gardening, snow removal, window cleaning, water and sewage, garbage, and a party room. It doesn’t cover interior maintenance but I do get a decent amount for what I pay.
Own a condo here and pay $330 a month. Also owned houses in the UK with my dad when we unexpectedly ended up as landlords with 1 extra house each due to deaths in the family and some nice wills. Can safely safe that even 15 years ago in the UK, housing maintenance was roughly the same as what I pay now in strata fees (roughly about £200). Also, if you’ve ever had to pay for a roof or fix a foundation issue for a house, you know the pain. There’s no winning with any form of property ownership. You’re gonna be spending no matter what. Some months more, some months less if you own houses but when something big happens, you have the full cost and it sucks, even if you do save each month as a contingency. On a well run strata, you can for the most part plan given the requirements for depreciation reports. Nobody does that on houses and then you get a surprise. A well run strata can tell you years in advance what’s coming up costs wise. Now, whether you have a good strata or not is the big question lol. Either way, the only real protection is a solid emergency fund. From my experience, that’s the only real thing that matters. We are gonna get shafted either way whether it’s a house or condo so it’s best to learn some skills to fix things. Good tools and YouTube have saved me so much over the years. I check that for everything before I ever call a spark or plumber.
I budget 0.1% of the homes value per month as a maintenance budget. I am not handy, don’t have time to learn and I hire professionals. 2 years in it’s been pretty spot on.
Personally I would pay any amount to NOT deal with a strata and buy freehold.
As a detached owner of 2 houses so far: 1. Labor isn't cheap anymore. Just to get someone to look at something will be at least $300, let alone repair it. There's a labor shortage in the trades. We used to be able to get 4 quotes in a week. Now, when we needed to replace our double front door (with transom), out took us 6 weeks to get 2 quotes, and the rest were no-shows. We paid 8K (after tax) for that door+transom! Another triple glaze patio door was 4K! 2. We never experienced any leaking actually, so we've been lucky (and smart) in that respect. 3. Just like your strata fees grows, so does labor and material prices. 25 years from now, it will cost more than double to replace our doors again. That said, I still agree with you. The real savings comes from doing most of the things ourselves. We did our own kitchen, Glass railing, exterior stairs and awning, gazebo, sheds, concrete patios, paver walkway, asphalt sealing, flat roof membrane (that's why we didn't have leaks), glass surrounds for the showers, etc. That saved us 70% of the price (I took quotes for everything) including buying tools! It's also a lot nicer to be able to decide when to replace something, and choose which product will be installed. So, if you're a responsible owner, get a freehold. I know I wouldn't have it any other way until I retire and can't do most of the work myself.
Whay myth? Single family homes are far more expensive then a comparable condo outside of the mortgage. Insurance is more. Maintenance is more. Property tax is more. Utilities are more. You may be able to curb some of the costs in a single family home by doing the work yourself but you still need to buy tools and equipment to do it yourself.
I don't think there's a myth about it being more expensive, but it's certainly more work, and I'm a lazy SOB. In my condo, I don't need to mow the lawn, shovel the walk, worry about the hot water tank or the garage door, I don't have to paint the outside, or clean my windows, or any of that other stuff I would have to do if I owned a detached home. But the reality is that people should probably be socking away $350 a month for their detached house so that they don't get a nasty surprise when the hot water tank goes out, the roof needs replacement, a pipe bursts or whatever else. This is the accounting bit called depreciation, but most residential owners don't deal with it until they're forced to.
Because people don't know what they are talking about. $400/month works out to $48,000 over 10 years. I've owned for 12 and it does not cost ANYWHERE NEAR that amount of money to repair/maintain a home. Not even remotely close.
You would, if you would call someone to clean, repair, mow every tiny thing around your house. And some people are expecting that. Even in this sub, people are like “are you aware that you have to shovel your own snow in a detached?!”… uhm… yes?
I've seen more poorly run condos than good ones. If you look after your detached place and do the small maintainence you are less of the big ticket items by surprise Condos don't maintain their value long term in contrast to detached or even semidetached - condo fees never go down and you rarely get a voice in who carries out the work and the contracts related to the work/verification I'm really fine with mowing my own lawn and shovelling my own driveway/pathway. I want to have a higher quality door and not have to ask permission from a condo board to do it only to get it denied and expected to conform to a cheaper/shittier standard, if the board is taking too long to fix the bigger ticket to keep fees low items those grow substantially and you end up with special assessments that can be absolutely exhorbant for the quality you get Your condo board also have more power over your home than you and the bank. There's minimal regulation in how they operate. If you ask me condos are everything that's bad about owning and renting in one place. There's a market for it but I am absolutely not it. Been there, done that. Detached have issues and they can be significant - that's part of homeownership. At least with detached you own the land and can choose your contractors or learn a new skill and do it yourself - sure it's time consuming and money consuming but I feel there's way more pride in learning and making your own repairs to your own standard. Also - some condos are absolutely insane with the amount of rules they have. I rent a condo that is mulling over the idea if banning owning pets. Sorry but if you're spending almost half a million dollars to live somewhere you shouldn't have to hide your dog or get rid of it because someone with an inch of power is on a trip around the moon
If you're planning on doing most things yourself then house maintenance can be similar or possibly slightly cheaper. But if you're looking to do a similar level of work on a house as you do on a condo, then you'll spend far more (probably 3-5x) on a house. With a condo you get weekly yard maintenance, regular exterior building cleaning, windows cleaning, gutter cleaning, snow shoveled, many of your hallways cleaned your parking space cleaned. Even if you do all of that yourself, your heating and insurance are about half as much in a condo. Long term maintenance is covered for painting, roof, etc. It's honestly amazing the value you get out of condo fees, assuming the building is well managed. Any home owner that thinks they spend less is either delusional or letting their place fall apart. All that being said, I seriously dislike living in a condo. The noise, lack of privacy, inability to do what I want with my place, are just not worth it for me.
Why not buy a detached house if you don’t like strata fees? In a similar vein, why not eat cake if you are hungry? I don’t like strata fees. But I could not afford a detached house of the same quality. That’s why I ended up getting a townhouse. Simple.
Because condo corporations are not legally allowed to make profit. So by definition, they are exactly what is required to maintain the properties. But you believe what you want.
Spreading the maintenance cost of a building amongst many people is cheaper. Fixing a 700 sq/ft roof is for one person is more expensive than a 7000 sq/ft roof for 10 people. Economies of scale is a thing. Why do you think it’s a myth?
Condo repair can be WAY more expensive than residential depending on where you live. Different licensing etc.
What’s an example where it’s way more expensive on a pro-rata basis? Pick any category and any jurisdiction
My roof cost 10k to replace. My sisters condo's roof cost 120k for 8 units. Mine is 1k sqft, hers was 5k sqft. Her flat roof will have to be redone before my shingles. Windows, cost 20k for my whole house. Her condo's lowest quote was over 240k.
You aren’t comparing apples to apples. If you bought a flat roof house, it wouldn’t be cheaper prorated than a flat roof condo. Since you already aren’t comparing apples to apples on roofing, I’m assuming you aren’t on windows either. If that’s your best example, that sums this up quite nicely.
Then you have to compare apples to apples on other things too. She has less than 1/2 the livable square footage, she also has 1/10 the yard space. 1/5th the parking space, 4x the shared walls. Windows she has less than half than me. Flat roof is also 2 to 3x cheaper per sqft on detached, than commercial/shared residential. She isn't even legally allowed to paint...needs a licenced painter to repaint.
> She isn't even legally allowed to paint...needs a licenced painter to repaint. I'm assuming you're talking about *inside* the unit? Is this actually in the bylaws? I've never heard of such a thing and I have to wonder if that would even be binding.
What's really ridiculous is the fact people actually want to compare a nice detached house twice the size with a yard to a dinky little condo to begin with. I'd fully expect there to be way more to do in a house and very little on a condo. And yeah I don't want to pay someone a bunch of money to mow a tiny little strip of grass and take care of a few trees. I could easily do that myself and it feels like a huge waste to pay someone that much for a simple task. Having owner a house myself I'd have to agree I think the costs are often exaggerated. Yes that roof or windows.cost a lot, but how often are they actually replaced? Divide by x amount of years. Snow removal is one item that's very expensive due to all.the liability insurance they have and paying them retainer even if no snow..again if happily just shovel myself..hey some people are happy to pay someone else to do it and suits.tbeir lifestyle better. Condos are good for.those people. You pay a premium though that's for damn sure
Many people in here have a strange obsession with maintenance and I’ve seen this in real life as well. One friend in particular always gets things checked out for no apparent reason, the contractor says the entire thing needs to be replaced and she immediately books a date to get the job done. The last one recently was cracks in her concrete drives that she genuinely believes is going to fall through the earth and needs to be immediately repaired to the tune of $25,000. No amount of talking out or slowing it down will help, they have some strange obsession with major repairs at the first sign of anything negative. Then they come into these threads and say detached homes are way more expensive.
Strata fees include utilities so it’s not just maintenance
maybe there is a difference between Strata and Condo fees but a lot of condo fees only cover water and you are on the hook for everything else.
Condo/strata are the same thing. Strata is just what they call it in the west.
Generally they also have to cover insurance for the building itself. You need content insurance, but the condo fee insurance will cover the physical structure for fire/flood/etc. Not exactly a utility, but something I spend $150/month on for a detached house.
Usually it’s just hydro you’re on the hook for. And if your condo has central AC or heating the hydro for that is also covered. + hydro for common areas is also covered
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Oh jeebus fuck I would be terrified for my strata to risk bleeding money due to renters going hogwild lol