i have also seen a mature bldg with long term owners who have allowed the Strata fees to ‘creep’ up to several hundred dollars a month. I have been asked to move into several complexes to help get things re-set, thats impossible of course.

The main problem is complacency. many owners get comfortable seeing a few percentage points added on a regular basis. At 10 0r 15% a year it doesn’t seem much until it becomes agregious. ‘Fee Creep’, is the issue that a lot of older owners find is most distressing because of thier own fixed income.

The best thing to do is to stay active in the starta council and a;ways call for competative bids whenever service contracts expire, including the property manager itself, before costs are out of control.

Secondly, many people buy into projects without understanding the cost of maintenance up front. Large gardens , pools ( a killer) enclosed common areas, elevators, mixed use space etc etc are extremly expensive to maintain. Costs always continue to escalate. The best thing to do is to forgoe those expensive landscaping treatments and fountains for a simplar less feature rich design. This will save you thousands in strat fees a year in some cases. I have a bldg not far away from me where all the bad things I have mentioned exist and the strata fees start at $600 per mo….ouch!!

And yes I have seen better and worse MGMT co’s, some seem to simply steal monies never earned by padding admin charges ( by charging for dubious letters out to memebers without cause etc), falsifying snow removal costs, etc etc. In most cases a strata council needs to put thier foot down and insist that all charges be detailed to the council before ordered and the it should have a member supervise the work done or at least write down the times the work men come and go.

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Truth hurts but that’s not my concern i have delivered that valuable information at my expense however you did not mention $1003k vs your fakely stated 2008 assessment=what? minus lowest of 2007 at 928k for 2009 this house has been sold for neck to neck for 71k profit while you have calculated 15% less than million.

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Today I drove by a condo/apartment…(3 )SOLD signs on the old sticker flicker. However, the building is approx. 30 years old…but this also implies a full building aka stable ownership likely with its strata act together.

Re Management companies…yeah, that is a real dog’s breakfast. Had to assist some family members with a reno project..couldn’t get through to the management company which had some documents on file, tradesmen had to bail, a day wasted. They eventually fired the management company. I wonder how many just sit on their ass and collect fees,…but when they actually have to do something prove to be money well wasted. I wonder how big a scam that biz might be re: poor service vs good service.

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1) Hire a lawyer who will remover all the weasel clauses out of your sales contract. He will also make sure that you are protected from any changes made to the bldg envelope, upgrade your warranties etc etc.

2) Hire an experianced realtor ( if you absolutly can’t think for yourself) not affilited with the project to negotiate your deal. Theres plenty of deals so don’t get stuck on one. The vendor pays 100% of the commish. Ask for all the most recent comps and don’t get a realtard who’ll show you design books and lifestyle magazines while talking about recent sales.

3) Anticapate further price weakness and lowball the crap out of any deal. And remember deals are a dime a dozen so keep lowballing till you get your deal, don’t negotiate away the best deal for you.

4) Have the place inspected by an insured inspector, one that has a qualification, plenty of engineers in the biz to choose from.

5)Ask for access at various times of day before subjects are removed. You don’t want to come home in the evening to find naked wacko’s running the halls, go Friday night and on a weekend as well. get to know what the problems in the bldg are before you move in.

6)Make sure you know what kind of strata fee contract you’re getting into. Many property mgmt deals are sweetheart deals set up to cash flow the developers brother in law or girlfriend and can be hundreds of dollars a month and even higher. Don’t move into a bldg with a 5 year mgmt contract with cost escalators.

6A) READ ALL THE FINE PRINT ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AGREEMENT!!!!!!!!!

7) when your are into a bldg agitate for the firing of the prop mgnt asap, it’s easy to self manage when you’ve got a group of resident owners. It will cut your cost down to near nothing. I have done this and gaurantee it’s a no brainer.

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Given their latest ad campaign , they seem to have flatlined with their mega condo sale…stuck at “alleged” sales in mid 200 units range , from a total of 375 ?

Did they bag the last batch of “greater fools” and piss off the competition ?

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And lets look at this $ 30 BILLION going up in smoke to keep GM making autos nobody wants. That is about 25 fully paid for Olympic villages.

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