Avg condo maintenance fees

[Senechal]

 

Anyone know if there's a rough, back-of-the-napkin formula for figuring out what average condo fees are based on price and or price/sqm?

 

Obviously every building is different... just wondering what's average/standard.

 

... I believe a friend of mine may be paying for his entire building :D

[HampiK]

Hello,

 

I would say the average Maintenance Fee per month is about 35-55 Baht/m2

[KittenKong]

The cheapest buildings I know of cost around 8,000B per unit per year in total though I dare say that cheaper ones exist. So anyone in a large unit might be paying only 10+B per sqm per month.

 

The most expensive I know of are around 50+B per sqm per month, but again I expect that some places cost more.

 

Any average would be pretty meaningless as it varies enormously according to the number of units in the building, the size of the units and the type of facilities being paid for.

 

Also bear in mind that some older buildings will have a low common fee (fixed years ago and never increased) and a second supplementary fee to make up the shortfall in running costs. So for those you would have to consider the total amount payable.

[Mysterion]

I have seen a range of 30-110 baht per sqm.

 

However, the norm appears to be between 40-60 per sqm.

[inThailand]

I pay 7,500 THB per month for condo fees to maintain the common area property. About 60 THB per sqm. This includes the usual and main expenses; manager, maintenance man, gardener & security staff salaries, electric, p&l insurance, sign tax, accountant, audit fee, swimming pool service fee, and pest control. Our fees also include; water, cable TV and WiFi. The only cost to condo owners is their own electric usage billed from PEA. 

 

Our condo development was built prior to the July 2008 amended Condo Act, so condo fees are calculated based on ownership ratios that were established using the original sales price. The 2008 amended Condo Act mandates fees be calculated using ownership ratios based on condo sqms.

[Peterw42]

There are still old blocks that pay 10-30 baht and they never have money to do anything. 40-60 baht seems to be average. Anything over 60 baht and that should include wifi and cable TV, water etc.

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, Peterw42 said:

There are still old blocks that pay 10-30 baht and they never have money to do anything.

 

I find that the most common reason for buildings having no money is because someone has stolen it.

[trogers]

1 hour ago, KittenKong said:

 

I find that the most common reason for buildings having no money is because someone has stolen it.

Collecting more than necessary leads to greater temptation...

[smutcakes]

There are condos i know which charge up to 120 baht sqm per month + sinking account fund in BKK. Usually it is the smaller condos that have higher maintenance fees simply due to the economies of scale. I would say average these days in outsourced property managed condos is 40-70 baht.

 

[inThailand]

Either that or just gross mismanagement of owner's money. The end result is the same.... little to show for what was paid.

[theoldgit]

We pay 30 Baht per square meter, for cleaning and maintaining common areas, small repairs in condos, security, rubbish disposal, pest control and pool upkeep.

Electricity is paid directly to the power company.

I don't think there a problem with staff running off with the cash, just with some owners and tennents not bothering to pay, turning off their water normally focuses their minds.

[thailen]

Our condo building in Jomtien charges 7,800 baht/room. A studio, in other words, is charged 7,800 baht. A one-bedroom is two rooms and the owner pays 15,600 baht. That includes everything a previous poster listed except we pay for our usage of electricity and water. If we need minor repairs, the maintenance crew fixes it and we pay 200 baht/visit.

By the way, I own a small condo in the U.S. and the annual maintenance cost for my 1 bedroom(565 sq.ft) apartment is $3065 vs. around $400 for my Thai apartment. I wouldn't complain about high maintenance fees in the LOS 

[lkn]

16 hours ago, Senechal said:

... I believe a friend of mine may be paying for his entire building :D

Your JPM is responsible for posting a monthly income and expenditure report, so go look at that.

 

As others have already said, your management fee will depend on services in your building (primary expense is personnel) and how many residents there are to pay for it (total sq. m.).

 

[Senechal]

3 hours ago, thailen said:

Our condo building in Jomtien charges 7,800 baht/room. A studio, in other words, is charged 7,800 baht. A one-bedroom is two rooms and the owner pays 15,600 baht. That includes everything a previous poster listed except we pay for our usage of electricity and water. If we need minor repairs, the maintenance crew fixes it and we pay 200 baht/visit.

By the way, I own a small condo in the U.S. and the annual maintenance cost for my 1 bedroom(565 sq.ft) apartment is $3065 vs. around $400 for my Thai apartment. I wouldn't complain about high maintenance fees in the LOS 

 

Oh really? Things are cheaper in Thailand? 

 

Relative pricing with the USA isn't what's being discussed here.

 

A potential issue of overcharging is. Would you complain if your maintenance fees were 8x that?

 

Edited July 9, 2017 by Senechal

[inThailand]

Since staff is probably the largest CA expense, what does your development pay?

Ours in Phuket pay:

Property Mgr 30K

Technican 18K

Security 15K each

[KittenKong]

On 09/07/2017 at 11:29 AM, smutcakes said:

There are condos i know which charge up to 120 baht sqm per month + sinking account fund in BKK.

 

Do you have a name for one of those? I would be interested to see how they spend the money and what sort of result they get.

[KittenKong]

6 hours ago, inThailand said:

Since staff is probably the largest CA expense, what does your development pay?

Ours in Phuket pay:

Property Mgr 30K

Technican 18K

Security 15K each

 

My building is similar, though we outsource the security for a slightly higher price.

 

Personally I think that our manager - who unfortunately lacks the brains of a monkey - is paid about double what he is worth. And our technicians make many times more from tips and fees that are not paid to the office than they do from their salary.

[inThailand]

14 hours ago, KittenKong said:

 

My building is similar, though we outsource the security for a slightly higher price.

 

Personally I think that our manager - who unfortunately lacks the brains of a monkey - is paid about double what he is worth. And our technicians make many times more from tips and fees that are not paid to the office than they do from their salary.

We have these problems as well. The staff spends most of their time making money working on owners condos for a fee while getting a salary to take care of the common area property.

[smutcakes]

8 hours ago, inThailand said:

We have these problems as well. The staff spends most of their time making money working on owners condos for a fee while getting a salary to take care of the common area property.

To be fair, staff making tips, and fees from Co-owners is just as much the CO-owners/renters fault that it is the staff. It is very difficult to stop in markets like Pattaya where the Co-owners are fairly transient. If its going to happen anyway, the Committee should try and regularize it, but it is difficult to do.

 

Personally i prefer the complete ban on it, and Co-owners should organize, oversee and do all of their own admin, fixing etc from outsourced providers.

[KittenKong]

3 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Personally i prefer the complete ban on it, and Co-owners should organize, oversee and do all of their own admin, fixing etc from outsourced providers.

I dont think it would be cost-effective to get outsiders in for every little job in our building. For example, changing a light-bulb or tightening a screw is better done by in-house staff even if you do have to pay them 15,000B/month or whatever.

 

I think that the crux of the issue is to try and ensure that all payments made to such staff get back into the building's accounts. I think that in a large building this could easily amount to twice the salary of a technician.