JimmyT said:
I work on a very rough rule of thumb of annual levies being 1% of the value of the unit plus or minus, say, 0.3%, based the number of facilities the OC has to maintain divided by the number of units…”
I have to remember that one. As treasurer of our owners corp. I have some influence in setting levies and suggesting spending priorities. Our levies are about 0.2% of the value of a unit but I think we are very responsibly managed. We have plenty in our sinking fund. We have a few owners who dispute that which is a pain but we took professional advice and performed our own reality checks on that. We are just lucky that we actually have few major expenses to worry about. We are 'class B' units, townhouses, so most maintenance is down to individual owners. Most of the road through the property is a public road so we don't have nearly as much road resurfacing to anticipate as most places would have. All our services, electricity, water, sewer and such are in easements that belong to the service provider not us and each unit is connected individually. Consequently we do not have utilities that service multiple units to worry about. We do have large grounds but much is drought tolerant native grasses and remnant bush which does not need a lot of maintenance. We have some paths, lights, a tennis court and playground but they are not too expensive to look after split across about 100 units. The more I read about other strata issues the luckier I realise we are!
I mention this just to say there are exceptions to the most reasonable general rules!