Have you had reason to review recently?
Not until I received this post. I struggled to find the article to which you’re referring (although I remember writing it) but all I can say is that apartment prices and costs have both shot up so things may have changed.
A quick search established that the median price of apartment in Sydney is about $850,000 and the average levies are about $850 a quarter. This boils down to about 0.4 per cent of the property value per annum. The big property websites don’t list the levies (except in Queensland) – you have to email the real estate agents (and go on their databases).
Also I suspect these figures are swayed by the proposed levies for off-the-plan blocks which will always be set lower than they would be in reality. There are mechanisms for getting compensation from developers who do this deliberately, but I have yet to hear of an owners corp that has successfully taken such a case to the Tribunal.
If I recall correctly, my rule of thumb back then was that the levies would be between 0.7 and 1.4 per cent of the property value. The reasonably well-managed 20-year-old block in which I live has four lifts, a heated swimming pool, gym, building manager and 24-hour concierges and the levies are about 6 per cent of the property values – suggesting that the property price rises have outstripped increases in running costs.
Our investment property has no pool, concierge or gym and a part-time building manager but multiple three-level lifts. The current levies (based on the developer and strata managers’ estimates) is 0.4 per cent which is already proving to be woefully inadequate and might be worth challenging at the Tribunal, depending on what the actual cost of running the block turns out to be.
I’d be really interested to hear from other Flatchatters what their levies are compared to their property values and the facilities that they are funding.
I also think Fair Trading should insist that real estate websites list the levies (fees) for apartments on sale, rather than allowing agents to withhold this essential information and use it to harvest email addresses for their databases.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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