Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: CoHo Condo Fees

[David Clements and Evan Richardson (evdavwes]

Robert,
Westwood Cohousing is anticipating a budget of $44,000 for operating, $34,000 
for reserves.  For 24 units with about 32,000 sf living space, this works out 
to an average of $270 per month per unit, or $0.20 per sf per month.  
We just finished reroofing and repainting, our biggest expenses to date, and 
had adequate reserves without needing a special assessment.  
We began 1997-98, and underfunded reserves by about half in the first 5-10 
years, because we did our first reserve analysis ourselves.   We needed a 
professional reserve study to get a grasp on the true costs.  I would recommend 
a reserve study sooner rather than later.   They will tell you, as a made up 
example, that reroofing will cost $50,000 and will have to be done every 20 
years, so the "cost" or "'liability" to the association per year of the roofs 
(and the amount roughly that should be accumulated in reserves for the roofs) 
is $2500 per year.  The ideal reserve contribution is the sum of the yearly 
costs (or "liabilities" to the association) of all the individual components or 
items that the association is responsible for maintaining, repairing, and 
replacing.    More for us, since we maintain the houses.  Much less for 
communities that only maintain sidewalks, parking lot, and common lawns.  
Good luck.  
David Clements

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message:
1
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2015 10:12:57 -0400
From: ROBERT BERNSTEIN
<bbbrnstn [at] icloud.com>
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ CoHo Condo
Fees
Message-ID:
<E9E005E0-3915-4854-9C21-160F441D8D24 [at] icloud.com>
Content-Type:
text/plain;     charset=us-ascii

Wissahickon Village CoHousing is creating a
financial model of the monthly costs of owning a home in our community.  Can
anyone provide guidelines for estimating what our condo fees will
be?

Sincerely, Bob Bernstein
225 E Mount Pleasant Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 
19119
267 259 4652
bbbrnstn [at] icloud.com
<mailto:bbbrnstn [at] icloud.com>

------------------------------