Whenever considering a condo anywhere, it is important to realize that you will be required to pay maintenance costs for the condo, usually monthly. This is sometimes considered the “dues” for the condo, but many times, these are separate from regular dues.
It is important, when considering lowest maintenance condos in Scarborough, to find out if these are part of the dues or not. This will help you decide how much you should be spending on the maintenance and the dues.
The next thing to consider is why the maintenance costs are so low. You can ask the owner of the condo; they should be willing to tell you the reason, but you may be able to figure it out for yourself. Many times, those lowest maintenance condos in Scarborough are fairly new. There are fewer repairs that will need to be made, so they can get away with lower maintenance costs. The older the condo, the more you will probably pay for your maintenance. In general, you should be paying around 10 percent of the cost to replace items, such as roofs and other replaceable items.
It can be very difficult to find out how much everything would cost to replace, but you can give yourself a rough estimate. When thinking about this, you shouldn’t include appliances, but consider more things like roofs, swimming pools, tennis courts and the like. Then consider how much you will be required to pay for the maintenance. It should be about 10 percent of all those replaceable items. Your condo may be slightly lower, than 10 percent, though you should watch out for any condos offering maintenance costs of less then five percent.
The reason you pay maintenance dues or fees for a condo is in case you will ever need repairs done. This can be for anything, such as plumbing issues, electrical issues, etc. However, when large repairs to common areas are required, the maintenance dues will be used for those areas as well. This money is meant to be a reserve until they are required and if there is little or none in the reserve, things may not get repaired quickly.
Lowest maintenance condos in Scarborough may not always be the best option, but they should be considered.
