Are you Getting Good Value for your Condo Fees?

In 2019, we launched our most ambitious survey, aimed at getting an accurate picture of condo fees in Ontario.

• What drives them up or down?
• How does the age or size of the corporation affect them?
• How do they compare from city to city?
• How do highrise compare to townhomes?
• What amenities are more expensive to maintain?
• Most importantly, how do you compare to others?

We are getting very interesting results and can’t wait to share them with you!

NEW: Take our 2021 condo fee survey to update our data on condo fees!

We’re going to keep it opened a little longer, to allow any summer stragglers to participate. Whether you’re an owner, a director, a manager, or regardless of your relationship with your condo, feel free to share your views on the topic. It may be useful (although not entirely essential) for you to have your latest budget in hand to be able to answer all questions.

Are you getting value for your money?

While we are still collecting data, here’s an interesting teaser.

We’ve asked our readers whether they felt they were getting good value for their condo money.  Here are the results so far.

[qcld-ichart label=”Absolutely,Yes,Somewhat,Not at all,Don’t know” value=”49,125,89,27,13″ type=”pie” title=”Do you get value for your money?” datasetname=”Value for your money” width=”60%” backgroundcolor=”” bgcolor=”‘#28af48′,’#38f457′,’#f9e500′,’#fc1000’,’#c1c1c1′” bordercolor=”” pointerstyle=”circle” linestyle=””]

More specifically, when asked whether they felt they were getting good value for their condo fees, our readers answered as follows:

• Absolutely: 16%
• Yes: 41%
• Somewhat: 30%
• Not at all: 9%
• Don’t know: 4%

The good news is that 57% of our readers felt they were getting their money’s worth (either answering “absolutely” or “yes”).  Not bad!

An even better news is that only 9% of our readers felts they were not getting their money’s worth.

That’s still leaves 30% of our readers in the uncomfortable position of not being entirely sure whether they are getting good value for their condo money.

Directors vs. owners

Where it gets even more interesting however is when the answers are divided between those who are directors and those owners who are not.  Let’s use dark blue for Directors and light blue for non-director owners. The results below show percentages.

[qcld-ichart label=”Absolutely – Directors,Owners,Yes – Directors,Owners,Somewhat – Directors,Owners,Not at all – Directors,Owners” value=”25,8,50,33,18,41,4,13″ type=”bar” title=”Are you getting value for your condo fees: directors vs. owners” datasetname=”” width=”100%” backgroundcolor=”” bgcolor=”‘#2d43c4′,’#38f7f4′,’#2d43c4′,’#38f7f4′,’#2d43c4′,’#38f7f4′,’#2d43c4’,’#38f7f4′” bordercolor=”” pointerstyle=”circle” linestyle=””]

It is interesting to see that those who make the budgetary decisions and those with more information on where the corporation spends its money (the directors) seem more satisfied with their condo fees than those who “are not in the know”. A classic case of the “two solitudes” not speaking to each other? Perhaps directors would benefit from providing more information to owners on what the corporation’s budget is spent on. Giving more information to owners may help them understand the benefits they get in exchange for their hard earned money.

If your curious about how common expenses are calculated and what goes into setting out the corporation budget, read our blog about it.

To help us get more accurate results, share this post with your directors, managers and neighbours and encourage them to take our survey!