My husband and I bought a condo that is self managed last April 2008. The developer was able to sell 4 of the 8 apartments and then the economy really tanked. He ended up renting out the other 4 units. We were fairly lucky in that the renters are pretty ok to deal with. The down side of this is that nothing has happened yet in regards to forming an association etc. We were supposed to pay maintenence fees to the dev until the association was formed and to this date we've paid nothing. The reason for this is that the dev doesn't really have his stuff together. We've contacted the dev several times to get the association going but they've been pretty delayed in getting back to us. The 4 owners handle the garbage/recycling and it's not too bad but really we believe the dev should be doing it. In short, it really depends on who else ends up in your building on how things will turn out. We've talked about hiring a management company but none of us really want to pay that much for this service and in our case it would mean that we have to collect money from the dev since he still owns 50% of the building. I don't know if this helps but I hope it sheds some light on how things could turn out.

Posted by: meredith at June 6, 2009 12:26 PM in response to self-managed condo?

Listen to Meredith's warning before you consider my thoughts. I've posted on this topic a few times, if you want to look in the archives. In summary, presuming your building is mostly sold, and mostly owner-occupied, I recommend self-management.

We bought about 6 years ago in a 6-unit condo. We have been self-managed and 100% owner occupied since the beginning, and it really works extremely well for our building. Our common charges remain at $200 per month & have had just one assessment (had to replace the ENTIRE roof--new construction, crappy contractor, therefore not a surprise).

We hire a maintenance company to take the garbage to the curb, clean the common areas, and shovel snow, but the business of our little organization here is run by the owners. We trade off with the board positions, and all but one apartment pulls their weight (5 out of 6 is fine with us!).

The upshot is that, at the end of the day, we all have a very personal interest in how things go, and what we have to pay, and the general upkeep of the building. As such, it goes quite well. We even had an emergency a few weeks ago, when the water main from the street broke, leaving 1/2 of the building without water. We circled the wagons and had the repair bid out, done and paid within 60 hours (even though it happened at 4:00 pm on a Friday).

Good luck~

Posted by: curiositykilledthecat at June 7, 2009 10:28 AM in response to self-managed condo?

curiositykilledthecat:

What maintenance company do you use? What do you pay them per month?

Posted by: gee_blee at June 9, 2009 12:11 AM in response to self-managed condo?

I bought in a 15 unit condo a few years ago. We have been self managed for the majority of the time. We did hire a management company for a while though. They were a nightmare! They really just didn't care much about our small building and made a lot of mistakes.

We realized that we were better off saving our money and self managing. We happen to have an accountant and another owner who is quite skilled in home repair. It works out nicely. We have hired one of the owners who is going back to school to serve as the super. He's pretty dedicated to preventative maintenance so it works out well.

I think self managing is a good option for small buildings. When we did have a management company we just ended up managing the management company.

Leah

Posted by: lmk2101 at June 9, 2009 8:53 AM in response to self-managed condo?