Coconut Grove Condos: Maintenance Fees
July 8th, 2008 | categories: Coconut Grove Condos
If you are interested in purchasing a condo in Coconut Grove, you should be aware of
the monthly maintenance fees (also known as Condominium Association fees). A maintenance fee is charged to each owner to cover the costs of upkeep, maintenance, insurance (fire, hurricane and liability), water and sewer, electricity for common areas, trash removal and administrative costs. Typically, the maintenance fees are based on the amount of square footage in each unit.
Be aware that maintenance fees can increase over time, and the owner can also be charged with “special assessments”. Special assessments occur when there is not adequate money in the reserve account to pay for large capital improvements (such as painting, new roof, or repaving). You may want to ask your realtor when you are considering buying in a specific building whether or not there have been any major assessments lately, or if there are any special assessments pending. If the realtor knows the answer to this question, they are required by law to tell you. If you are looking to buy in an older building and there have not been any assessments in the past few years, you might want to prepare yourself for one to be incurred sooner rather than later.
One recent issue that has been in the news lately is the effect of foreclosures on Condominium Assocations. If a building has many units in distress and owners are not paying their fees then the rest of the building will suffer because there won’t be enough money to properly maintain or insure the building. This will either cause higher fees for everyone else, or result in a poorly maintained or under insured property.
Below is a list of some of the maintenance fees found in Coconut Grove Condos:
- Grovenor House: 2,640 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $2,238.00
- L’Hermitage: 3,490 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $1,041.00
- Grove Garden: 1,981 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $1,624.00
- Grove Isle: 1,882 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $947.00
- Ritz Carlton Residences: 2,100 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $1,940.00
- South Two Seven Lofts: 701 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $343.00
- Yacht Harbor: 2,407 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $1,033.00
- Grove Tower: 1,142 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $921.00
- Grove Hill Tower: 4,480 square foot unit has monthly maintenance fee of $3,294.00
These prices may seem stiff, but things could be worse…..I just sold a condo on South Beach where the monthly maintenance fee is almost $10,000.
Interesting info. If those monthly’s include hurricane insurance they don’t seem that bad. The insurance bill on our 3500 sqf foot home in the Grove would work out to be something similar. Then there’s property taxes, yard and pool maintenance…it all ads up to be in the same ballpark.
Just wanted to clarify that NOT including property taxes, our pro rata insurance bill and other yard maintenance, I think puts us in the same ball park as those fees.
Anne,
You are correct, included in those maintenance fees was definitely windstorm protection, but not any sort of property protection as that would be the responsibility of individual unit owners.
You will notice there is a wide range in maintenance fees depending upon the amentities and the amount of staff each building has. The carrying costs on concierges, valets, security and on site management can be very costly and the reason that some fees are higher than others.
Most of the time, when you compare these fees with the fees of homeownership, you generally get a little more for your money considering that you are sharing the costs of many of the amentities and of the insurance.
Thanks for your comment.
Riley