One benefit of living in a well-run rental apartment building is the on-site superintendent handles home repairs for you. However, in a condo, you're responsible for your own repairs, which means you have to hire someone if the repair is out of your skill set.
But there are hundreds of units in a condo building, all of which started out with the same appliances and plumbing fixtures and door frames.
What if they all pooled their resources and hired an on-site handyman-type maintenance person who would do in the in-suite repairs and odd jobs that are normally the resident's jurisdiction?
Some quick back-of-envelope math: if a maintenance makes $100,000 a year (nice round number) and there are 500 residents in the building (like there are in my building), it would cost everyone $200 a year - or $16 a month - to have on-site on-demand maintenance service for all the things that would normally be the resident's jurisdiction. Not bad, considering there's usually a minimum charge of about $100 for a tradesperson to even come out to see you, not to mention the peace of mind of knowing who to call (and not having to figure out who's a competent tradesperson and who's a scam, and not having to figure out what kind of tradesperson to call for your specific problem when it's not glaringly obvious - I mean, whose job is "my blind won't open" or "my soft close hinges no longer close softly" or "the handle fell off my window"???)
One benefit of living in a condo rather than a rental building is that there isn't a profit motive - they can spend condo fees on things that are convenient for residents, solely on the grounds that they're convenient for residents. For example, my condo hires professional window washers to wash the balcony windows, which is a marginal cost for each household but makes everyone's life significantly easier by taking away an irritating chore.
This would also make everyone's quality of life easier, by taking away all kind of irritating chore.
1 comment:
This doesn't exist??? That is nuts!
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