Where Do NYC Condo Common Charges Go?

Updated Oct 10, 2026 · 7 min read

Where $100 of Common Charges Goes

In a typical new NYC condo, insurance and water together take $32 of every $100. Repairs and service contracts take another $20, and reserves $10.

On the typical bill in these plans, about $6,295 per unit a year, that works out to roughly:

• $1,070 for the building's insurance
• $944 for water and sewer, billed by the city to the building, not to you
• $630 set aside in reserves and contingency
• $441 for the managing agent, the firm that runs the building day to day

The catch: 84% of the plans we read are boutique buildings, so this average leans toward them. If you're buying in a doorman building, the picture is very different.

Boutique Building or Doorman Building?

The biggest swing in where your money goes is staff. In a doorman or concierge building, staff takes $41 of every $100, and it's the single biggest item in 83% of those budgets. In a boutique building of 25 units or fewer with no front desk, it's only $7.

In a boutique building, you're mostly paying for the building itself. Insurance ($18), water ($16) and legal, accounting and admin ($11) take a bigger slice, because those costs don't shrink much when there are fewer owners to split them.

In a doorman building, you're mostly paying for people. Insurance falls to $9 and water to $6. The bill is much bigger too: the typical doorman building in these plans budgets $20,427 per unit a year, against $6,065 for a boutique building. For what a full bill should be, see how much condo common charges should be in NYC.

What a Doorman Really Costs

A doorman can be the most expensive amenity a condo has. Covering a door around the clock takes about 4.2 full-time employees (168 hours a week divided by a 40-hour week), and the notes of 14 of the budgets we read staff a post that way, with the figure 4.2. Add payroll taxes, health insurance and pension, and that one post costs the building the same whether it serves fifteen apartments or a hundred and fifty.

That's why building size is everything. Say a round-the-clock post costs $300,000 a year. Split evenly across the units, that's:

Union or not? Many NYC building workers belong to SEIU Local 32BJ, and a union budget carries its benefits on top of wages. Buildings can unionize after you buy: the plan for Justice Ave Tower in Elmhurst budgets $667,371 for staff and warns that would rise to $893,128, 34% more, all of it in benefits, if its staff joined the union.

Cheaper alternatives include a part-time door (8 to 16 hours a day), staff contracted through an outside company for one annual fee, or a virtual doorman: a video intercom, sometimes with remote staff, like the system at Hancock and Jefferson in Bed-Stuy. It costs a fraction of a staffed desk.

The catch: with a virtual doorman, nobody is there in person to take packages.

Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens

Manhattan buyers pay the most for staff: $27 of every $100, against $7 in Brooklyn and $16 in Queens. In Brooklyn and Queens, water takes a bigger cut ($16 and $15) than in Manhattan ($7).

That mostly reflects the buildings. 49% of the Manhattan budgets we read name a doorman or concierge, against 3% in Brooklyn.

New Construction or a Renovated Building?

A rehab is a condo made by renovating an existing building, rather than building from the ground up. In the rehab plans we read, insurance takes $21 of every $100 (against $16 in new construction), and legal, accounting and admin $13 (against $8). New buildings spend a little more on staff: $12 against $6.

What to Ask and What to Check

Before you sign a contract, open Schedule B in the offering plan (or ask your attorney for it) and go through this list:

• Who's on staff? Is there a super, a porter, a doorman? Are they on the building's payroll or through a service company? The footnotes say. Look for "4.2" (round-the-clock coverage) or "2.8" (usually 16 hours a day), and search for "32B-32J" to see whether the budget assumes union staff. If payroll is zero, check the service contracts.
• How old is the insurance quote? The budget uses a quote from when the plan was filed. Ask whether the first renewal has come in, and what it was.
• Is the sponsor managing the building for free? If the management fee is low or missing, ask what it will cost when the board hires a managing agent.
• Is there a real reserve? 88% of these budgets have a reserve or contingency line. A budget line isn't the same as money in the bank: check the reserve fund and working capital fund in the plan itself.
• Has the budget been updated? Later budgets are filed as amendments. See how to find offering plan amendments.
• How does it compare? Check the building's per-unit cost against similar buildings on our common charges benchmarks.

For each budget line item, how it's calculated and what the budget usually leaves out, see Schedule B, line by line. To read any building's own budget, look it up in The Condo Book Project's search.

Related: NYC Condo Insurance Costs Are Rising · Condo Supplies Cost per Unit, by Size