What New NYC Condos Spend on Staff, by Building Size

Updated Oct 26, 2026 · 10 min read

Staff Cost per Home, by Building Size

Every NYC condo offering plan includes a first-year budget (Schedule B) with a staffing plan: who works in the building, for how many hours, and what it costs in wages, payroll taxes and benefits. We read 647 of these budgets, for plans accepted from Oct 19, 2021 to Aug 24, 2026, and divided the staff cost by the number of homes.

Building size decides almost everything:

• Up to 10 homes: most budget no staff at all (73% of buildings with 5 or fewer homes, 55% with 6 to 10). The rest budget a little, typically for cleaning or a part-time porter: a median of $1,460 and $860 per home a year among those that budget any.
• 11 to 25 homes: $850 per home a year (about $70 a month), enough for a part-time super, porter or cleaning service. Staff is about 18% of the budget.
• 26 to 50 homes: $1,070 per home a year. Many still do without a lobby attendant.
• 51 to 99 homes: $4,290 per home a year (about $360 a month), 4 times the 26-to-50 figure, because this is where a 24-hour front desk becomes common (48% of plans have one). Staff is about 42% of the budget, the biggest single line.
• 100 homes or more: $4,240 per home a year. The building's total keeps growing, a median of $551,000 a year, but it's split among more owners.

First-year budgets of NYC condo plans accepted Oct 19, 2021 to Aug 24, 2026: the staffing lines (superintendent, porters, doormen, concierges, cleaning, payroll taxes and benefits, on the payroll or through a service company), the homes' share, per home. The median, then the middle half of buildings (25th to 75th percentile). Staff share: the median among budgets with staff.

Why the middle range is wide: two buildings of the same size can budget very differently. A 40-unit building with a virtual doorman and a part-time super might spend a tenth of what a 40-unit building with a 24-hour doorman spends. The front desk is the swing factor.

When Does a Building Get a Front Desk?

We read the staffing plan in 227 of these offering plans to see what kind of front desk each building promises:

The same plans, where the offering plan describes the building's staff: the front desk it describes. Part-time: a desk staffed some hours of the day. Virtual: a video intercom or remote attendant instead of a person in the lobby. Desk hours: the median weekly hours of coverage among plans whose staffing schedule gives them (at least 3), and the same in 40-hour full-time positions.

• No desk: the norm up to 10 homes. 82% of plans with 5 or fewer homes and 75% with 6 to 10 describe no front desk at all. Some use a virtual doorman instead: a video intercom, sometimes backed by a remote attendant, at a median of 10 homes.
• 24-hour desks in small buildings are mostly a Manhattan thing. 30% of plans with 11 to 25 homes have one, and a few smaller buildings do too, like 10 West 17th Street in the Flatiron District, with 6 homes, and 140 Jane Street in the West Village, with 15. Of the 16 buildings of 25 homes or fewer with a 24-hour desk, 88% are in Manhattan.
• A staffed desk becomes the norm at 26–50 homes: from that size up, at least half of the plans describe a desk with a person at it, part-time or full-time.
• A 24-hour desk becomes the norm at 100 homes or more, where 64% of plans have one. At 51 to 99 homes, it's 48%.

Part-time desks

Part-time desks are less common than you might expect: 12 of the plans we read describe one, in buildings from 4 to 105 homes (a median of 41). There's no size at which they're standard. Developers tend to choose between a virtual system and a 24-hour desk, with part-time coverage as a middle option. A typical part-time desk is staffed about 80 hours a week, roughly 11 hours a day.

What "24 hours" takes

Covering one desk around the clock takes 168 hours a week. Offering plans staff that as about 4.2 full-time positions, since one 40-hour employee covers less than a quarter of the week. The largest buildings staff more than one post, such as a doorman and a concierge, and their weekly hours run well above 168.

What the Front Desk Does to the Budget

Medians. Desk hours: the hours of coverage the plan's staffing schedule adds up to, where it gives them.

Across all sizes, a building with a 24-hour desk budgets a median of $479,000 a year for staff, and a building with a part-time desk $145,000. More on small buildings in what boutique condos include.

Live-In Super or Not?

Plans that say whether the building will have a superintendent and where they live. "No super" includes buildings where the managing agent or a service contractor handles the work.

• Small buildings often have no super at all. With 5 or fewer homes, 50% of plans that address it have none; the managing agent or a contractor handles repairs. At 6 to 10 homes, 72% have a super who lives elsewhere.
• A live-in super becomes common in larger buildings: 50% of plans with 51 to 99 homes and 82% with 100 or more, against 13% at 26 to 50. The live-in super's apartment can be a unit the condo owns, and its costs (common charges, taxes and sometimes a mortgage) show up in the budget.

Union vs. Non-Union

NYC's building service union is Local 32BJ SEIU. Its residential contract with the Realty Advisory Board sets wages and benefits for doormen, porters, handymen and supers in member buildings. The last one expired April 20, 2026; the new four-year agreement, ratified by members in June 2026, runs to April 20, 2030. Many older Manhattan co-ops and condos are union buildings. New condos mostly aren't.

Since 2014, 40 condo plans name Local 32BJ, and 382 say their staff will be non-union. Among plans accepted since Oct 19, 2021, it's 11 union against 128 non-union, so 8% of the new plans that say either way are union.

What the plans say:

• Union: at 393 West End Avenue (88 homes), the plan says the staff will be members of Local 32BJ and classifies the building "Class A" for the union wage scale. At Slate in Long Island City (28 homes), the super's wages are 32BJ rates, and the plan ties its staffing to the 421-a tax abatement's requirements. Even a 4-unit building, 726A Quincy Street, commits to prevailing wages under a labor agreement with 32BJ.
• Non-union: most new plans say it plainly. Residences on Calyer in Greenpoint says the staff "will be non-union," with wages that meet state minimum wage laws. At the smallest end, 266 7th Street in Park Slope, with 3 homes, budgets one non-union part-time porter.
• In between: at Fabric Astoria (35 homes), the staff starts non-union but has the right to bargain with 32BJ under an agreement the sponsor signed.

What a union contract costs

Plans accepted since 2014 with 26 or more homes whose text names Local 32BJ, or says the staff will be non-union (a plan that says both is left out). The whole budget's staff lines per residential unit per year, the median, not adjusted for inflation. A dash: fewer than 5 budgets.

In every size group with enough budgets to compare (3), union buildings budget more for staff per home than non-union buildings of the same size, from 9% to 143% more. Part of that gap is head count, which the totals don't separate. The benefit load is cleaner. Where the footnote gives base wages, union budgets add 59 cents in payroll taxes and benefits on every dollar of wages (15 budgets), against 20 cents in non-union budgets (20). The difference is the union's welfare (health), pension, annuity and training funds. At 181 MacDougal Street, a 16-unit union building, the welfare fund alone is budgeted at about a third of base wages.

The law behind the footnote: the Attorney General's rules for condo plans (13 NYCRR 20.3(h)(4)(ii)) require the labor footnote to state head count, whether staff are union, each benefit's cost, current wage rates plus increases already mandated by contract, and the union contract's expiration date. Non-union plans must say whether wages meet state minimum wage law. Nothing requires a raise in a non-union budget, and almost none include one. Union budgets carry raises only to the contract's end: the plan for the Flatiron Building budgets 4% escalators against a contract expiring April 20, 2026, and 175 East 82nd Street, filed after the new deal, assumes 4% a year.

Good to know: a building that starts non-union can unionize later, if the staff vote for it. Some plans say outright that they make no promise about future wages or the staff's right to organize, so treat the first-year staff budget as a starting point.

What to Check in Schedule B

• The staffing schedule. Look for the footnote that lists each position, its hours a week and its wage. It tells you whether "doorman" means 24 hours a day or a few evening shifts.
• Union or not. Search the plan for "32BJ", "32B-32J" and "non-union." In a union budget, check the raise assumed and the contract date it runs to; in a non-union one, assume the wage line is flat.
• The super's apartment. If there's a live-in super, check whether the condo owns the unit and what it costs to carry.
• Staff phased in. Some plans say not all staff will be hired until the building fills up. Your first-year bill may be lower than the full-staff budget.
• Who else pays. In a mixed-use building, find out how payroll is split with the commercial or rental part. See condos that share a building with rentals.

To see how a building's staff budget compares with others its size, open its page on The Condo Book Project and look at the budget, or compare on the operating expense benchmarks. For how the whole budget breaks down, see where common charges go.

Related: Condo Supplies Cost per Unit, by Size · Condo Utilities Cost per Unit, by Size