Where Do Your Common Charges Actually Go?

Condo Book Research · Updated Oct 10, 2026 · 7 min read

Your monthly common charge pays the building's bills. We read the first-year budgets in NYC condo offering plans to see how each dollar splits between staff, insurance, utilities, repairs, management and reserves, and how that changes in a boutique building, a doorman building, by borough and in a renovated building.

Every month you'll write a check for common charges, your share of what it costs to run the building. But what does that money actually pay for? Every NYC condo offering plan (the sponsor's disclosure document, filed with the New York Attorney General) includes a first-year budget called Schedule B. We read the Schedule B budgets in 518 NYC condo offering plans accepted from Oct 20, 2021 to Aug 24, 2026 and sorted every expense line into the same categories we use on our operating expense benchmarks. Here's where your money goes.

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 $21, and reserves $11.

On the typical bill in these plans, about $519 a month per unit, that works out to roughly:

• $88 for the building's insurance
• $78 for water and sewer, billed by the city to the building, not to you
• $57 set aside in reserves and contingency
• $36 for the managing agent, the firm that runs the building day to day

88% 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 81% of those budgets. In a boutique building of 25 units or fewer with no front desk, it's only $6.

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 $5. The bill is much bigger too: the typical doorman building in these plans budgets $2,016 a month per unit, against $504 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 is the most expensive amenity a condo can have, more than a pool or a gym. Covering a door around the clock takes about 4.2 full-time employees (168 hours a week divided by a 40-hour week), which is why so many budget footnotes list "4.2 doormen." 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 across the owners, that's about:

Union or not? Most NYC building staff belong to SEIU Local 32BJ. Weekly pay isn't far apart; the big difference is benefits, which add a large share on top of wages in a union budget. Buildings can unionize after you buy: the plan for Justice Ave Tower in Elmhurst warns its staffing budget would rise by about a third 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, but nobody is there in person to take packages.

Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens

Manhattan buyers pay the most for staff: $24 of every $100, against $7 in Brooklyn and $12 in Queens. In Brooklyn and Queens, water takes a bigger cut ($16 and $15) than in Manhattan ($8).

That mostly reflects the buildings. 45% of the Manhattan budgets we read name a doorman or concierge, against 2% 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 $9). New buildings spend a little more on staff: $10 against $7.

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? 89% 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.

Common Questions

What do condo common charges pay for in NYC?

The building's operating costs: insurance, water and sewer, common-area heat and electricity, repairs and service contracts, staff, the managing agent's fee, legal and accounting, and contributions to reserves. Across the plans we read, insurance ($17 of every $100) and water ($15) are the largest single items.

Why are common charges so much higher in a doorman building?

Staff. In doorman and concierge buildings, staff takes $41 of every $100 of the budget, and the typical bill is $2,016 a month per unit against $504 in a boutique building.

How many doormen does a 24-hour door need?

About 4.2 full-time employees: 168 hours a week divided by a 40-hour work week.

Do common charges include property taxes?

No. In a condo, each unit is taxed separately and you pay your own real estate taxes. That's a key difference from a co-op, where taxes are part of the maintenance.

Will my common charges go up after the first year?

Usually. Schedule B is the sponsor's projection for the first year. Insurance renewals, staff contracts and a switch from sponsor management to a paid managing agent often raise the budget.

We read the first-year budget (Schedule B) in the 518 NYC condominium offering plans accepted Oct 20, 2021–Aug 24, 2026 that are on our common charges benchmarks and whose expense lines add up to the budget's total. Each line is sorted into a category by its name, as on our operating expense page; the groups above combine those categories (repairs and service contracts includes elevator, fire safety and exterminating; reserves includes contingency). Each building counts once: we take each category's share of the building's own budget and average across buildings. The typical bill is the median monthly common charge per residential unit. Doorman or concierge means the budget or its notes name one. Budgets are sponsor projections, not actual costs; updated as of Oct 13, 2026.