Condo living in Waterloo Region

[Rainrider22]

What is a good balance to have in the reserves per floor, per unit etc? How do you judge it?

It all depends on the building age and condition. Apart from the visual clues, that important document is the reserve fund study, which forecasts the major repairs and the funds needed to cover those. If you can't get a copy of this report, I would look at the reserve fund contributions in the budget: are they stable or rapidly increasing -- the latter would indicate that the reserve fund study has indicated the reserve is insufficient. High but stable would indicate that the fund is not sufficient and thus high contributions are being made to avoid a special assessment at a later time. 


As a benchmark, I think our reserve contribution is something like $0.12/sqft, about a quarter of our budget. Some older condos where insufficient maintenance was done, or no reserve fund studies were made to ensure sufficient contributions, will have far higher contributions (see Eaton Lofts for an example of this).

As for new condos, the fund starts at zero. And developers tend to be rather optimistic on the reserve contributions. Once the first reserve fund study has been done, those chickens will come home to roost.

Very well explained.... I always tend to go for somewhat older established buildings.  They has a track record to review.  And if I couldn't get a copy of the most recent certified study, I would walk away...