Ask what the condo fees are at Applejack and you will get a number, and it will be wrong - not because anyone is being cagey, but because there is no such number.
Each of Applejack’s phases is its own condominium, setting its own budget, carrying its own costs and charging its own fees. On top of that, within each phase, different units pay different amounts. Any single fee you have seen quoted is one unit’s fee, in one phase, in one year. Useful context, terrible shorthand.
How the fees actually work
Every phase’s declaration assigns each unit a percentage of the common expenses. Bigger units carry bigger percentages. When the board sets the annual budget, your fee is your unit’s slice of it.
The spread is wider than most people expect. In the declarations I have read, the largest unit’s share runs from about one and a half times to nearly double the smallest. Two very different fees quoted from the same phase can both be correct - they are just different units.
Why have Applejack fees gone up?
If you compare an Applejack fee from a few years ago with one from today, some phases show a jump that looks alarming. In several of them, the explanation is boring and reassuring: the fee now includes a bulk cable and internet package - a service owners used to pay for separately. The increase roughly matched the cost of what it replaced.
That is worth knowing, because a buyer who sees the jump without the story assumes something is wrong with the building’s finances. Usually, nothing is - but the way to know for certain is the status certificate.
Three traps when comparing fees
Comparing across phases. Different budgets, different inclusions, different buildings of different ages. A fee difference between phases is not a verdict on either one until you know what each fee buys.
Comparing across years. See the cable and internet story above.
Treating one listing’s fee as “the” fee. It is that unit’s share. A bigger or smaller unit in the same phase pays a different number.
And one assumption to drop: the newest homes do not carry the highest fees here. Intuition says the 2002 Woods units cost the most to run. The observed pattern says otherwise.
What do Applejack condo fees cover?
Broadly: care of the common elements, insurance on the buildings, a share of the shared amenities that all the phases fund together, and in some phases, bundled cable and internet. What fees do not cover is a longer and more surprising list - your contents insurance, and in at least one phase’s published split, things like heating systems and hot water tanks sit with the owner. Who fixes what gets its own page.
The one number that matters
The fee for the specific unit you are buying, on a current status certificate, together with what it includes and the financial health behind it. That document is the source. Everything above is the context that makes it make sense.
Buying at Applejack?
If you are working through a specific unit’s numbers, get in touch and we can go through them.
Brad Macdonald, Broker
The MAC Team · REMAX All-Stars Realty Inc. Brokerage