I am sure many Tuggers here own coops/condos, all of which are faced with similar escalating costs (labor, insurance, utilities, etc), yet such double digit increases would lead to a revolt amongst owners.
Personally, we own a coop in NYC which we bought 5 years ago when our daughter was an undergrad.. It is in a full service building with round-the-clock maintenance, concierge/doorman, etc.. And we received an apologetic letter from our BOD explaining increasing labor costs, fuel costs which were budgeted at last year's escalated prices, higher insurance rates, costs for on-going building maintenance (including boiler replacement, fascia repointing, replacement of lot line windows, lobby renovations, etc.); it also cited the need to keep a large reserve in excess of a million dollars. BTW- there are ~450 apts. in the building. As I read through the letter I was waiting for the shoe to drop. Imagine my surprise when I came to the bottom line- a 1.5% increase!
NYC is often touted as one of the more expensive cities to live in, with high labor rates, etc.. I gotta wonder how the coop board is managing and why the resorts have to impose such high fees. Granted, coop/condo boards don't have to deal with interior refurbishments every 10 years, but if you figure a cost of $40,000 per unit to refurbish (I think I read a quote for one of the resorts at 38K), divided by 10 years and 52 weeks of ownership, that comes out to less than $77 per owned week for each 10 year refurbishment.
And, I know you can't compare a building's staff to a resort's staffing, but somehow these huge increases don't seem right.
