Tips about buying new apartments:7. Common areas: If too large, definitely too expensive for your pocket | Ilias Papageorgiadis’ blog for Real Estate in Romania (and not only)

Tips about buying new apartments:
7. Common areas: If too large,
definitely too expensive for your pocket

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Investment in a new apartment is one of the most important moments in the economic life of each and every one of us. Statistics say that we usually buy 1 - 3 dwellings during our life, so every mistake counts. When the subject is an apartment in a new project, then even more questions rise. Except all the rest, a very important parameter is how your future home has been designed, as part of a residential project. If the developer’s architect had let his “artistic” side guide the design, this can cost you a lot more than you can imagine…

Your developer’s architect: Efficient or not?

There are some companies which have “in house” architects, but most of them pay regular smaller or bigger architectural firms. Usually I separate architects into 4 categories:

The efficient “pragmatic”.
The non efficient “pragmatic”
The efficient “artists”
The non efficient “artists”.

The efficient ones are always the best to work with. Either more “pragmatic” or more “artists” (but ofcourse every architect hides an “artist” inside) they have designed a project which gives solutions to end users’ practical problems. You will discover that the non efficient ones have created something which will complicate your life, with many small or bigger mistakes hidden.

Why is it important for you to check the architect’s work? Because based on this you will pay more or less money, while buying and also every month.

Wrong design: Responsible for the project’s failure, it made it too expensive

In a country where the majority of residential buyers can simply afford buying an apartment by “Prima Casa” programme, there were too many projects with completely different standards. These will probably remain empty, as they have wrong location, design, spreading of surfaces etc. The location is usually the mistake of the developer himself and his broker - consultant. But the rest “belong” to a “non efficient” architect, who designed a wrong project without taking into consideration the market’s needs. (We should also include the common scenario of the developer forcing the architect to create something wrong, “because he was the client and he paid for it”).

What is the ideal % of common areas in a new building?

The optimum is 12 - 15% but it is very difficult to be reached. So if the building has 1.000 constructed sq.m., the ideal is to have common spaces of 120 - 150 sq.m.. Usually the figure varies between 20 - 30%, at least in the majority of projects during 2007 - 2008. When it exceeds 30%, then there is a major problem of lost space (Why did this happen? Because wider common areas create a nicer environment for the building, making it look like spacious. The only problem is that the people loved to see this in plans, but they were not ready to pay it in reality…)

Which are the “common areas” in a building?

The staircase.
The elevator.
The underground parking area (in case you buy a parking lot there, you are usually asked to pay the costs of maintenance too).
The technical level.
The land (gardens etc) around of the building.
Any facilities people share (from gym to… whatever).
Sometimes there is also a gate and a doorman.

Common areas = Expensive nightmares or useful parts of the building?

The common areas are supposed to transform a cement box into the warm environment our apartment will be located at. But it not always like this. In most of the projects I know they turned out to be a problem. So be aware of the following problems:

If the common areas are large = you will pay more money to live in a smaller apartment, because you will have to support the developer’s costs for the common areas too. (Ofcourse he will tell you that they are for free etc, but be sure he calculated them too, before giving you his final price)
Many times you don’t really need some of the services offered. When you hear about a project with a swimming pool, you should calculate: Cost to clean and sterilize it, someone to take care of it and more. Are you sure that you really want to pay for all these? So as to share this pool with another 200 - 300 families?
Large surfaces = higher maintenance costs. It will be visible in your monthly costs, there are too many costs to pay, when the common spaces are large. Add on the top the “management fee” and enjoy your bill…

Ideal common areas:

For “affordable” apartments, the minimum necessary. We buy the apartment only, not the “project”. (But still, the elevator must fit at least 4 persons…)
For “middle - upper” dwellings, a nice staircase on the ground floor would help.
For “luxurious” projects, spacious common areas provide a scent of “aristocracy”. (But “spacious” doesn’t mean to play football there…)

On Monday, April 12th: