The median Manhattan condo costs
$1.29 per square foot a month to run

Point 1Why nobody can give you one average

Every article on this question quotes a single dollar figure for a monthly HOA bill. That figure is meaningless without the square footage, and the range inside New York is wider than the gap between cities.

Common charges are billed per square foot of your apartment. A $1,400 monthly charge is expensive on a 700 sq ft studio and cheap on a 2,000 sq ft loft. The only comparable number is the rate, and the rate is set by the building — its lifts, its staff, its age, its heating plant and how much amenity space it has to keep warm and insured.

The table below is not survey data. New York values condominiums for tax purposes by comparing them to rental buildings, and in doing so it publishes the operating expense it attributes to each condo. Common charges exist to cover that expense. It is the closest thing to an audited answer that exists in public.

Point 2By borough

Manhattan runs about 56% above Queens on the same measure. That is not a Manhattan premium in the way people usually mean it — it is doormen, lifts, older mechanical systems and higher insurance, all of which cost the same whether the flat sells for $900,000 or $9m.

Point 3By neighbourhood

Neighbourhoods with at least fifteen buildings in the filing, ranked by what it costs to run a square foot. Staten Island is excluded — too few condo buildings to publish a median worth reading.

Where it costs least

The spread between the top and bottom of this list is roughly three to one. A buyer comparing two apartments at the same asking price in different neighbourhoods can be looking at a difference of $729 a month in carrying cost on a 1,000 sq ft flat, which over ten years is more than the difference in most people's negotiating range.

Point 4Condo common charges vs co-op maintenance

These are not the same bill and they cannot be compared directly. A co-op maintenance figure that looks twice as high as a condo's common charges may be the cheaper apartment.

Point 5What drives the number inside a building

Two things in that table surprise most buyers. A lift adds roughly 16% to the running cost of a square foot, because it brings a service contract, an inspection regime and usually a staffed lobby with it. And new construction is cheaper to run per foot than pre-war stock, despite the pools and the lounges, because the plant is efficient and nothing has failed yet.

That second point has a sting in it. New buildings are cheap to run in year three and not in year twenty, and a sponsor's first-year budget is the most optimistic document in the sale. Look at the reserve fund, not the current charge.

Point 6How the number has moved

Citywide medians from the same filing, ten years apart. Nothing here is adjusted for inflation.

Up 46% across the decade, around 3.9% a year compounded. Insurance and labour account for most of it. When you model a New York purchase, escalating common charges at 2% a year understates what the last ten years actually did.

Point 7Checking the real figure for a specific building

Everything above is a benchmark. Before an offer, get the building's own numbers — all of these are public or obtainable, and none of them cost anything.