People can have a hard time justifying paying Strata fees on a monthly or quarterly bases, or in some cases at all, you have to keep in mind you are paying for someone to maintain and insure your premises and all the common areas of the property for you. The same fees can be associated with maintaining a house; in some cases you have more control and ultimately have full responsibility to pay these costs as they come up. You may have just as many costs associated with owning a residential home, but as in most cases you don’t break them down on a monthly basis so it may not seem like you are paying out as much. Keep in mind if you were to do a yearly total and compare condo fees to a residential home you may be surprised that they may come out to be less in the end. With a residential home you still need to maintain insurance coverage on the premises, pay for garbage pick up, sewage, landscaping maintenance, pool etc., should you have some or all of these items, plus the ongoing maintenance of the building. Granted, if you are talented with DIY, you can maintain some of these things on your own, but the fixed costs when you break them down at the end of a year can work out very close or more to that of a condos strata fees.