Convincing Master Thesis 

Why haven't Wilhelminian-style buildings in Vienna that have already seen 100 years or more been demolished or collapsed long ago, even though the generally applied total useful life as residential buildings would have elapsed long ago? In short, the answer is of course through conservation measures. However, Maximilian Plachy took a more comprehensive look at the matter, addressing two research questions in his work:

-Are the approaches used in the valuation literature in the income capitalization approach to determine the level of maintenance costs actually verifiable in practice?

-How high are the maintenance costs of Viennese apartment buildings under sustainable management?

In order to determine which maintenance and upkeep costs are verifiable in practice, Plachy empirically examined and evaluated the maintenance and upkeep costs of 20 selected Viennese apartment buildings over the last ten years (2013 to 2022) in his work.

Using accounting overviews of the construction measures carried out in these buildings, he inspected countless invoice documents for the most cost-intensive measures and divided them into those for maintenance and those for repairs based on the purposes for which they were used and then indexed them to the year 2023.

Maximilian Plachy was able to prove that a wider range of EUR 15.00 to EUR 28.00 per m²/year can be assumed for maintenance costs, although a value of EUR 22.00 to EUR 23.00 per m² per year is the most accurate reflection of reality for the majority of the apartment buildings included in the study.

If the maintenance costs are also included, Mr. Plachy calculates the annual maintenance costs for Viennese apartment buildings as a rule at EUR 28.00 to EUR 38.00 per m², whereby here too the average is EUR 32.00 to EUR 34.00 per m² based on the majority of the apartment buildings included in the study.

Mr. Plachy's master thesis convinced the representatives of Bischof + Zorn + Partner (Die Wirtschaftskanzlei), opens an external URL in a new window both thematically and in terms of content and Mr. Plachy can also look forward to prize money of €3,000 - congratulations!