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How Much to Give Your Building Staff: The Annual Guide

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Early December is the time when New York City's building staff prefer to get their holiday tips, to help with their holiday shopping. Which means it's time for that annual tradition: the holiday tipping guide. Every year since 2005, we've re-run the tipping guidelines memo issued by a Two Trees Management super (original here, and years' worth of Curbed tipping advice over here). But what's right for the Two Trees tenants and staff of 2005 isn't necessarily right for the rest of NYC c. 2012, so, as always, some more general guidelines are in order.

Brick Underground provides a broader holiday tipping guide, and this year the site recommends the same ranges as last year:

Super, resident manager: $75 -$175 on average (broad range: $50 - $500)
Doorman, concierge: $25-$150 on average (broad range: $10 - $1,000)
Porter, handyman: $20 - $30 on average (broad range: $10 - $75)
Garage attendant: $25 - $75 on average (broad range $15-$100)

Brick Underground also conducts a poll on holiday tipping, and last year's poll found that 65 percent of owners in doorman buildings who responded to the poll spent between $250 and $1000 total on tips. Of renters in doorman buildings, 37 percent spent $250 to $500 on tips. Tipping is, as BrickU, points out, not required, but skipping tipping might make one's building staff frostier in the coming year.
· The Tipping Point archive [Curbed]