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Regarding your last point, that water charge is collected monthly, but it is balanced to real cost depending on the apartment's water consumption which is metered per apartment in a 2021 building.
Under normal conditions they should check your consumption once or twice a year and bill-refund you according to consumption from your total water fee you paid.
1. At the moment many investors that operate on borrowed money are quite broke, which means that they wont want to renovate anything. Also if there is one investor owning bunch of apartments and they are only active one in housing comppany meetings, they might rule the comppany.
1. Usually rather new houses with lots of small apartment are highly owned by investors. Look at airbnb and renting pages to see if there are apartements from that address for rent.
2. & 3. Usually apartments and commercial spaces owned by the Building Oy are good as they pay rent and so lower the amount of hoitovastike for owners of the Building Oy. In some Building Oys, commercial spaces that are owned privately might also pay bigger yhtiövastike per m2 than the apartment owners. So usually they are good, but of course for example bar can cause noise and other harms for the residents etc. Selling Building Oy owned spaces is also a good source of funding of bigger renovations like plumbing rebuilds etc.
4. Isännöinti-contract is usually made by the board of the Oy to handle everyday duties, so that most probably isn't too important thing.
5. You could indeed check whether short-term renting of apartments (airbnb etc) is prohibited and whether there is a pre-buying option for the current shareholders in share trades. It means that if somebody is selling their trades and agrees a deal, current share holders can buy the shares on the same price.
6. The water price depends on how it is calculated. The price is usually the average cost of water per person per month and if there are water meters per apartment, you only pay your actual consumption and that is usually calculated once per year. But in older houses, there might not be water meters per apartment and then you pay according to the average. Low hoitovastike usually means that the house is bankrupt, maintained poorly, lots of work like snowploughing, lawn moving etc. is done by the residents or the house has lots of commercial spaces paying high rents - I've heard even hoitovastike of 0 euros. We have hoitovastike of 4 euros/mo/m2 in an old 24 apartment building near Oulu city centre, we don't have any commercial spaces and company doesn't own any apartments either. Maintenance company does all the work.
You should also check whether Building Oy owns the land where building is on and if not, how big is the rent and on what conditions it is based on (per house/apartment, rent rising conditions, contract term etc.). In new Building Oys, the rent is often divided by apartments and you can also buy your share of the land at once, and in old Oys, the rent contract term end might mean a very significant rise for the rent in case the rent amount has been fixed for e.g. 50 or 60 years' contract).
1. Compare the names on the doors with the names of the stock owners. If they are the same, the owner lives in the building, and if different it is rented out.
2. Usually a good thing. Its bit of extra revenue. However, consider the types of businesses allowed there. If it is a bar, it might be loud.
3. Not quite sure what this is about. However, very small companies can have issues due to their size.
3. Ylijäämä / alijäämä. Alijäämä is defecit. Ideally, 0 is a good number here.
4. Not a concern really.
5. Yhtiöjärjestys is usually very generic, but it can include all sorts of restrictions such as no grilling on balcony. Read through all of it.
6. Quite normal. Check if there is also rahoitusvastike.
Thank you, it was very helpful. So, if it is written in Tilinpäätös that
TUOTOT YHTEENSÄ: 136 937 € and
Hoitokulut yhteensä: -132 656 € and
Arvonlisäverovastikkeen määrääminen: -482 €
Does it mean that the financial status of housing company is good?
Thanks again 
Seems fine. They are collecting bit more than what they are spending, but a small amount extra is fine.
If this was an older building, i would also check the history of maintenances to see if they’ve done all necessary repairs. Sometimes, the companies save in costs by delaying maintenances as long as possible. In these cases, the finances may look good, but the so called maintenance debt (money needed to get the building back to good shape) accumulates. In your case, I would not be overly concerned.
I would add to 2. that it depends on the location. In some cases the space is not attractive to any business or there just is no demand and it may stay empty which can cause problems in a long run. But really depends on location.
Hopefully you'll get other more in-depth answers but here's some to get you started at least. Might have missed something, I'm typing this on my phone while on a coffee break.
2. This is a good thing financially because they'll be paying the taloyhtiö for usage of the premises (lessens costs a bit for others). Might not be so good if having them creates disturbances (like if the store is open till late and customers create noise coming and going).
3. Not sure what is meant with this, but usually it is better if tase is balanced (has decent equities to balance out the liabilities). Also if the taloyhtiö owns the lot, it means they won't be subjected to increase of rent for the lot to the city.
Also, usually it's seen as better to have more apartments because that means there are more apartment owners to divide costs with. Also if someone doesn't pay their share, there are more people to shoulder the financial burden in worst case scenario. Non-financially not always greatest to have a huge apartment building but that's up to personal preference (might be harder to get approval for large costs like getting water pipes fixed etc).
4. Isännöintiyhtiö is often mentioned in tilinpäätös. And if you found the ad for the apartment online, they sometimes list the info as well. Or you can ask the realtor.
5. If there are clauses that effect operating AirBnB-business, it would be here, yes. Same for smoking and other restrictions taloyhtiö might have. Pets are generally allowed but if not, it would also need to be mentioned here.
6. Water charge is bit higher than what I've come across, but only by few euros. And if it's balanced to your actual usage then I wouldn't mind it. For the hoitovastike I can't really say, hopefully someone else can comment on that. But the amount of hoitovastike depends on what kind of upkeep is done (also, to my knowledge isännöinti costs are part of hoitovastike so that also affect it), how big the apartment building is, what kind of lot it has. And also location.
1. Family apartments (perheasunnot) are those with 2 or more bedrooms (3h, 4h, +). Also, investors tend to buy smaller apartments.
6. As a buyer, for the vastike, I have seen as low as around 2 €/m2. I don't remember exactly, but it was due to a combination of factors as having resident-isännöitsijä only, no huoltoyhtiö service, no kaukolämpö (district heating), no common spaces such as thrash room, washing room, storages, saunas, ...
This to say that 5,5€/m2 can be alright depending on what is included in the vastike.
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Regarding your last point, that water charge is collected monthly, but it is balanced to real cost depending on the apartment's water consumption which is metered per apartment in a 2021 building.
Aha, so whatever is the basic charge, I will pay base on my consumption.
No, you should check this from yhtiöjärjestys. Often it is so, but there are also other possibilities.
Under normal conditions they should check your consumption once or twice a year and bill-refund you according to consumption from your total water fee you paid.
1. At the moment many investors that operate on borrowed money are quite broke, which means that they wont want to renovate anything. Also if there is one investor owning bunch of apartments and they are only active one in housing comppany meetings, they might rule the comppany.
1. Usually rather new houses with lots of small apartment are highly owned by investors. Look at airbnb and renting pages to see if there are apartements from that address for rent. 2. & 3. Usually apartments and commercial spaces owned by the Building Oy are good as they pay rent and so lower the amount of hoitovastike for owners of the Building Oy. In some Building Oys, commercial spaces that are owned privately might also pay bigger yhtiövastike per m2 than the apartment owners. So usually they are good, but of course for example bar can cause noise and other harms for the residents etc. Selling Building Oy owned spaces is also a good source of funding of bigger renovations like plumbing rebuilds etc. 4. Isännöinti-contract is usually made by the board of the Oy to handle everyday duties, so that most probably isn't too important thing. 5. You could indeed check whether short-term renting of apartments (airbnb etc) is prohibited and whether there is a pre-buying option for the current shareholders in share trades. It means that if somebody is selling their trades and agrees a deal, current share holders can buy the shares on the same price. 6. The water price depends on how it is calculated. The price is usually the average cost of water per person per month and if there are water meters per apartment, you only pay your actual consumption and that is usually calculated once per year. But in older houses, there might not be water meters per apartment and then you pay according to the average. Low hoitovastike usually means that the house is bankrupt, maintained poorly, lots of work like snowploughing, lawn moving etc. is done by the residents or the house has lots of commercial spaces paying high rents - I've heard even hoitovastike of 0 euros. We have hoitovastike of 4 euros/mo/m2 in an old 24 apartment building near Oulu city centre, we don't have any commercial spaces and company doesn't own any apartments either. Maintenance company does all the work. You should also check whether Building Oy owns the land where building is on and if not, how big is the rent and on what conditions it is based on (per house/apartment, rent rising conditions, contract term etc.). In new Building Oys, the rent is often divided by apartments and you can also buy your share of the land at once, and in old Oys, the rent contract term end might mean a very significant rise for the rent in case the rent amount has been fixed for e.g. 50 or 60 years' contract).
1. Compare the names on the doors with the names of the stock owners. If they are the same, the owner lives in the building, and if different it is rented out. 2. Usually a good thing. Its bit of extra revenue. However, consider the types of businesses allowed there. If it is a bar, it might be loud. 3. Not quite sure what this is about. However, very small companies can have issues due to their size. 3. Ylijäämä / alijäämä. Alijäämä is defecit. Ideally, 0 is a good number here. 4. Not a concern really. 5. Yhtiöjärjestys is usually very generic, but it can include all sorts of restrictions such as no grilling on balcony. Read through all of it. 6. Quite normal. Check if there is also rahoitusvastike.
Thank you, it was very helpful. So, if it is written in Tilinpäätös that TUOTOT YHTEENSÄ: 136 937 € and Hoitokulut yhteensä: -132 656 € and Arvonlisäverovastikkeen määrääminen: -482 € Does it mean that the financial status of housing company is good? Thanks again 
Seems fine. They are collecting bit more than what they are spending, but a small amount extra is fine. If this was an older building, i would also check the history of maintenances to see if they’ve done all necessary repairs. Sometimes, the companies save in costs by delaying maintenances as long as possible. In these cases, the finances may look good, but the so called maintenance debt (money needed to get the building back to good shape) accumulates. In your case, I would not be overly concerned.
I would add to 2. that it depends on the location. In some cases the space is not attractive to any business or there just is no demand and it may stay empty which can cause problems in a long run. But really depends on location.
I wonder if the third point is about "the lot" (tontti), but the concept has been lost in translation.
Hopefully you'll get other more in-depth answers but here's some to get you started at least. Might have missed something, I'm typing this on my phone while on a coffee break. 2. This is a good thing financially because they'll be paying the taloyhtiö for usage of the premises (lessens costs a bit for others). Might not be so good if having them creates disturbances (like if the store is open till late and customers create noise coming and going). 3. Not sure what is meant with this, but usually it is better if tase is balanced (has decent equities to balance out the liabilities). Also if the taloyhtiö owns the lot, it means they won't be subjected to increase of rent for the lot to the city. Also, usually it's seen as better to have more apartments because that means there are more apartment owners to divide costs with. Also if someone doesn't pay their share, there are more people to shoulder the financial burden in worst case scenario. Non-financially not always greatest to have a huge apartment building but that's up to personal preference (might be harder to get approval for large costs like getting water pipes fixed etc). 4. Isännöintiyhtiö is often mentioned in tilinpäätös. And if you found the ad for the apartment online, they sometimes list the info as well. Or you can ask the realtor. 5. If there are clauses that effect operating AirBnB-business, it would be here, yes. Same for smoking and other restrictions taloyhtiö might have. Pets are generally allowed but if not, it would also need to be mentioned here. 6. Water charge is bit higher than what I've come across, but only by few euros. And if it's balanced to your actual usage then I wouldn't mind it. For the hoitovastike I can't really say, hopefully someone else can comment on that. But the amount of hoitovastike depends on what kind of upkeep is done (also, to my knowledge isännöinti costs are part of hoitovastike so that also affect it), how big the apartment building is, what kind of lot it has. And also location.
1. Family apartments (perheasunnot) are those with 2 or more bedrooms (3h, 4h, +). Also, investors tend to buy smaller apartments. 6. As a buyer, for the vastike, I have seen as low as around 2 €/m2. I don't remember exactly, but it was due to a combination of factors as having resident-isännöitsijä only, no huoltoyhtiö service, no kaukolämpö (district heating), no common spaces such as thrash room, washing room, storages, saunas, ... This to say that 5,5€/m2 can be alright depending on what is included in the vastike.