What is a fair price for an HOA fee?

[tijlover]

Be sure to check if the roads in the community are city maintained streets or HOA maintained streets. There's a big difference, for if it's HOA streets, you need to keep a reserve for that in the future.

[sabre 42]

In buck hill falls pa monthly HOA 1100 A MONTH

[thinkalot]

Originally Posted by Fruitless

Old thread, but the subject interests me.
Maybe folks would care to update the HOA fees going rates
that they know of? One HOA fee I was looking at in Sierra
Vista is $400 monthly.

And maybe somebody could clue me into HOAs for house
(non-condo) communities? Who runs the HOA? Is it an investor
corporation of some kind or is it the folks that live there?

Naturally, I am a bit concerned with cost creep over time.

Thanks.

There is no way to compare fees. Every HOA is different. They have different things or offer different services.

Of course the cost will go up over time. Just for a landscaper you have fuel, landfill, accounting, insurance, and minimum wage increases. Replacement of equipment and vehicles.

The owners run the HOA unless it is still under developer control. The owners may or not live there. That is why you have to read the documents before you buy. The CC&Rs and Articles of incorporation should be on the county recorder site. The bylaws might be (don't have to record those but many do).

[Fruitless]

Yes, HOAs are strange. I did more reading last night.
And $1100 a month is crazy-high.

The development I was looking at has single-family houses, but the HOA owns the land under them.
The HOA pays the property tax. It sounds too weird.

Maybe it is a legal thing, allows stronger enforcement of rules.

I remember reading about the trend in mobile homes parks being mom & pop-owned
parks being bought up by investor groups and space rents being jacked up to crazy levels
in some cases. It seems like the opportunity for abuse is there with HOAs as well.
I think I will just avoid it completely.

Thanks for the replies.

[grmi66]

For what it's worth, I'm in a 30 year old development with about 800 homes. Our HOA fees are $45 per month and that includes landscaping maintenance, two pools, tennis courts and a few small parks. The streets are owned by the HOA and every year they repave one section, so you end up getting a new road in front of your house about every 10 years. The county owns the main road that cuts our subdivision in half and frankly I've seen better roads in Mexico.

We are shopping for a small house or townhouse for a family member. Seeing HOA fees from $50 to $250 per month for the most part with the majority in the $100-$150 range.

[jlawrence01]

$200 per year for road maintenance and landscaping of common grounds.

$495/ yr for the maintenance of 13 community centers, pools, and gyms.


Some people object to having to pay for the maintenance of our private roads. However, it you see the conditions of the county "maintained" roads our roads are in much better condition.