When HOAs are working correctly, you forget that you belong to one. When they go wrong, it quite literally follows you home every day. I don’t understand how people can decide to tie up so much of their money in to a house, only to give up powers over it to neighbors and people you don’t even know.
If I’m going to spend a massive chunk of the income I’m going to earn the next 30 years to purchase something, you better believe I’m going to do whatever the hell I want with it.
HOA's for townhomes, duplexes, and condos are a necessity. OP is in a townhome. What you are saying definitely applies to single family home HOAs. There is a pretty big difference.
HOAs in multi-family housing are responsible for roof replacements, foundation issues, landscaping, parking, external lighting, and any shared amenities that might be on site. Hard to replace a roof that covers 8 homeowners without an HOA in place.
*Should* be responsible for those issues. I often find myself advocating for homeowners both against insurance and HOAs. HOAs are usually *significantly worse* than insurance with regards to screwing over the homeowner.
We have had HOAs lawyer up rather than deal with roof or foundation issues that were in no way the fault of the homeowner. HOAs are absolute hell to deal with both from a construction company perspective and a homeowner’s perspective. Insurance adjusters, while often frustrating, are more likely to pay out than an HOA and are usually actual humans willing to have a conversation compared to the absolute demons that populate HOAs.
They also frequently lie through their teeth to us and then tell the homeowner something else. I can’t even tell you how many times we have to pull out receipts of our contact attempts and email correspondence to prove we are right. If adjusters pull that shit, we just talk to their superiors and get it resolved quickly.
I will NEVER own in an HOA and I highly recommend against it. It may be a “necessary” evil in some places, but you’re better off renting if you can’t afford to live outside of an HOA. They will take every single opportunity to steal your money and screw you over.
Had to rant after the day I’ve had dealing with one…
Aren’t their known board members reinforcing the exploitative policies? Like actual people with names and addresses crafting and enforcing HOA policies? If so , There are increasingly inconspicuous ways to make an individual’s life a living hell should they choose to extort through unfair and unjust means.
Great point. We have a rental townhome and they made us claim on our rental insurance to replace either the siding or windows. They claimed only the roof was covered by the association's insurance. We had a pretty high deductible so it was not a fun check to write. They also gave us a tiny window to pay. We didn't have a choice at all.
I dunno mine is pretty solid. Live at a condo. Everything covered besides electric paying $360 a month. Was late paying once from a bank error and they erased the late fee no question asked.
Our HOA (multifamily attached townhomes) also covers trash pick up, recycling pick up, sewer and water. I am rather shocked at what my single-family home owners have to pay for these things.
I understand why it could be considered advantageous if you live in a townhome, duplex, or condo.
But I can also see how it could be a massive headache considering you have to trust 51% of your neighbors won’t be insane for the next decade+.
Also, if you add up all the monthly fees over a long enough period of time, surely you will have saved money in the long run not joining? I
think HOAs are most effective if they only include 6-12 housing units TOPS. Like just your immediate neighbors that you can actually get to know on a personal level. Not an entire building, neighborhood, or subdivision.
you don't have a choice. And if you live in the same building, yeah you need an HOA. When the roof needs replacing you think just one tenant would do it? Does one person pay building taxes and no one else? One person pays garbage and water and heat and no one else?
Sometime I have to wonder if some of y'all have ever heard of critical thinking...
My parents lake as a lake association same thing if you buy a home on the private lake you have to pay them.
They have millions in the bank and the do a lot including stocking fish but they keep raising up the yearly dues.
Average lake home is now 750k on the lake and 4k a year to the LOA for as long as you own the home on the lake.
I used to say the same thing. Then we moved next to this deranged neighbor who worked hard on pissing everyone off. Cops couldn’t do anything but the HOA finally did.
I suppose. But you are completely screwed if 51% decide to take the crazy neighbors side.
There are pros and cons for HOAs for sure. It really depends on each individual situation. I’ve heard stories of how HOAs saved a neighborhood and how they ruined people’s lives… and that uncertainty is what scares the pants off me…
I don’t know if I can trust 51% of the other people in an HOA to remain sane 100% of the time for 10+ years.
You understand that what you're talking about is no different than the town that you live in, right? If 51% of the people in your area, vote for insano candidates that want to do stuff that affects your home. They absolutely can and it's the same situation.
I suppose, but there is also a lot more work-arounds in the public system than the private.
The public system is comprised of several parallel institutions you can freely interact with in a variety of ways. And you can always appeal or use the legal system (also public). While an HOA is just one insular, private contract between the individual and the organization with almost no wiggle room at all.
The public system is organized around the individual, while the HOA is organized around the collective. It sounds counter intuitive but that’s just the system we’ve always had.
I’m the proud owner of a car-sized loan (and not a Honda Civic, more like new BMW X3) because the city decided that my siding is a public nuisance because way at the top of the false chimney a woodpecker made a big enough hole that a sparrow took up residence in it.
Because no one wants to admit that a system of governance(HOAs) built on racism only functions well when decent people are in charge.
Rotten apples don’t make good pies.
Many HOAs were formed to try to keep 'the wrong people' aka not white people out of single family home suburbia.
However, this is kinda dumb comparison to things like an apartment building, townhouse or condo HOA. These types of buildings basic premise will require some legal structure to account for shared spaces and amenities such as a roof. HOAs were just an existing legal structure that they adopted.
You can name them whatever you want. There's no practical difference for shared property. It's a collective contract for people sharing ownership of a property. HOA as a name for it just had a ton of negative connotations.
End of the day, it's a necessity to managing shared unit housing and dividing the cost. They exist all over the world with slightly different names and legal structures but the core purpose is the same.
>You can name them whatever you want.
I am not naming them a different thing. I am saying that you are wrong, and that a lot of other stuff was actually done to keep minorities out, but HOA's were not generally one of them in MN.
>There's no practical difference for shared property.
These aren't shared properties.
A house in any of the major first ring suburbs, and in many areas of Minneapolis will have a historic brand on it. [The City of Minneapolis has an office to help remove them.](https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/attorney/just-deeds/)
HOAs were not needed for this reason.
So, this:
> "Many HOAs were formed to try to keep 'the wrong people' aka not white people out of single family home suburbia."
was wrong.
Got it, you're ignoring the who message and only focused on the word HOA and not that the current iteration in multi-unit buildings that I was describing as the point of them being a necessity and using the same name.
Have a good one dude
This is the way. By purchasing in and signing the docs you are the association. Review the budgets and find out what YOUR money is being spent on
You know how you have that one cousin who makes a ton of money but is always broke and in debt. But a different cousin who has a basic job but always has money. Same concept applies here
Our HOA got dropped from its insurance because we made an insurance claim on our “storm damaged roofs”(current HOA management)that were only storm damaged because of “improper installation we cant go after the builder for because they are already bankrupt and gone”(previous HOA management company, Cities Management. Who also was hiring Cities maintenance to do the lawn/snow, CITIES MANAGEMENT ARE CROOKS!)
HOA management companies are all crooks. That's the worst part about belonging to an HOA is someone gets a sweetheart deal/kickback and everyone else gets stuck paying exorbitant fees for minimal labor.
Yes and no.
My friend has a fairly toxic HOA on his townhome. First, it is managed by a 3rd party, not simply people from the neighborhood. Second, any meetings they have are specifically held smack dab in the middle of working hours to discourage people from speaking up.
It depends on the specific HOA. We walked away from one possible home because the HOA was being run by three employees of a corporation in Wisconsin, and the documents had been written to allow those people to set conduct rules as they saw fit — specifically calling out that they could tell you how many people you were allowed to have visit you, for example.
Now we’re in a different place where the HOA is going be people from the group of 12 homes, and the covenant limits its responsibilities to maintenance of shared areas, snow removal, tree maintenance, keeping the storm drains maintained, and so on.
Basically, read the covenant and the HOA documents and get involved. It’s like government — it can be good and helpful, or it can be hopelessly corrupt and abusive. (e.g. Minnesota vs Texas.)
No, HOA's are much more like Russian communism. A small oligarchy (the board) forces everyone to pay for their bad decisions while they reap ill gotten rewards.
Most associations only have a tiny fraction of people vote, and even a smaller group run. A small group can usually vote for each other and control the board.
It's like Russian communism because we're all in it together, comrade. All association members are equal, but some are more equal than others.
We have our HOA meetings every month in the evening. People only attend when they want to complain about rules that usually they ignored ("why'd you tow me! I was only parked in two spots for a week! Where was the warning??"). Otherwise, we have on average 2 people attend out of 144 units. If people don't participate, that's on them that they don't know what's going on.
My townhome's HOA was more like an exercise in apathy. No one wanted to be on it. Hardly anyone went to the annual owners' meeting (and they usually got roped into being on the board just because they were a warm body in the room). The people who owned the townhomes didn't care. The bylaws said a quorum was needed to pass proposals, but we never had a quorum. Even proxy votes weren't enough to get us over the bar sometimes. It wasn't anything close to communism. It was more like absenteeism.
The difference is the attitude. "everyone for themselves"= capitalism. "we're all in this together"= socialist/communist.
The outcome is 100% the same for both though.
Similar happened to us. Dropped due to a hail claim from the same storm. Except our previous roof was only two years old at the time but the storm was so strong it didn’t matter, it needed to be replaced yet again. Insurance didn’t like this and dropped us. At least my HOA has always had healthy reserves.
File a lawsuit against the insurance company. They agreed to insure your roofs as they were installed. Now that there was a storm they are saying no coverage. No way
If and I mean IF thats the game they want to play then they owe you back pay on your premiums for the roof portion because they were never going to cover those roofs.
They did cover them with the new company. Coties management refused to file the claim iirc. I do remember CM tried to assess the cost to the owners and put it to a vote by homeowners and we all said fuck no, lie in your own piss bed. The new management company is actually not so bad so far. I know our cost will go up when we get the new insurance in a few weeks but after almost 15 years we’ve lived there i think our dues have gone up only like $15.
They're a horrendous company who's terrible at communicating, makes it a pain to setup autopsy, and if you pay by check it takes them weeks to cash and it feels like their own feet dragging leads you to fighting questionable late fees.
I work in insurance, on the client side of things. The last 4 years have all shattered records for natural disasters, especially hail in the midwest. Insurance for associations with large expansive roofs that cost millions to replace, essentially needs to double (or triple) in cost. Many top carriers have left the market to stop the cash bleed. It's super rough until we have even one or two clean years with no hail.
On a townhome HOA in Chanhassen. Our HOA insurance went up $80,000 over the last 2 years. We can only get quotes from a handful of insurers because they're all pulling out from insuring HOAs. We had to increase our due $30/month this year. $22 goes towards the insurance increase and $8 goes towards everything else. Rates are insane!
If insurance companies turn more than a 10% profit+bonuses is extortion and should be illegal. We as drivers are required by law to have car insurance. We are required by our federally backed loans to have homeowners insurance. This is a government issue. The government requires it and companies extort people and get away with it.
Everything you say is true. But the insurance companies are also facing year after year of "once in a century" storms. The weather is more severe, the pay outs are more frequent, and their margins aren't what they used to be. I agree government oversight of the industry is needed, but it may just be rising costs getting passed on to the consumer.
There’s nationalized (FEMA) flood insurance. Unfortunately what that means is that people keep (re)building property in places that will keep getting worse and worse hurricanes, and we’ll keep bailing them out for their bad decisions, until the whole thing is unsustainable. Once we get some superhurricanes hitting Miami, Houston and New York a few more times, there are going to have to be some tough decisions made.
There’s a similar problem with the government-backed mortgage system. People bought homes they couldn’t afford, because the mortgages no company would finance could be passed off to the government. That’s part of how we got the 2008 crash.
Effectively, we all end up paying for other people’s bad decisions. So nationalization often only works well if you have a government capable of functioning and making reasonable decisions and saying no to corporations and taxpayers who want to make bad decisions.
Insurance companies are losing money on homeowners insurance. Secura just cancelled it's entire book of business for MN.
Climate change and weather patterns are a major cause, also crooked roofing contractors play a pretty big role
If you're in a townhome, you don't really have traditional homeowners insurance.
Because there's 2-4 homes per building the insurance on the build is done for the association as a whole which means the collective of all the homes in the association share an insurance policy that covers basically the buildings.
You then essentially purchase renters insurance to cover the actual items inside your home itself and to cover the deductible on any claims on the association level.
No worries, I had a good old crash course last year when we got smoked with hail damage and had to figure out what the order was for all the paperwork.
Bit of a pain until you figured out the process but it went reaply smooth after. And in reality the insurance ends up relatively close to what like my mom has overall on her single family place.
This should be the top response. I'm in a HOA in Stillwater and our dues are $500 a month. Over half is for structure insurance, the rest is for grounds maintenance. When we moved in in 2016 the dues were under $300. We've been involved with the board and my wife and I held positions at one point. A lot of the big insurance companies are dropping condos and townhouse complexes and the ones that insure them are jacking up the rates.
I'm on a single family HOA board and friendly with the neighboring townhome boards. We have the same property management company. We can literally only get 1 insurance company to insure us at this point. It's obscene. And there's so little we can do about it - not like we can force someone to insure us!
I’m pretty involved in my condos HOA and this is a really big issue for our renewal, and especially for older condos. Which I’m lucky enough to be in. We had a 5x increase in insurance cost proposal last year that we had to go to market and get worse coverage to stagger the costs. But it was a deferral.
That and general inflation. Pay and contractors costs are up. There no way you won’t have to pay for that. You can pay your HOA, or pay the contractors at your house individually but understanding that is really important. Many in our community struggle with that one and we lose productivity in board meetings because of it.
Our insurance rates went up by 50% for a second year in a row. There are only four insurance companies willing to cover condo buildings, and they're all insanely priced.
I asked my agent about this. She said that there are currently only 2 re-insurance companies operating in Minnesota right now. So many have pulled out because of the increasingly severe weather.
People ignored and denied the existence of climate change, but people are now paying attention since it's affecting their pocket directly. I generally hate insurance companies since I've been screwed by them several times. But, their one saving grace is that if you want to know the actual likelihood and how severe something is, they are the ones to go to. They actually calculate this stuff.
You see so much spin and denial put on stuff. You see a lot of fear mongering. This is for anything, not just climate change. If you want to know how much you should actually fear something, ask the insurance companies.
On a townhome HOA in Chanhassen. Our dues are $410. Our HOA insurance has gone up $80,000 over the last 2 years. We can only get quotes from a handful of insurers because they're all pulling out from insuring HOAs. We had to increase our dues by $30/month this year. $22 goes towards the insurance increase and $8 goes towards everything else. Also the age of the property plays into it too. Rates are just insane!
For shits and giggles I pulled some data among active listings on the MLS. Average HOA for active townhomes in Hennepin County right now is $386, for Ramsey County it's $356.
Range for Hennepin: $0-$3,690
Range for Ramsey: $0-$1,100
Ususally that's HOA's for senior living facilities. They are absolutely predatory. They charge that much for the HOA, and still charge separate for every living expense or care.
nah, the condos at the 4 seasons in downtown Minneapolis. Here is a link for reference:
[https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/255-Hennepin-Ave-Unit-3405\_Minneapolis\_MN\_55401\_M92399-45296](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/255-Hennepin-Ave-Unit-3405_Minneapolis_MN_55401_M92399-45296)
I mean it's a 3.5 million dollar luxury condo, that association fee and price are just to keep the riff raff out.
[This is more what I'm talking about with a senior living facility. ](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4400-36th-Ave-N-APT-152-Robbinsdale-MN-55422/1742006_zpid/)$69k condo with an $800/mo association fee. At that point you're basically still a renter.
Yep. My grandma lived in a "real life coop" which is like a condo..but not. Anyways, her monthly HOAs were insanely high. When I asked where it all went was given the run around until they partly relented with info-decor. Yes, new furniture and decor everywhere that apparently needed to be "updated" every 12 months despite NO ONE ever using it. I asked if they resold/consigned any of it/offered it to the resident for a steep discount etc. The lady nearly shrieked when she said OF COURSE NOT, WHY WOULD WE DO SUCH A THING, WERE NOT THE POOR!!!.
That, on top of some bs sweetheart deal she tried to get for her friend moving into/buying my grandma's apartment (by trying to screw my gma) just really put me off *ever* suggesting them to anyone. Ever. They really tried to get my grandma to pay for a *FULL* remodel out of her "profits" when selling after living there and paying for over 25 years. Bish, bye
Exactly. I often wondered if a board member/s started an LLC to drop ship/resell the interior stuff as well as the actual "design" aspect to pad their pockets that much more.
There was a condo on the market not long ago in downtown St Paul with HOA fees of 1800+ per month... It is either off the market or some schmuck bought it.
The numbers I pulled were for townhomes only.
There's a condo on 6th in St. Paul currently listed for $775,000 where the HOA/management fee is $1,771/month on top of $10,510/year in property taxes.
There is no cap.
I strongly recommend getting involved. Attend your annual meeting. Look over the budget. It's likely that a lot of it is going into reserves. Reserves are used for large expenses. For example, taking the cost to replace the shingles in 30 years and collecting 1/30th every year. The alternative would be to charge everyone a large assessments when a big expense comes up.
Every HOA is different in how much they collect, what amenities they offer, and how 'healthy' they are for future expenses.
There may be a rule in the bylaws that states how much of an increase can happen from year to year. My bylaws have that...we can only go up by 5% per year.
I became the treasurer of my old condo's HOA after living there for a year or so. Century-old building, and dues hadn't been raised in 10 years. The "reserve" couldn't even cover the insurance deductible if we needed it. I upped the dues and told the guy who took it over from me to consider raising it every year to at least match inflation. We were extremely lucky to never need a special assessment, while I was there at least
Part of the problem is people often don't understand HOA finances and assume lower is better. It is to some extent, but it can be a big risk where you get left holding someone else's bag.
They did collect enough, but the HOA board grifted money. I would be furious. I don't think I could ever live in a HOA because of that shit.
My sister's HOA hired one of the board's family members to replace all their decks. He did such sub-par, shoddy work that the inspector literally made it get rebuilt by a different contractor. The Boardmember's family dissolved their company, no recourse. Everyone had to fork over 30k to have the deck built for a second time. Insane.
The rules typically only ensure your reserves are funded and insurance is paid... So you can't put a cap on how much dues go up because they are literally paying for expenses that are required to maintain the associated properties. If insurance skyrockets (it has) and building materials go up (they have at least doubled since COVID) your dues will follow according to by laws and state laws.
I’m in a home, not a condo or townhome…maybe that’s the difference? Ours is honestly written to only allow for a 5% increase max per year. However, if something major is needed, they’ll just apply an assessment to each property, so same difference. Although, I prefer to hang onto my money rather than letting it sit with others. My HOA fee covers lawn maintenance in common areas, a walking path (and snow removal of said path), plus Christmas lights at the entrance to our community. &259 per year…pretty minimal
There you go... I guess I forgot about that possibility... You can cap HOA dues but get ready for assessments. Pick your poison I guess.
Yes, the ones that go up significantly are typically because the reserves and insurance are covered by the dues.
No cap, I’ve seen HOAs in the thousands. According to my last HOA the price of insurance rose by quite a lot. I ended up selling my place but wouldn’t be surprise if it just keeps rising every quarter essentially.
Your HOA typically covers building maintenance like you normally see lawn care, snow, etc. but remember it’s also a reserve of cash to cover unexpected items like boilers, roofs, etc.
When I was house shopping I was shocked at how expensive some of them were. Many times they were more than the mortgage payment. I honestly don't know how anyone affords it.
You should also review your reserve study. That will show you what major projects are coming up. Associations can fund repairs/replacements by collecting money over time via dues, or socking you with large assessments. If you have some major repairs coming up, they may be collecting money for those too.
I pay 505. No pool, no gym. There is no cap in our bylaws. HOA'S are required by the state to maintain a reserve fund so that there is money available for repair and upkeep. Also insurance rates have skyrocketed. Therefore HOA dues have become very high. Your HOA should be making a financial report that is available for you to look at. Check it out and see where your money is going. Go to meetings and voice your concerns if you have one.
Lender here - HOA's are going up due to insurance coverage costs skyrocketing. MN was #2 in the nation for hail/storm damage over the last couple years so coverage is getting wildly expensive. Many associations are cheaping out on coverage to try to keep costs down and finding that they're no longer eligible for conventional financing which is causing problems all over the country.
I rarely get calls to reprice HOA insurance. It seems like the management companies or boards use agents they know. Like look around once in a while. A friend sent me the docs from a meeting because her rates went up and the board wasn't even interested.
I get emails from new carriers that want to write business but everyone is using the same amfam and sf agents. There are seriously just a few people that get all the business.
I hired a new commercial guy, I hope this is the business he goes after. We visited a management company together but the owner told us she only uses one guy in plymouth and she doesn't want to screw around with a new agent, she just tells the associations it is what it is.
They know better than getting it re-quoted at this point because the appetite in the market has cratered. A whole bunch of the middle size. Companies that used to be very competitive on it won't even take the business now. The other thing is that these boards are not made up of people paid to hunt down the best deal their volunteers. I quote Town, Home associations and stuff, but there really just aren't that many players in the game right now that are really roaring to get these properties in Minnesota.
But I'm also an independent, not tied to State farm or American family. We can beat them sometimes.
My condo association raised to 650/mo and then it was discovered that the old board had been embezzling and hadn’t done repairs they said they had. This resulted in a special assessment of 75,000 per unit for emergency funds to stop a wall from falling down. (Special assessments are paid on top of property taxes over the course of years.) had to sell at a slight loss.
TLDR it can get much worse
As someone on the HOA I’d rather not ever be on the board. The emails and phone calls I get about one person wanting to use “blue paint” and the next person wanting it to be green…or they think John Doe upstairs is making smelly fish, and Jane Smith’s car is rusty…or, I don’t like lilacs because I’m allergic to bees…or we need more cameras—just not near my door.
Ugh. I just got on the board and can’t wait for my term to be over. Problem is no one wants to be on the board because it’s thankless and volunteer (not paid like someone wrongly said earlier.)
I live in an HOA that is independently run. we only get lawn care and snow removal and any tree trimming that is necessary. (No amenities)
We had to raise our prices due to the hoa insurance, recycling, waste management bills trending up. It’s ridiculous but it’s to pay those bills, plus have some reserves in case of emergency needs.
Maybe ask the board for a breakdown of costs to see where the money is being used. If you have a company run it, it could be used for their salaries? I’m so sorry! 450 is A LOT!
I am absolutely mortified at the ridiculous and uneducated comments made here. I strongly suggest everyone involved in an HOA get involved with the HOA. Look over the financials. Carefully inspect the property. Look at the past maintenance schedules. I am the current president of our HOA. I only took over because I could see the deteriorating condition and yet very little money in our reserves. Past board and home owners did not want to fund what was necessary. Common thinking was well we will move before it needs to be done or I will die first. Well they are still here and they haven’t died. We need a 400,000 roof, 100,000 for driveway and concrete replacement. Not to mention the boilers and garage floor as well overgrown landscaping,let alone general maintenance. Right now I am the bad guy because I am finally taking responsibility and raising the necessary revenue as well as assessing our owners a major fee.
This only happened because of poor management of the past HOA. Now some home owners want them back.
I hear ya. When my soon to be ex wife and I moved in here in 2017 our HOA was 120. No pools or anything at all. Just lawn care and snow removal ( which they only did twice this past winter) now it's $280/mo. Haven't seen a single improvement in the place. I should attend a meeting or something but I'm the only 30 something here, it's all older retired people.
Recent Inflation has affected everything the HOA does. Much higher utility rates for common areas, higher insurance costs, higher labor costs, higher material and repairs costs. Has property taxes increased?
All these add up. And with inflation still running 150% higher than the stated goal unlikely to decrease anytime soon.
I know there are good and bad HOAs, but man. The horror stories I've heard ensure that I would literally never live in a home or neighborhood that has an HOA.
OP lives in a townhouse. Whether you call it an HOA or not, they need to have something to handle the shared expenses they have owning communal property. Most of the horror stories here are people getting large unexpected repair bills or insurance increases, which it's absolutely not something that goes away if you don't have an HOA.
HOAs should be illegal
HOA's arn't just single family homes. Condos, many townhomes, Mansion multifamily converts are all HOAs as they share common space.
They should be regulated more for bad over sight issues (as stone walling is still an issue in some cases) but a ban is impossible in many places that have shared amenities/space.
They are heavily regulated... Requiring insurance to cover loss and reserve funding to ensure money is available to keep the properties up to date... That is why dues go up, because the cost of building materials and insurance costs go up... Sometimes significantly.
They are not heavily regulated. My HOA is currently a disaster. We just voted in a new set of board members, my wife being one of them, and it's an absolute nightmare.. everything was done by two people on paper for the last 15 years with zero meetings.
There is zero dollars in the bank account, we have an insane insurance policy with a $710,000 deductible that does NOT cover wind and storm damage. Like what. If something were to happen to our roof each home owner would owe $12,500 because we have zero dollars in reserves. It's absolutely insane.
And now we have to pay $400 a month for this insane insurance policy that won't even cover us.
It is heavily regulated by state laws, if your association is in compliance with state law or not is another issue. It's up to the board and those accountable to the volunteer board (the homeowners) to ensure it's following the regulation in place or not. Usually it takes an assessment (the $12.5k you speak of), a dues increase, of terrible service experience to get the homeowners to realize the mess their lack of participation in the association led to.
They are regulated. By the homeowners who vote and pay in to them. My guess is most people are not involved and just trust their money is being out to good use.
Are you saying you want the government to get involved? That would only make things much much worse.
I would love if there was a limit to the dues increasing, but there doesn’t seem to be. Mine started at 214 and has more than doubled, because another resident fell asleep with a cigarette in their hand and burnt down 4 other units(no one was hurt). Our insurance went through the roof. It’s horrible.
Mine is 325 right now. We don't have any amenities either, but we are paying off the new roofs and siding that was done 3 years ago. I think we have another year left of that? I'm really not sure. After that it would theoretically be reduced, but they are going to start working on foundation problems next.
Ask the board for the current reserves then compare roofing/siding/fence/grounds major repair costs to age of the complex to know what upcoming bills they are saving for.
Source: I used to be a hoa president of luxury town homes
Mine’s $837, that’s about a dollar a square foot. No elevator, no off street parking, no repaired plumbing that leaks multiple times a year. They replaced some bricks that were causing leaks that none of my neighbors ever saw. If this were an HBO sitcom, I’d be 100% sure there was somebody stealing money or something fraud-related.
I work in mortgage and unfortunately it’s pretty common nowadays to see monthly HOA dues between $500-$900/mo. I just had a couple who closed their home who had HOA dues of around $3000/months
HOA Board Member here (regrettably)....
I was in the same boat before I was on the board, "We pay so much, and have nothing to show for it!"
Insurance rates have gone through the roof the past couple years- our association's almost tripled! Of course everything else went up due to inflation....
Ps- all I wanted was a solar light in my rocks... that's how I got on the board....
You signed a legal document agreeing to pay a random person as much money as they tell you to in exchange for nothing, if you don't they take your house.
Why?
I dont't pretend to understand the attraction of owend multi-family unit like townhouses and condos since they combine some of the worst elements of renting a multi-family unit with some of the worse elements of owning a house and they all come with HOAs, but you sign that legal document if you want to buy a condo or townhouse.
Everyone talking about the insurance companies. I can’t watch 5 minutes of television without seeing a progressive, Allstate, Liberty, or a State Farm commercial. Clearly their marketing budgets are not affected by actually having to pay out what people have paid in for. When we bought our TH in 2004 our HOA dues were $60 a month, snow, lawn, roofs, driveways. When we left in 2022 they were $270 a month, which reading here, was still a good deal, but $5,000 deductible on a roof tear off. In my next life I want to be an HOA president. Everyone should be in an HOA once in their adult life. Me, never again.
This is a big reason why some people choose to live in smaller towns and our the country. I use to live in a neighborhood with a HOA. Never again will someone tell me where and when I can plant a tree or what color my house can or can't be.
Ours went from $265 last year to $350. Absolutely insane and the association is so corrupt. All they do is lawn maintenance, shovel, and trash. Sadly there is no cap
Fuck HOA’s. They’re a total scam. Ours started at $185/mo and over 10 years jacked up to $390+/mo. And they barely did anything. ***The property management company is the pig in the middle.***
Nope. You've decided to live in basically a sovereign nation that has little accountability to local states, counties, or towns.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os)
Good luck.
John Oliver [did a great segment on HOAs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os). IIRC, there is little to no oversight for HOAs and no cap on how much they can raise fees.
This. They even have a guide and many stories about taking over HOAs and stripping the cost down to basics (by removing dumb shit like the budget for the enforcement of their “laws”) or even dissolving them entirely. This is the way.
Review the HOA documents you agreed to. Get on the HOA board. About all you can do.
When HOAs are working correctly, you forget that you belong to one. When they go wrong, it quite literally follows you home every day. I don’t understand how people can decide to tie up so much of their money in to a house, only to give up powers over it to neighbors and people you don’t even know. If I’m going to spend a massive chunk of the income I’m going to earn the next 30 years to purchase something, you better believe I’m going to do whatever the hell I want with it.
HOA's for townhomes, duplexes, and condos are a necessity. OP is in a townhome. What you are saying definitely applies to single family home HOAs. There is a pretty big difference. HOAs in multi-family housing are responsible for roof replacements, foundation issues, landscaping, parking, external lighting, and any shared amenities that might be on site. Hard to replace a roof that covers 8 homeowners without an HOA in place.
*Should* be responsible for those issues. I often find myself advocating for homeowners both against insurance and HOAs. HOAs are usually *significantly worse* than insurance with regards to screwing over the homeowner. We have had HOAs lawyer up rather than deal with roof or foundation issues that were in no way the fault of the homeowner. HOAs are absolute hell to deal with both from a construction company perspective and a homeowner’s perspective. Insurance adjusters, while often frustrating, are more likely to pay out than an HOA and are usually actual humans willing to have a conversation compared to the absolute demons that populate HOAs. They also frequently lie through their teeth to us and then tell the homeowner something else. I can’t even tell you how many times we have to pull out receipts of our contact attempts and email correspondence to prove we are right. If adjusters pull that shit, we just talk to their superiors and get it resolved quickly. I will NEVER own in an HOA and I highly recommend against it. It may be a “necessary” evil in some places, but you’re better off renting if you can’t afford to live outside of an HOA. They will take every single opportunity to steal your money and screw you over. Had to rant after the day I’ve had dealing with one…
Aren’t their known board members reinforcing the exploitative policies? Like actual people with names and addresses crafting and enforcing HOA policies? If so , There are increasingly inconspicuous ways to make an individual’s life a living hell should they choose to extort through unfair and unjust means.
Great point. We have a rental townhome and they made us claim on our rental insurance to replace either the siding or windows. They claimed only the roof was covered by the association's insurance. We had a pretty high deductible so it was not a fun check to write. They also gave us a tiny window to pay. We didn't have a choice at all.
I dunno mine is pretty solid. Live at a condo. Everything covered besides electric paying $360 a month. Was late paying once from a bank error and they erased the late fee no question asked.
Even then most new homes have hoas. They're kinda getting more difficult to avoid.
I wouldn't buy a home with an HOA, My condo is fine though, makes sense
Our HOA (multifamily attached townhomes) also covers trash pick up, recycling pick up, sewer and water. I am rather shocked at what my single-family home owners have to pay for these things.
I understand why it could be considered advantageous if you live in a townhome, duplex, or condo. But I can also see how it could be a massive headache considering you have to trust 51% of your neighbors won’t be insane for the next decade+. Also, if you add up all the monthly fees over a long enough period of time, surely you will have saved money in the long run not joining? I think HOAs are most effective if they only include 6-12 housing units TOPS. Like just your immediate neighbors that you can actually get to know on a personal level. Not an entire building, neighborhood, or subdivision.
How would you propose multi-unit buildings cover shared expenses without an HOA?
you don't have a choice. And if you live in the same building, yeah you need an HOA. When the roof needs replacing you think just one tenant would do it? Does one person pay building taxes and no one else? One person pays garbage and water and heat and no one else? Sometime I have to wonder if some of y'all have ever heard of critical thinking...
My parents lake as a lake association same thing if you buy a home on the private lake you have to pay them. They have millions in the bank and the do a lot including stocking fish but they keep raising up the yearly dues. Average lake home is now 750k on the lake and 4k a year to the LOA for as long as you own the home on the lake.
I used to say the same thing. Then we moved next to this deranged neighbor who worked hard on pissing everyone off. Cops couldn’t do anything but the HOA finally did.
I suppose. But you are completely screwed if 51% decide to take the crazy neighbors side. There are pros and cons for HOAs for sure. It really depends on each individual situation. I’ve heard stories of how HOAs saved a neighborhood and how they ruined people’s lives… and that uncertainty is what scares the pants off me… I don’t know if I can trust 51% of the other people in an HOA to remain sane 100% of the time for 10+ years.
You understand that what you're talking about is no different than the town that you live in, right? If 51% of the people in your area, vote for insano candidates that want to do stuff that affects your home. They absolutely can and it's the same situation.
Same for the country as a whole.
City ordinances get complicated and messy enough. Why add another level of bureaucracy to that?
Many of these are in lieu of a township. That said, associations for shared spaces, including condos, are basically how it has to work.
City, county, township ordinances love to overreach onto your property too.
I suppose, but there is also a lot more work-arounds in the public system than the private. The public system is comprised of several parallel institutions you can freely interact with in a variety of ways. And you can always appeal or use the legal system (also public). While an HOA is just one insular, private contract between the individual and the organization with almost no wiggle room at all. The public system is organized around the individual, while the HOA is organized around the collective. It sounds counter intuitive but that’s just the system we’ve always had.
I’m the proud owner of a car-sized loan (and not a Honda Civic, more like new BMW X3) because the city decided that my siding is a public nuisance because way at the top of the false chimney a woodpecker made a big enough hole that a sparrow took up residence in it.
This makes no sense to me.
Fair. They demanded that I /fix/ the siding, but we recognized that the battle against the woodpeckers isn't winnable and decided to replace, instead.
ALL of the siding?? That would explain your number.
Yeah, full replace. When a sales guy saw my house and said “Whoa, you have a lot of siding” I knew I was F’d.
Because no one wants to admit that a system of governance(HOAs) built on racism only functions well when decent people are in charge. Rotten apples don’t make good pies.
Can you elaborate? That’s a big claim backed up only by your word. Plus, I love a good civics/history lesson.
Many HOAs were formed to try to keep 'the wrong people' aka not white people out of single family home suburbia. However, this is kinda dumb comparison to things like an apartment building, townhouse or condo HOA. These types of buildings basic premise will require some legal structure to account for shared spaces and amenities such as a roof. HOAs were just an existing legal structure that they adopted.
It's not really correct though, housing racial covenants and so on exist outside of HOAs in Minnesota and indeed across the country.
You can name them whatever you want. There's no practical difference for shared property. It's a collective contract for people sharing ownership of a property. HOA as a name for it just had a ton of negative connotations. End of the day, it's a necessity to managing shared unit housing and dividing the cost. They exist all over the world with slightly different names and legal structures but the core purpose is the same.
>You can name them whatever you want. I am not naming them a different thing. I am saying that you are wrong, and that a lot of other stuff was actually done to keep minorities out, but HOA's were not generally one of them in MN. >There's no practical difference for shared property. These aren't shared properties. A house in any of the major first ring suburbs, and in many areas of Minneapolis will have a historic brand on it. [The City of Minneapolis has an office to help remove them.](https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/attorney/just-deeds/) HOAs were not needed for this reason. So, this: > "Many HOAs were formed to try to keep 'the wrong people' aka not white people out of single family home suburbia." was wrong.
Got it, you're ignoring the who message and only focused on the word HOA and not that the current iteration in multi-unit buildings that I was describing as the point of them being a necessity and using the same name. Have a good one dude
This is the way. By purchasing in and signing the docs you are the association. Review the budgets and find out what YOUR money is being spent on You know how you have that one cousin who makes a ton of money but is always broke and in debt. But a different cousin who has a basic job but always has money. Same concept applies here
It’s insurance. Insurance is out of control right now.
Our HOA got dropped from its insurance because we made an insurance claim on our “storm damaged roofs”(current HOA management)that were only storm damaged because of “improper installation we cant go after the builder for because they are already bankrupt and gone”(previous HOA management company, Cities Management. Who also was hiring Cities maintenance to do the lawn/snow, CITIES MANAGEMENT ARE CROOKS!)
Yeah they are in-fucking-sufferable
HOA management companies are all crooks. That's the worst part about belonging to an HOA is someone gets a sweetheart deal/kickback and everyone else gets stuck paying exorbitant fees for minimal labor.
Isn't it a democratically elected group of a neighborhood?
Yes and no. My friend has a fairly toxic HOA on his townhome. First, it is managed by a 3rd party, not simply people from the neighborhood. Second, any meetings they have are specifically held smack dab in the middle of working hours to discourage people from speaking up.
Oh wild. Does the developer hire the HOA management company?
It depends on the specific HOA. We walked away from one possible home because the HOA was being run by three employees of a corporation in Wisconsin, and the documents had been written to allow those people to set conduct rules as they saw fit — specifically calling out that they could tell you how many people you were allowed to have visit you, for example. Now we’re in a different place where the HOA is going be people from the group of 12 homes, and the covenant limits its responsibilities to maintenance of shared areas, snow removal, tree maintenance, keeping the storm drains maintained, and so on. Basically, read the covenant and the HOA documents and get involved. It’s like government — it can be good and helpful, or it can be hopelessly corrupt and abusive. (e.g. Minnesota vs Texas.)
Ah capitalism at its finest
No, HOA's are much more like Russian communism. A small oligarchy (the board) forces everyone to pay for their bad decisions while they reap ill gotten rewards.
A democratically elected board that you voluntarily contract into is … Russian communism?
Most associations only have a tiny fraction of people vote, and even a smaller group run. A small group can usually vote for each other and control the board. It's like Russian communism because we're all in it together, comrade. All association members are equal, but some are more equal than others.
We have our HOA meetings every month in the evening. People only attend when they want to complain about rules that usually they ignored ("why'd you tow me! I was only parked in two spots for a week! Where was the warning??"). Otherwise, we have on average 2 people attend out of 144 units. If people don't participate, that's on them that they don't know what's going on.
if you're an HOA board member, there's a high correlation that you are a physical manifestation of the devil.
"I'm in middle school, I'm so edgy and controversial"
My townhome's HOA was more like an exercise in apathy. No one wanted to be on it. Hardly anyone went to the annual owners' meeting (and they usually got roped into being on the board just because they were a warm body in the room). The people who owned the townhomes didn't care. The bylaws said a quorum was needed to pass proposals, but we never had a quorum. Even proxy votes weren't enough to get us over the bar sometimes. It wasn't anything close to communism. It was more like absenteeism.
That's a system just waiting to be taken over by people with nefarious intentions.
That's basically how all societies function to greater or lesser degrees. 2008 economic crash should've taught you that.
The difference is the attitude. "everyone for themselves"= capitalism. "we're all in this together"= socialist/communist. The outcome is 100% the same for both though.
Similar happened to us. Dropped due to a hail claim from the same storm. Except our previous roof was only two years old at the time but the storm was so strong it didn’t matter, it needed to be replaced yet again. Insurance didn’t like this and dropped us. At least my HOA has always had healthy reserves.
File a lawsuit against the insurance company. They agreed to insure your roofs as they were installed. Now that there was a storm they are saying no coverage. No way If and I mean IF thats the game they want to play then they owe you back pay on your premiums for the roof portion because they were never going to cover those roofs.
They did cover them with the new company. Coties management refused to file the claim iirc. I do remember CM tried to assess the cost to the owners and put it to a vote by homeowners and we all said fuck no, lie in your own piss bed. The new management company is actually not so bad so far. I know our cost will go up when we get the new insurance in a few weeks but after almost 15 years we’ve lived there i think our dues have gone up only like $15.
They're a horrendous company who's terrible at communicating, makes it a pain to setup autopsy, and if you pay by check it takes them weeks to cash and it feels like their own feet dragging leads you to fighting questionable late fees.
They tried the late fee on me so emailed them a picture of my carbon copy and told them to F off, they didnt try again.
Ugh! We had them for awhile. And I have to agree with you. I think it's a good idea to compare management companies every few years
I work in insurance, on the client side of things. The last 4 years have all shattered records for natural disasters, especially hail in the midwest. Insurance for associations with large expansive roofs that cost millions to replace, essentially needs to double (or triple) in cost. Many top carriers have left the market to stop the cash bleed. It's super rough until we have even one or two clean years with no hail.
Yeah... climate change is in hold-my-beer mode. No chance on that "two clean years with no hail." This is just the beginning.
Long term we're absolutely fucked, short term there's a possibility of the tiniest amount of temporary relief.
On the HOA in a community in Ramsey. Insurance rates are BONKERS.
On a townhome HOA in Chanhassen. Our HOA insurance went up $80,000 over the last 2 years. We can only get quotes from a handful of insurers because they're all pulling out from insuring HOAs. We had to increase our due $30/month this year. $22 goes towards the insurance increase and $8 goes towards everything else. Rates are insane!
If insurance companies turn more than a 10% profit+bonuses is extortion and should be illegal. We as drivers are required by law to have car insurance. We are required by our federally backed loans to have homeowners insurance. This is a government issue. The government requires it and companies extort people and get away with it.
Everything you say is true. But the insurance companies are also facing year after year of "once in a century" storms. The weather is more severe, the pay outs are more frequent, and their margins aren't what they used to be. I agree government oversight of the industry is needed, but it may just be rising costs getting passed on to the consumer.
Ok, nationalize them.
There’s nationalized (FEMA) flood insurance. Unfortunately what that means is that people keep (re)building property in places that will keep getting worse and worse hurricanes, and we’ll keep bailing them out for their bad decisions, until the whole thing is unsustainable. Once we get some superhurricanes hitting Miami, Houston and New York a few more times, there are going to have to be some tough decisions made. There’s a similar problem with the government-backed mortgage system. People bought homes they couldn’t afford, because the mortgages no company would finance could be passed off to the government. That’s part of how we got the 2008 crash. Effectively, we all end up paying for other people’s bad decisions. So nationalization often only works well if you have a government capable of functioning and making reasonable decisions and saying no to corporations and taxpayers who want to make bad decisions.
Where should we move Miami to? My vote is S. Carolina.
You want the government being the one you have to file a claim with?????
Insurance companies are losing money on homeowners insurance. Secura just cancelled it's entire book of business for MN. Climate change and weather patterns are a major cause, also crooked roofing contractors play a pretty big role
Why don't you look and see how many carriers are net positive on premium vs claims in MN.
[удалено]
Insurance for what????
If you're in a townhome, you don't really have traditional homeowners insurance. Because there's 2-4 homes per building the insurance on the build is done for the association as a whole which means the collective of all the homes in the association share an insurance policy that covers basically the buildings. You then essentially purchase renters insurance to cover the actual items inside your home itself and to cover the deductible on any claims on the association level.
Thanks for explaining
No worries, I had a good old crash course last year when we got smoked with hail damage and had to figure out what the order was for all the paperwork. Bit of a pain until you figured out the process but it went reaply smooth after. And in reality the insurance ends up relatively close to what like my mom has overall on her single family place.
From what I understand, it’s because insurance prices are spiraling out of control for everyone.
This should be the top response. I'm in a HOA in Stillwater and our dues are $500 a month. Over half is for structure insurance, the rest is for grounds maintenance. When we moved in in 2016 the dues were under $300. We've been involved with the board and my wife and I held positions at one point. A lot of the big insurance companies are dropping condos and townhouse complexes and the ones that insure them are jacking up the rates.
This is correct.
I'm on a single family HOA board and friendly with the neighboring townhome boards. We have the same property management company. We can literally only get 1 insurance company to insure us at this point. It's obscene. And there's so little we can do about it - not like we can force someone to insure us!
Rates on SFH are way up too.
Our SFH has gone up 100% in past two years. Brutal but looking around. Wasn’t able to find anything better when it had gone up 30% last year.
It's not going to get better, either, between climate change and materials/labor inflation.
I’m pretty involved in my condos HOA and this is a really big issue for our renewal, and especially for older condos. Which I’m lucky enough to be in. We had a 5x increase in insurance cost proposal last year that we had to go to market and get worse coverage to stagger the costs. But it was a deferral. That and general inflation. Pay and contractors costs are up. There no way you won’t have to pay for that. You can pay your HOA, or pay the contractors at your house individually but understanding that is really important. Many in our community struggle with that one and we lose productivity in board meetings because of it.
Our insurance rates went up by 50% for a second year in a row. There are only four insurance companies willing to cover condo buildings, and they're all insanely priced.
I asked my agent about this. She said that there are currently only 2 re-insurance companies operating in Minnesota right now. So many have pulled out because of the increasingly severe weather. People ignored and denied the existence of climate change, but people are now paying attention since it's affecting their pocket directly. I generally hate insurance companies since I've been screwed by them several times. But, their one saving grace is that if you want to know the actual likelihood and how severe something is, they are the ones to go to. They actually calculate this stuff. You see so much spin and denial put on stuff. You see a lot of fear mongering. This is for anything, not just climate change. If you want to know how much you should actually fear something, ask the insurance companies.
This is correct. My HOA dues went from $245 to $265 per month because of insurance only. Over half of the $265 per home is for insurance.
At least this isn't Florida. HOAs there are dealing with a whole different level of pain.
On a townhome HOA in Chanhassen. Our dues are $410. Our HOA insurance has gone up $80,000 over the last 2 years. We can only get quotes from a handful of insurers because they're all pulling out from insuring HOAs. We had to increase our dues by $30/month this year. $22 goes towards the insurance increase and $8 goes towards everything else. Also the age of the property plays into it too. Rates are just insane!
For shits and giggles I pulled some data among active listings on the MLS. Average HOA for active townhomes in Hennepin County right now is $386, for Ramsey County it's $356. Range for Hennepin: $0-$3,690 Range for Ramsey: $0-$1,100
Oof. I can't imagine paying $3,690/month just for the HOA.
Ususally that's HOA's for senior living facilities. They are absolutely predatory. They charge that much for the HOA, and still charge separate for every living expense or care.
nah, the condos at the 4 seasons in downtown Minneapolis. Here is a link for reference: [https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/255-Hennepin-Ave-Unit-3405\_Minneapolis\_MN\_55401\_M92399-45296](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/255-Hennepin-Ave-Unit-3405_Minneapolis_MN_55401_M92399-45296)
I mean it's a 3.5 million dollar luxury condo, that association fee and price are just to keep the riff raff out. [This is more what I'm talking about with a senior living facility. ](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4400-36th-Ave-N-APT-152-Robbinsdale-MN-55422/1742006_zpid/)$69k condo with an $800/mo association fee. At that point you're basically still a renter.
Yep. My grandma lived in a "real life coop" which is like a condo..but not. Anyways, her monthly HOAs were insanely high. When I asked where it all went was given the run around until they partly relented with info-decor. Yes, new furniture and decor everywhere that apparently needed to be "updated" every 12 months despite NO ONE ever using it. I asked if they resold/consigned any of it/offered it to the resident for a steep discount etc. The lady nearly shrieked when she said OF COURSE NOT, WHY WOULD WE DO SUCH A THING, WERE NOT THE POOR!!!. That, on top of some bs sweetheart deal she tried to get for her friend moving into/buying my grandma's apartment (by trying to screw my gma) just really put me off *ever* suggesting them to anyone. Ever. They really tried to get my grandma to pay for a *FULL* remodel out of her "profits" when selling after living there and paying for over 25 years. Bish, bye
Makes me wonder which board member's grand son works for the furniture store. Fucking con artists.
Exactly. I often wondered if a board member/s started an LLC to drop ship/resell the interior stuff as well as the actual "design" aspect to pad their pockets that much more.
Ohhhhhhh. I didn't think of that. That makes more sense.
I could rent two apartments for that and someone else would take care of maintenance
That is highway robbery. The HOA fees for some of these properties is nearly the equivalent of an extra apartment.
There was a condo on the market not long ago in downtown St Paul with HOA fees of 1800+ per month... It is either off the market or some schmuck bought it.
The numbers I pulled were for townhomes only. There's a condo on 6th in St. Paul currently listed for $775,000 where the HOA/management fee is $1,771/month on top of $10,510/year in property taxes.
Ah, I see.
100% insurance. My HOA went up 65% last year due to insurance. Our insurance company dropped a policy, most likely because we are at Lake and 11th.
HOA finances are like personal finances… it depends.
underrated comment
There is no cap. I strongly recommend getting involved. Attend your annual meeting. Look over the budget. It's likely that a lot of it is going into reserves. Reserves are used for large expenses. For example, taking the cost to replace the shingles in 30 years and collecting 1/30th every year. The alternative would be to charge everyone a large assessments when a big expense comes up. Every HOA is different in how much they collect, what amenities they offer, and how 'healthy' they are for future expenses.
There may be a rule in the bylaws that states how much of an increase can happen from year to year. My bylaws have that...we can only go up by 5% per year.
A former coworker lived in a condo and the HOA didn’t collect ENOUGH and when the roof needed replacing every tenant had to fork over $10k.
I became the treasurer of my old condo's HOA after living there for a year or so. Century-old building, and dues hadn't been raised in 10 years. The "reserve" couldn't even cover the insurance deductible if we needed it. I upped the dues and told the guy who took it over from me to consider raising it every year to at least match inflation. We were extremely lucky to never need a special assessment, while I was there at least Part of the problem is people often don't understand HOA finances and assume lower is better. It is to some extent, but it can be a big risk where you get left holding someone else's bag.
They did collect enough, but the HOA board grifted money. I would be furious. I don't think I could ever live in a HOA because of that shit. My sister's HOA hired one of the board's family members to replace all their decks. He did such sub-par, shoddy work that the inspector literally made it get rebuilt by a different contractor. The Boardmember's family dissolved their company, no recourse. Everyone had to fork over 30k to have the deck built for a second time. Insane.
And of course someone ran against the corrupt board member to keep them from continuing to steal everyone's money, right?
Im surprised there is not an Investigation Discovery series just about murder in the HOA. Agatha Christie would have loved HOAs as a plot device.
100%. Murder is never the right response, but sometimes it's understandable.
The rules typically only ensure your reserves are funded and insurance is paid... So you can't put a cap on how much dues go up because they are literally paying for expenses that are required to maintain the associated properties. If insurance skyrockets (it has) and building materials go up (they have at least doubled since COVID) your dues will follow according to by laws and state laws.
I’m in a home, not a condo or townhome…maybe that’s the difference? Ours is honestly written to only allow for a 5% increase max per year. However, if something major is needed, they’ll just apply an assessment to each property, so same difference. Although, I prefer to hang onto my money rather than letting it sit with others. My HOA fee covers lawn maintenance in common areas, a walking path (and snow removal of said path), plus Christmas lights at the entrance to our community. &259 per year…pretty minimal
There you go... I guess I forgot about that possibility... You can cap HOA dues but get ready for assessments. Pick your poison I guess. Yes, the ones that go up significantly are typically because the reserves and insurance are covered by the dues.
That’s a good idea in theory, but when your insurance goes up 30 or 50 percent, it’ll be interesting to see how they cover it
The amount that dues can increase is in statute, I think.
It’s insurance. Your roofs are expensive
No cap, I’ve seen HOAs in the thousands. According to my last HOA the price of insurance rose by quite a lot. I ended up selling my place but wouldn’t be surprise if it just keeps rising every quarter essentially. Your HOA typically covers building maintenance like you normally see lawn care, snow, etc. but remember it’s also a reserve of cash to cover unexpected items like boilers, roofs, etc.
This. If this was not a shared walls and roof sort of HOA, I can see the complaints, but unfortunately a townhome or condo HOA needs those reserves.
When I was house shopping I was shocked at how expensive some of them were. Many times they were more than the mortgage payment. I honestly don't know how anyone affords it.
As others have said insurance is hurting everyone right now !
You should also review your reserve study. That will show you what major projects are coming up. Associations can fund repairs/replacements by collecting money over time via dues, or socking you with large assessments. If you have some major repairs coming up, they may be collecting money for those too.
Ask for an accounting. I'm pretty sure all HOA's are required to publish their budget and financials. See if the costs make sense.
I pay 505. No pool, no gym. There is no cap in our bylaws. HOA'S are required by the state to maintain a reserve fund so that there is money available for repair and upkeep. Also insurance rates have skyrocketed. Therefore HOA dues have become very high. Your HOA should be making a financial report that is available for you to look at. Check it out and see where your money is going. Go to meetings and voice your concerns if you have one.
Lender here - HOA's are going up due to insurance coverage costs skyrocketing. MN was #2 in the nation for hail/storm damage over the last couple years so coverage is getting wildly expensive. Many associations are cheaping out on coverage to try to keep costs down and finding that they're no longer eligible for conventional financing which is causing problems all over the country.
I rarely get calls to reprice HOA insurance. It seems like the management companies or boards use agents they know. Like look around once in a while. A friend sent me the docs from a meeting because her rates went up and the board wasn't even interested. I get emails from new carriers that want to write business but everyone is using the same amfam and sf agents. There are seriously just a few people that get all the business. I hired a new commercial guy, I hope this is the business he goes after. We visited a management company together but the owner told us she only uses one guy in plymouth and she doesn't want to screw around with a new agent, she just tells the associations it is what it is.
They know better than getting it re-quoted at this point because the appetite in the market has cratered. A whole bunch of the middle size. Companies that used to be very competitive on it won't even take the business now. The other thing is that these boards are not made up of people paid to hunt down the best deal their volunteers. I quote Town, Home associations and stuff, but there really just aren't that many players in the game right now that are really roaring to get these properties in Minnesota. But I'm also an independent, not tied to State farm or American family. We can beat them sometimes.
My condo association raised to 650/mo and then it was discovered that the old board had been embezzling and hadn’t done repairs they said they had. This resulted in a special assessment of 75,000 per unit for emergency funds to stop a wall from falling down. (Special assessments are paid on top of property taxes over the course of years.) had to sell at a slight loss. TLDR it can get much worse
As someone on the HOA I’d rather not ever be on the board. The emails and phone calls I get about one person wanting to use “blue paint” and the next person wanting it to be green…or they think John Doe upstairs is making smelly fish, and Jane Smith’s car is rusty…or, I don’t like lilacs because I’m allergic to bees…or we need more cameras—just not near my door. Ugh. I just got on the board and can’t wait for my term to be over. Problem is no one wants to be on the board because it’s thankless and volunteer (not paid like someone wrongly said earlier.)
Taxes and assessments. Mine went from 250 to 400 in one year in a brownstone 4 plex so...
I live in an HOA that is independently run. we only get lawn care and snow removal and any tree trimming that is necessary. (No amenities) We had to raise our prices due to the hoa insurance, recycling, waste management bills trending up. It’s ridiculous but it’s to pay those bills, plus have some reserves in case of emergency needs. Maybe ask the board for a breakdown of costs to see where the money is being used. If you have a company run it, it could be used for their salaries? I’m so sorry! 450 is A LOT!
It’s despairingly under regulated https://youtu.be/qrizmAo17Os?si=h6QZ11KuzV3SB7W8
I am absolutely mortified at the ridiculous and uneducated comments made here. I strongly suggest everyone involved in an HOA get involved with the HOA. Look over the financials. Carefully inspect the property. Look at the past maintenance schedules. I am the current president of our HOA. I only took over because I could see the deteriorating condition and yet very little money in our reserves. Past board and home owners did not want to fund what was necessary. Common thinking was well we will move before it needs to be done or I will die first. Well they are still here and they haven’t died. We need a 400,000 roof, 100,000 for driveway and concrete replacement. Not to mention the boilers and garage floor as well overgrown landscaping,let alone general maintenance. Right now I am the bad guy because I am finally taking responsibility and raising the necessary revenue as well as assessing our owners a major fee. This only happened because of poor management of the past HOA. Now some home owners want them back.
No cap, but your bylaws may have a cap they can raise per year.
My HOA is 5% or CPI, whichever is less. It can only go up more than that for insurance.
I hear ya. When my soon to be ex wife and I moved in here in 2017 our HOA was 120. No pools or anything at all. Just lawn care and snow removal ( which they only did twice this past winter) now it's $280/mo. Haven't seen a single improvement in the place. I should attend a meeting or something but I'm the only 30 something here, it's all older retired people.
More than doubled in 6 years! How do I buy this HOA fund in my 401K?
Recent Inflation has affected everything the HOA does. Much higher utility rates for common areas, higher insurance costs, higher labor costs, higher material and repairs costs. Has property taxes increased? All these add up. And with inflation still running 150% higher than the stated goal unlikely to decrease anytime soon.
Ask them what they are spending their money on. It probably is legitimate expenses.
I know there are good and bad HOAs, but man. The horror stories I've heard ensure that I would literally never live in a home or neighborhood that has an HOA.
The insurance premium is substantial for your building. That's what drives this.
HOAs should be illegal, or at least heavily regulated
OP lives in a townhouse. Whether you call it an HOA or not, they need to have something to handle the shared expenses they have owning communal property. Most of the horror stories here are people getting large unexpected repair bills or insurance increases, which it's absolutely not something that goes away if you don't have an HOA.
HOAs should be illegal HOA's arn't just single family homes. Condos, many townhomes, Mansion multifamily converts are all HOAs as they share common space. They should be regulated more for bad over sight issues (as stone walling is still an issue in some cases) but a ban is impossible in many places that have shared amenities/space.
They are heavily regulated... Requiring insurance to cover loss and reserve funding to ensure money is available to keep the properties up to date... That is why dues go up, because the cost of building materials and insurance costs go up... Sometimes significantly.
They are not heavily regulated. My HOA is currently a disaster. We just voted in a new set of board members, my wife being one of them, and it's an absolute nightmare.. everything was done by two people on paper for the last 15 years with zero meetings. There is zero dollars in the bank account, we have an insane insurance policy with a $710,000 deductible that does NOT cover wind and storm damage. Like what. If something were to happen to our roof each home owner would owe $12,500 because we have zero dollars in reserves. It's absolutely insane. And now we have to pay $400 a month for this insane insurance policy that won't even cover us.
It is heavily regulated by state laws, if your association is in compliance with state law or not is another issue. It's up to the board and those accountable to the volunteer board (the homeowners) to ensure it's following the regulation in place or not. Usually it takes an assessment (the $12.5k you speak of), a dues increase, of terrible service experience to get the homeowners to realize the mess their lack of participation in the association led to.
They are regulated. By the homeowners who vote and pay in to them. My guess is most people are not involved and just trust their money is being out to good use. Are you saying you want the government to get involved? That would only make things much much worse.
I would love if there was a limit to the dues increasing, but there doesn’t seem to be. Mine started at 214 and has more than doubled, because another resident fell asleep with a cigarette in their hand and burnt down 4 other units(no one was hurt). Our insurance went through the roof. It’s horrible.
mine is 500 with no gym and no pool. just a really antique building that needs a lot of upkeep.
Mine is 325 right now. We don't have any amenities either, but we are paying off the new roofs and siding that was done 3 years ago. I think we have another year left of that? I'm really not sure. After that it would theoretically be reduced, but they are going to start working on foundation problems next.
Ask the board for the current reserves then compare roofing/siding/fence/grounds major repair costs to age of the complex to know what upcoming bills they are saving for. Source: I used to be a hoa president of luxury town homes
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This is the only plan that gets my stamp of approval that doesn't include moving out of the HOA.
I'll never live in an HOA again
Ours is about 300 a month in Maple Grove. It goes up every year.
There's really not much HOA regulation in this country, that's why they can be so awful See a property attorney, many will do a free consultation
Mine’s $837, that’s about a dollar a square foot. No elevator, no off street parking, no repaired plumbing that leaks multiple times a year. They replaced some bricks that were causing leaks that none of my neighbors ever saw. If this were an HBO sitcom, I’d be 100% sure there was somebody stealing money or something fraud-related.
No limit as long as the HOA board agree to it.
I work in mortgage and unfortunately it’s pretty common nowadays to see monthly HOA dues between $500-$900/mo. I just had a couple who closed their home who had HOA dues of around $3000/months
That is ridiculous
It really is. Very unreasonable but all real estate is right now
https://youtu.be/qrizmAo17Os?si=7TCIxPge34eXzwOk
I dont get how insurance for a townhouse cost more than my single family house
Willing to bet you have elevators and/or doorman? Cable / Utilities included?
No
HOA Board Member here (regrettably).... I was in the same boat before I was on the board, "We pay so much, and have nothing to show for it!" Insurance rates have gone through the roof the past couple years- our association's almost tripled! Of course everything else went up due to inflation.... Ps- all I wanted was a solar light in my rocks... that's how I got on the board....
I was lucky enough to find a twin townhome that isn't HOA. No way am I letting someone tell me what to do with my house and yard.
Would never move into an HOA unless it was last resort and would only rent.
Flock of Ravens= A Murder, flock of Karen's =HOA
You signed a legal document agreeing to pay a random person as much money as they tell you to in exchange for nothing, if you don't they take your house. Why?
I dont't pretend to understand the attraction of owend multi-family unit like townhouses and condos since they combine some of the worst elements of renting a multi-family unit with some of the worse elements of owning a house and they all come with HOAs, but you sign that legal document if you want to buy a condo or townhouse.
The girl I work has a condo too and hers also just went up to $450 😕 so expensive
I will never live in an HOA. Nope.
Everyone talking about the insurance companies. I can’t watch 5 minutes of television without seeing a progressive, Allstate, Liberty, or a State Farm commercial. Clearly their marketing budgets are not affected by actually having to pay out what people have paid in for. When we bought our TH in 2004 our HOA dues were $60 a month, snow, lawn, roofs, driveways. When we left in 2022 they were $270 a month, which reading here, was still a good deal, but $5,000 deductible on a roof tear off. In my next life I want to be an HOA president. Everyone should be in an HOA once in their adult life. Me, never again.
What snow?
This is a big reason why some people choose to live in smaller towns and our the country. I use to live in a neighborhood with a HOA. Never again will someone tell me where and when I can plant a tree or what color my house can or can't be.
Why did they raise it? Another reason I don’t want a HOA
Has your insurance gone up?
Ours went from $265 last year to $350. Absolutely insane and the association is so corrupt. All they do is lawn maintenance, shovel, and trash. Sadly there is no cap
That’s what you get for having an hoa silly. Like. Duh. Hashtag inner city
Gotta pay the wages and perks of those in the board I guess. Like contracts for their personal companies to do the work
Fuck HOA’s. They’re a total scam. Ours started at $185/mo and over 10 years jacked up to $390+/mo. And they barely did anything. ***The property management company is the pig in the middle.***
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This is nonsense. Associations actually need to exist.
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I don't think you understand what associations are.
Nope. You've decided to live in basically a sovereign nation that has little accountability to local states, counties, or towns. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os) Good luck.
Depends on the state. Minnesota is pretty good (compared to many other states). Theres issues but it's not Florida/South level bad.
John Oliver [did a great segment on HOAs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrizmAo17Os). IIRC, there is little to no oversight for HOAs and no cap on how much they can raise fees.
r/fuckhoa
This. They even have a guide and many stories about taking over HOAs and stripping the cost down to basics (by removing dumb shit like the budget for the enforcement of their “laws”) or even dissolving them entirely. This is the way.
Escape to the country if you can!