Reply to What’s covered by condo HOA fees?

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[quote=Anonymous]Our condo fee of $400 pays for: trash/recycling, water, building insurance and maintenance, security system, landscaping, gas, and building electric.

Owners pay for in-unit electricity, cable/internet, insurance on their individual unit, and maintenance on their individual unit.

If a condo has a fee of over $800/mo and there are not obvious amenities that explain that amount (daily staff, pool and/or gym, etc.) then I would assume the building is mismanaged. I'd also want to look at the general fund and find out what special assessments they'd issued recently -- aging buildings that have not been properly maintained can become a money pit where they are constantly assessing owners for expensive repairs that should have been undertaken years prior.

Also keep in mind that HOA fees always go up, they never go down. When we moved into our building 15 years ago, the fee was just $250. It will likely go up again this year. However, this reflects rising costs for everything, which would also affect me as an owner of a SFH -- our monthly water and gas costs have more than doubled, our insurance rates have gone up, maintenance and landscaping services are more expensive as well. My building has never raised fees without clearly explaining to owners why they are going up and linking it to explicit costs, mostly driven by inflation. It's still cheaper than SFH ownership because the costs are spread among 20 owners so it's much more incremental.[/quote]

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