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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Even with incredibly high condo fees? Help me understand why…[/quote]

I am considering downsizing from a single-family home (with no HOA) to a condo. I'm not interested in condos with high HOA fees (&gt; $1k), which often come with amenities such as gyms and pools that I rarely use. An HOA fee of up to $700 per month would be acceptable to me if the condo is newer and well maintained. For a single-family home, property taxes alone can easily exceed what I would pay in HOA fees, and homeowner's insurance can also be quite expensive.[/quote]

The single biggest expense of our condo HOA is insurance. And one thing about a small condo building like ours is that the maintenance costs are pretty similar to a SFH but a lot of it gets split 5 ways because we share costs. So when we had to get a major roof repair, the building did a special assessment and each unit paid 3.5k. The same repair on a SFH in our same neighborhood would have cost 15k.

Same with more standard maintenance like landscaping. On the one hand we have to share the exterior outdoor space. On the other hand we have a landscaper who comes monthly and keeps it looking gorgeous, and the per-unit cost is less than $100 a month. Go see if you can find a landscaper who will keep your front yard in mint condition for less than $100 a month, I dare you.

With the really large buildings and buildings over a certain age, the math doesn't work as well. But a building with 10 or fewer units that is less than 30 years old? It has really worked in our favor IMO.[/quote]

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