Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
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For those in townhomes or similar with home owners association dues I am curious as to how much they are a month and what kinds of things they cover.
Our HOA is proposing a $50/mo increase and I am thinking this might put us well above what other townhome owners are paying.
Re: Poll: HOA dues
$170/month.
Supposedly covers lawn care, snow removal of over 1" in our driveways within 24 hours of the end of the snowfall. If it's a lot of snow, this means we're out shoveling it instead so we can get out of our garage as they literally take at least 24 hours to show up.
They take care of the grounds. However, a snow plow took a huge chunk of grass out of the end of our front yard....straight down to the dirt. We called the association about it and they still haven't fixed the huge patch all summer.
Covers our water and garbage removal.
I think it's ridiculously expensive considering our driveway is a freakin mess and it's so cracked and not leveled correctly that it's doing damage to our cars to even get into our garage. Our neighbors have the same issues.
The people they hired to mow the lawns chew it up in a million different directions and it always looks like crap. They'll leave huge patches that are still long.
:::Our Adoption Journey:::
Evan James was born 1/24/13 and matched with us 2/20/13. The LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!
Ours is $165 for lawn care, snow removal, trash, and water. 5 years ago it was $135.
We looked at buying in another division 5 years ago (about a mile from our current home) and their HOA was $200- but it was in a brand new development that would eventually have a pool, etc. Can't even imagine what it's at now.
Our HOA is currently at $157/month w/ a $25 late fee if you're late.
This is a $5 increase from when we first moved in, going on 3yrs ago.
ETA: This covers lawn care, garbage, snow removal (although, they won't come out until there are 1 or 2 inches accumulated). This also covers exterior repairs to the house.
years ago, my then FI and i were looking at buying a condo in the Cloud 9 Sky Flats in Minnetonka. if i remember correctly, they wanted $450 a MONTH in association dues! for a condo!
actually, i just took a peek and some of them still show $400 for assc dues. that's insane
There's an HOA where we live now in our SFH, but our dues are only $140 a year (so $11.67 a month).
We're paying $284 per month for our condo (our former home that we're now renting). HOA dues at condos are usually higher than for townhomes as they include more utilities and often more services. At our condo, there's central heating & water systems, so those utilities are included in the HOA dues because there's no way to separate out usage to each individual unit. The HOA dues include 2 full-time on-site property managers, hazard insurance, heat, water, trash, lawn care, snow removal, cleaning/maintenance of indoor and outdoor common areas (underground parking garage, swimming pool, picnic area, playground, party rooms, library, exercise room, etc.).
In any case, our dues have only gone up $12 per month since June 2006 when I bought the place. Not a terrible increase over 4+ years.
Mr. Sammy Dog
We're at $194 and it includes the usual - lawncare, snow removal, water, garbage plus parking/walk-way lighting, electricty to detached garages and pool and tennis court maintenance.
When I bought the place 7 years ago, it was $127 (maybe even less?) - which was insanely low compared to others I had been looking at. But those were all in St. Paul/Minneapolis proper - so maybe things are cheaper in the burbs? Right now, our place is smack-dab in between the two metros, so that might be why it is now on the higher end of things.
If only the resale values went up with the association fees!
This as well as exterior home maintenance. We just had them come out and level our fence- it was starting to move and fill a hole in our sidewalk.
$135- includes lawn care, snow removal, exterior maintenance.
ETA: A $50 increase sounds pretty steep. Is there something that needs to be replaced that is going to be costly in the next year or so? Can you go to a meeting a get a better idea of the assn expenses/reserves to see if the increase is justified?
Photo taken at 16 months old
Thank you everyone for your input!
Yes there is a large expense looming. We need new roofs and we're currently in litigation with a past roofing co. regarding faulty shingles. I will definitely be digging and asking some questions about the budget. I have only seen reserve numbers and projected additions from dues to the reserves. I have not seen the monthly in and out and that is what I am really curious about.
I really wish I could have those evenings off of work to attend the meetings, I would love to be much more involved than I am.