HOA Fees

My HOA on the Eastt End of STX maintains our road, including paving and bush cutting. We have liability insurance on the road and the directors. Our fee is @ $200 per year. We have an informal neighborhood watch too.

HOA fees for condominiums normally cover insurance, maintenance of the structure, landscaping, upkeep of common areas and reserve fund for major repairs (such as roof, etc.)

HOA is suppose to take care of roads, bush cutting etc. but i have found in our area that it only used for the "chosen few"
Am on East end of St. Croix. Usually whoever is president at the time gets his/her road and bush cut first.

Not much in the way of HOA here and the ones that are here are minor, usually $200 a year and do little other then trash pickup. Are you asking about condo fees? Those average between $600 to $1200 a month on stx (self insured condos are much lower). Includes insurance (at least 3% of your home price), maintenance, pool, and quite often water and cable.

DC - FYI, the prez of the (GBHOA - east end) wasn't the 1st to have her road mowed......tho it was close.
The road my lot is on is mowed twice per year, as per most things in the east.
From what I can see in the bi-laws (which change more than a blonde's mind).......they have so many petty rules! Oh and of course 99% of them only apply to everybody else, there's ALWAYS a reason someone has broken the HOA, but me personally have been informed Tho shalt NOT break the rules!!!! When ever I point out the NUMEROUS violations, there's some crap about extenuating circumstances.....wa wa blah blah wa wa blahhhhhhhhhhh.

Not much in the way of HOA here and the ones that are here are minor, usually $200 a year and do little other then trash pickup. Are you asking about condo fees? Those average between $600 to $1200 a month on stx (self insured condos are much lower). Includes insurance (at least 3% of your home price), maintenance, pool, and quite often water and cable.

Actually the acronym "HOA" stands for home owners association. As in condominium home owners association. In my experience all condo fees paid are lumped under the HOA title. So you are right they are $600 to $1200 a month.

Fees usually include outside repairs and maintenance, building insurance and occasionally some utilities.

lol...ms information, thanks for letting me know I'm right *-)

Thanks, Everyone. I was thinking of condo HOA fees. Didn't know non-condo dwellers also had fees. All the condos I looked at on STT had monthly fees of about $800-$900. Sounded steep to me.

It depends on the Condos. Mine are $200 plus insurance which raises it to close to $400.00/month. That includes outside maintenance, gardener, electricity for the pumps & outside lighting & road maintenance. We're charged for water at 02 cents/gallon up to a certain amount then 04-06 cents/gallon if you go over a certain amount. If you're looking at condos, ask about past assessments since low condo fees don't mean much if you're hit up annually for large assessments. The condos that have higher fees usually have swimming pools and/or tennis courts. I specifically looked for one that didn't. This is on St. Thomas.

Remember 3% is insurance. It may be a little more or less depending on condition, materials and location of the building. But $800 to $900 really isn't that steep, when you compare it to a house. So lets say about half of it is going to insurance, which you have to buy no matter what. So that take away $400 dollars, then you add in the cost of a landscaper, pest control, cable, water, thats at least another $250 in whats included in condo fees. So you have $650. Add into that the cost of security, gates, cost of maintence personal, pool, etc and you get you next $150.

I always thought the cost of condos where high too until I bought a home here. Maintaining a house here is EXPensive. Now I look at condo fees and think what a bargin. To have a on site maintenance man....its like a dream.... Not to mention that something always seems to break or brust every 3 to 6 months costing me way more then these fees.

Edward,

Gotta agree with Betty yet again. Can't speak to this regarding Island living, but would assume the comparison would be fairly universal.
Here in the states I went from owning a condo to owning a single family home and maintenance costs for our single family are WAY more than my condo fees were. I now think of condos as kind of a beneficial, communal living situation. A sharing of resources as well as the cost and management of them. Numerous folks pitching in to pay for a generator, a pool repair, a roof repair, etc compared to 1 or 2 persons covering cost. If you think of it in this way it stands to reason that you will inevitably come out ahead financially. Keep in mind as well that you are paying someone to deal with all the management and hassles involved with the neccessary upkeep and repairs. In my experience that has a true, measurable value. Think of how much your time is worth, then look at the grounds, common areas and exterior of the complex you are looking at, then imagine yourself upkeeping a home to that same quality level and how many hours you would monthly put into doing so. Multiply. Subtract your insurance cost from your HOA fees and I'd bet at that point your already money ahead. Plus time ahead as well. 😎
There's many a day that I look at my never ending household to do list, reminiscing about my condo days, and wondering:
Do I own my house, or does my house own me?

Our condo fees are $558 plus for two years we are paying $125 for new roofs. This includes garbage pick up, cable TV, security lighting with back up generator, security guards at night and weekends, exterminator service once a month, gardening, structure insurance ( we have inside and belonging coverage ), water, pool, and structure maintenance.
They will also help you if you have a car that needs a jump. I know some people have them start their before they arrive to make sure it starts. They also will close your storm shutters if a hurricane warning comes (extra fee??? don't know as I always close mine when I'm gone), and they remove car covers before a hurricane warning and then replace them after. I had a water line under my sink fail. They came in and vacuumed out the water. Didn't do a complete cleanup but got the bug mess cleaned up.

Seemed pretty high until I listed what all they furnish:@)

Wow! Thanks, Betty, et al. I had no idea. I've owned many houses over the 50 years of military and civilian careers and you're right - Sometimes I think the house owns me. I have a house on 15 acres close to Minneapolis. Property tax is about $8,000 a year, snow removal is another big hit, etc. I'm definitely ready for the condo.

Everyone knows the obvious bad things about living in a condo or even a house if they are close together but what kicks it up a notch is the fact that we live with our windows open year round. So if you have a noisey neighbor it can really be a big downer. The only other downside is most down allow pets here and parking. Parking will make people angrier then anything else, so make sure you have the spaces you need where you want them. I know that sounds odd but having been in property mangement stateside, that was what always made people loose their minds, especially if they got towed. 😉

Property taxes here are low. They knocked $500.00 off my 2006 taxes for senior discount which brought the bill down to $186.00. Probably the cheapest thing on STT.

senior discount? :S do you know the minimum age to qualify?

I don't recall even asking for it but I used to have the Homestead deduction. I guess it's 60.

Thanks.