MW Home buyers beware: HOA fees are topping $500 a month in these hot spots
By Genna Contino
Homeowners association fees aren't just for condos; they're becoming more common for single-family homes and new construction
HOA fees have surged since 2019, driven by rising labor costs, insurance premiums and tariffs - and experts say homeowners can feel blindsided by the bills.
In many neighborhoods with homeowners associations, the rising cost of something as simple as mowing the lawn is showing up in residents' monthly bills.
Rising labor costs for landscapers and other maintenance workers are just one factor being passed on to homeowners through HOA fees that cover the upkeep of shared greenspaces, pools and clubhouses in housing developments where residents are required to be part of a homeowners association.
Additionally, rising insurance premiums and tariff costs contributed to the median HOA fee rising to $135 a month - or $1,620 a year - in 2025, up from $125 the previous year, and up from $108 a month in 2019, according to a report from Realtor.com.
"If you think of an HOA community that has shared landscaping costs, all that has to go up now. Or if there's a community clubhouse, they have to replace their roof. Or their insurance goes up," said Jeff Lichtenstein, a real-estate broker in southeast Florida who owns the luxury residential brokerage Echo Fine Properties. "The things that an HOA uses and does or events they have, all those things are much more expensive."
The main purpose of an HOA is to keep a community running smoothly, according to the Community Associations Institute, an organization representing HOAs. Membership fees fund maintenance of common areas and shared amenities including pools and clubhouses, insurance for these shared spaces and long-term repairs. Despite the services they provide, HOAs aren't always popular. Complaints of high fees and strict rules have pushed lawmakers in some states to create legislation reforming the organizations, including a bill that advanced through the Florida House this month that would allow homeowners to vote to terminate their HOA.
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HOA fees are ancillary housing costs, along with property taxes and home insurance, that all add to homeowners' monthly expenses. While median HOA fees have grown, tax bills and insurance premiums have risen simultaneously. For many households that lack significant emergency savings and struggle to afford the cost of living, the unwelcome surprise of expensive HOA fees is yet another cost pushing the long-term wealth-building tool of homeownership further out of reach.
"People who thought they had a good deal on a home that they could afford are having their monthly payments in escrow increase in a surprising way, and that's pricing some people out of home ownership," said Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner, who wrote the report. (Realtor.com is operated by News Corp $(NWSA)$ subsidiary Move Inc.; MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones is also a subsidiary of News Corp.)
It's not just the fees that are on the rise - the portion of for-sale listings subject to HOA fees has grown, too. That number reached 44% last year, up from 42% the year prior and 34% in 2019.
While the majority of condos and townhomes have HOAs, a third of single-family-home listings now have HOAs, too. The report also found that newly constructed homes on the market are more likely to be part of an HOA (68%) compared to existing homes (40%).
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"A lot of these new-build homes are out in communities usually on the outskirts of town and there are a lot of shared amenities," Berner said. "Seems like almost every major community that's being built has an HOA associated with it."
This trend is playing out most prominently in Florida. Median HOA fees for listings in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Panama City and Naples make up more than 20% of homeowners' monthly principal and interest payments, according to the report. The Miami and Panama City metropolitan areas, where the median for-sale price was about $430,000, have median monthly HOA fees of $617 and $532, respectively.
Property damage from hurricanes has contributed to higher insurance premiums for HOAs in Florida, Berner said, which are then passed onto homeowners in the form of fee hikes. Insurance for residential associations protects shared buildings and common spaces, according to State Farm.
Surging HOA fees in Florida specifically are also attributed to a law passed after the deadly condo collapse in the Miami suburb of Surfside in 2021, which requires owners of older condominiums to conduct specific inspections and build sufficient reserves to carry out maintenance and repairs.
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Beyond Florida, the western and southern U.S. have seen a boost in for-sale listings with homeowners associations that Berner attributes to a surge in new construction. Home listings in the Midwest and Northeast, where fewer new homes have been built recently, are less likely to have an HOA.
The good news for buyers is that HOA inflation began to slow during the first couple of months of 2026, signaling that the rapid rise in monthly fees "may have hit a peak," he said. In February, the most recent full month of data, the median HOA fee was down 4% from the year prior - a significant departure from March 2025, when the median fee was up 15% year over year.
"We're just seeing this trend flatten out," Berner said. "I won't be surprised when I run this analysis next year if it looks very similar to how it did in 2025."
No matter where they live, it's important for buyers to calculate these fees when budgeting monthly housing costs. "A responsible agent would be sure to mention that when selling a home to somebody," Berner said. Most real-estate sites such as Redfin, Realtor.com and Zillow (Z) list monthly HOA fees in listings as well, and users can also filter out listings with HOA fees if they want to avoid them altogether.
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-Genna Contino
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 12, 2026 08:15 ET (12:15 GMT)
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