September 14, 2025 | Mark Luis Foster
According to a recent Realtor.com article, more than a quarter of homes in the USA are paying an HOA fee, and now comes data that shows 3 million of our homes have a minimum $500 monthly fee attached to them. The District of Columbia and New York win the dubious award of having the highest fees.
One quarter of all owned households in the United States paid either a condominium or a homeowners association fee in 2024, with 3 million facing hefty monthly charges of more than $500, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau survey.
The article sort of rubs me wrong. Seems interesting that Realtor.com writers opted to write this article like HOA fees are something new.
Roughly 21.6 million of the 86.6 million U.S. homeowners, or 1 in 4, were on the hook for paying condo or HOA fees last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey (ACS) released on Thursday.
On the hook? Well, when you move into an HOA, residents are expected to pool funds for maintenance, repairs, upgrades, and potential insurance and reserves. That’s typically how it works. But perhaps Realtor.com writers don’t know that?
“The high and growing share of homeowners subject to HOA fees is a result of the trend for newly built communities to employ HOAs at a high rate,” explains Realtor.com® senior economist Joel Berner. “This has been a trend of the new-construction space in recent years, and now HOAs are a mainstay of the American housing market.”
That much is true. Some 82 percent of new construction in the USA is in a homeowner association.
On the lower end of the spectrum, roughly a quarter of households had to budget less than $50 a month for HOA or condo fees. On the higher end, about 3 million households were settled with having to shell out more than $500 per month to keep common areas in good repair.
Again, misleading. Not all HOAs collect for just repair and maintenance. In fact, our own HOALN research indicates the majority of monthly HOA fee increases have occurred due to rising insurance costs across the country. Don’t Realtor.com writers KNOW THAT?
“This is an added burden on home affordability that many buyers may not take into account in their housing budget, and one that is increasingly expensive,” says Berner. “HOA fees are becoming more common and more costly, and homeowners who are already spread thin face an additional budget crunch.”
Just another good example of why both prospective home buyers and realtors should read the documents that come with HOAs before buying. Read the whole article HERE.
