I'm stoked for you, and FYI that is a very fair deal on fees. I've somehow become the Pres of my beach house HOA, and do what I can to keep cost down - still at $100/month for what feels like nothing.Detroit wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:49 amWe're the only house on our cul de sac, so we almost never get traffic...but when we do we have no real idea because the house is built into the hill, so we have no direct view of the street except for some small windows in the tower. Our entire property is basically the top of a bluff and the only neighbor we can see is the house down the hill from us, and even then we only see it when outside or in the tower. The lady that lives there is super chill, so that's awesome.
All houses in our neighborhood are on a minimum 1.5 acre lot (most more, we're on 1.8) and our HOA is restrictive with cutting down trees to maintain woody privacy. This is actually the first HOA I've ever been able to agree with because the goal is to keep the neighborhood natural feeling, which I support 100% (plus it pays for a bunch of maintenance including the snow removal, brush removal, and waterfront including the boat slips). We had some friends come over and scoff at the fact that we're in an HOA and the "ridiculous" $800/year dues. Then not 5 minutes later they started complaining about their neighbor that turned their backyard into a junkyard. Um, that's what the HOA is for.
Overall, I've never been happier in a place.
My snow plow guy covers the common areas and charges $3,600/yr flat fee. This year we went pay as you go, and the mother*ker salts us twice a day when he's feeling frisky. If I tell him to salt less then the transfer of liability is placed on our condo corp, so it is a no-win.
Insurance skyrocketed from $1200/yr for liability of common areas to almost $3000/yr, and luckily our property management group found a deal with another carrier who gave us the old rates.
Property management group hits us up for thousands/yr but manages our audits, bill payments, COA submittals, and other useless shit that I'm not willing to do myself to save each of our 17 member properties 30-40/month.
I can't really find a way to get the cost down much lower, and expect it to balloon 30% in the next coming years. Your example is a fair one, without the organization, we would have a few disadvantages.... like the guy downhill from us who catches so much road water that his house gets flooded and nobody including the city will help him finance that issue.
You did great man, $800/yr including a boat slip is dirt cheap.