Normal HOA costs for 142-unit townhome community?

appears to be within reason

? private roads ?

thank the creator no pool

One think I learned in my 10 years on the board is there really isn't such a thing as "normal" when it comes to assessments (or anything else in HOA land, for that matter). $240 a month in your community may be great, but not nearly enough in another one. You also live in Florida and the cost of living there could be higher or lower than someplace else.

So quit comparing yourself to other communities and consider how well your assessments are working in YOUR community (you don't live in the others anyway, so what's the point in worrying about that?) Having said all that, if your assessments haven't increased in 2009 because you have a good manager, consider yourself fortunate. Hopefully that also means you had a good developer who didn't cheap things out and the homeowners have been good about taking care of their property so you don't have to worry about excessive bills from dumb behavior. Good work!

The only thing I might be concerned about is reserves - costs have gone up in 8 years and you live in Florida, so I don't know how much you're affected by hurricanes. Roofing isn't cheap and when you get around to replacing yours, you have to consider the building code will have changed so it might cost a lot more than you think. There's also a little thing called inflation you might not be thinking about.

One way you might get a better handle on where your assessments needs to be is by doing a reserve study - if you haven't had one in 8 years, make that job one for 2018. It'll help you plan for future budgets.

Ryan

Your costs look reasonable. The one thing, as another poster mentioned, that scares me is are the Reserves enough to handle what needs to be done in the future. I would want a Reserve Study done/updated to be sure.

Don't know much about roofs, but we just had ours replaced on our twin high rise towers and 13 Townhomes, and they are estimated to last only 20 years. 30 years seems like a long time for roofs to last! Sounds like it was the developer's estimate. Yes, get a real reserves study done.

I'd keep contributing to that component as scheduled, Ryan. IF, the roofs are still in good shape at 30 years, the reserves analyst can always tack a few more years onto their estimated life.

You can imagine the number of components we have, JohnC. About 90!

Interesting. Our accountant says doing this can give tax benefits if we every make enough interest and can't file form 1120H.

Keep in mind that we utilize the component method for our Reserves (vs. cash flow).

It requires more to be saved then the cash flow method does but can save the Associations behind if anything major happens or the life expectancy is way off on a couple of major items.

$45.00 a month for landscaping?? WTF What the heck are they doing to every unit where $45 a month? Your contribution to to bad debt seems extremely high and contributions to reserves seems a little low. I would like to know how much they are actually putting in the reserves.

BTW, my HOA budgets for street sweeping and has only done it 3 times in 5 years. The street sweeper, if you want to call it that uses no water and only brushes dust around.
the roads look horrid after the street sweeper drives through.

The landscaping (which covers mowing of lawns, planting trees, mulch, etc.) is $45 a month per unit. I'm not a member of the HOA board (since I live in Sarasota, not Orlando, otherwise I'd be on the board. I rent out my townhome there though.). Here's the community: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Lynwood-at-Southmeadow_Orlando_FL (if this is breaking any rules, feel free to edit)

Landscaping breakdown (for 142 units which each have a mini-yard, which is still considered common area):

Full landscape Maintenance Com: $47,000
Landscape-Common Mulch: $9,800
Landscape Replacement: $6,500
Irrigation Maintenance/Repairs: $8,000
Landscape drainage repairs - New Line 2018: $5,912
-------------------------------------------------------
Landscaping Total: $77,212 (142 units, $45.30 per unit per month)

The other thing on the budget I noticed is phone lines for fire protection... is this common? It costs about $13 per month per unit just for that... although I wonder if that's required for insurance reasons...

But with construction today... is it really true that roofs eventually need to be replaced? Have we not reached a point where roofs are made durable enough to last much longer than 30 years?

One popular roofing system today is silicone. Not everyone likes it, but I know many who are choosing silicone. It is supposed to last 50 years and is concomitantly expensive. Google and you will turn up info. But otherwise roof technology has not changed all that much. What is the present roof material at this HOA? Are the roofs flat or at a slope? I was looking at this recently for my condo HOA. Roofs will likely need replacement within the next ten years, so we have been re-evaluating reserve funding based on recent estimates of roofing.

Delete my $10 per square foot estimate above. It is for modified Bitumen flat roofing. If you have shingles on a sloped roof, figure $5 to $9 per square foot. Google for more info.

I wonder if the board where you are has had to factor in hurricane risk and what insurers are offering these days when it comes to roof replacement.

Yes, you did break the rule - we don't use actual names of people or communities.

You haven't said if you'd asked the board any of these questions - you may not be a board member, but you're a homeowner and association member, therefore you should have some idea of where the money's going and why. In fact, find your documents and read them - the CCRs should state exactly what the association's responsible for, and that's where you can start taking a deep dive into the budget and whether it's kept up with inflation, changes in building code and all that stuff. Get hold of previous board meeting minutes and take a look at those so you can see what the conversations have been and finally make time to go to a meeting or two and ask questions. If you can't get to a meeting, send a letter or email to the board.

Regarding the phone lines, many utilities state those lines are the homeowner's responsibility. In your case, you might have to pay from the point the lines enter your unit (this would also include water/sewer, gas, electricity) and then the association might take over up to where those lines connect to the main line, which is covered by the utility. That may explain this line item, but again, you need to ask the board or property manager.

As for the roofs, durability depends in part on the materials and workmakship of the installer - and you know some are better than others. There's also a matter of money - perhaps your community doesn't have the money to get the higher grade material - it HAS been 8 years since the assessments have been increased, remember? And don't forget Mother Nature, who has a knack for shredding all manner of material with wind, water, lava from a volcano and who knows what else. A 30 year roof might stand up to most stuff, but what might happen if something stronger than a category 5 hurricane drops in on your community?

Well, we pay around that much too, and for ours, it's mowing, fertilizing, raking/blowing/mulching leaves, maintaining the irrigation system, pruning trees and bushes, applying herbicides/pesticides as needed, occasionally reseeding or replacing sod, maintaining rock/mulch beds, etc.

It adds up. And that's considered basic stuff in this neck of the woods, even with low-maintenance plantings. Places with flower beds, ponds, etc can easily spend more than that.

Replacement involves more than "new shingles." Replacement means the old shingles have to be torn off, and often the underlayment wood has to be torn off, plus there is typically a disposal charge for scrapping the old materials. Where I am (flat roofs, typically modified bitumen, think Tucson, Arizona), the tear-off (of the old roof) is around one-quarter of the total cost of roof replacement. Because you have shingles, I am really not doing justice to your questions. Please take my comments as an introduction to the topic.

Even if the cost to replace your roofs is only about $5 per square foot, then I do not see anything crazy out of line with your reserve amount. If I were a member, I would certainly review the reserve study or ask that one be done. I figure a reserve study would cost around $2000 to $4000 for a community your size. But members or directors need to go through the study line by line.

So we can put a man on the moon, build quantum processing computers, but can't figure out how to not replace shingles on a roof after 30 years...

There are certainly roofing systems that last more than 25-30 years, but they aren't asphalt shingles. Tile roofs can potentially last 100's of years, just look around Europe. I'll add that based on my experience, homes in Europe are built to last a lot longer than those here. Windows and doors are more robust, tile roofs almost universal, and just sturdier construction all around.

Here is a list of expected life spans for various components by a home inspection organization:
https://www.nachi.org/florida-life-expectancy.htm

I think some of their estimates are low, especially for appliances and central air systems, but it certainly points out that we can't expect these systems to last forever.

WHY does each home have to have a wired land line for the fire protection system? I would suspect that even modern fire alarms use sensors that relay back to the main unit
as to which condo unit alarm is going off. I would ask if each individual unit has a separate alarm or is there a central alarm system installed.

BTW My HOA is charged $1470 a year for 4 lines. One line we don't need because the fools installed a emergency pull station at the pool house on the back of the building at ground level behind some landscaping.

That sounds steep for 3 business lines. We have AT&T, what I've found is that they will lower your price dramatically if you agree to an annual contract. When I became treasurer, our monthly bill for one line was around $110. The former treasurer said it had just gone up and to call about better pricing (she had done it a couple of years previously). I called, they offered $55/month if we agreed to an annual contract vs. month to month, with 2 annual renewals at the same price (with the right to cancel each year if we wanted to).