Does the Fannie Mae 10% reserves guideline apply to non-condo single family HOAs

It appears your planned community does not fall under this regulation.

But, with a pool, clubhouse, road, water, stormwater and $5,000 in reserves, what could possibly go wrong?

What Dean said. Did these homeowners get anything in writing from their banks or realtors to this effect? If so, ask for a copy. Better yet, go to the HOA's bank and ask them - and get it in writing.

Even if you don't fall under the Fannie Mae requirement, any community that has the common areas you do (pool, clubhouse, etc.) should know that sooner or later, some of those elements (e.g. the clubhouse roof) will deteriorate over time and need to be replaced. Common sense should tell everyone that it's a good idea to put away some money now so you'll have it on hand at the appropriate time instead of having to argue over special assessments.

(With all the talk over the last two years about communities with little or no reserves and skyrocketing master insurance, you'd think this would occur to people. Then again, some people are horrible at personal finance, so if their own budgets are jacked up, it's no wonder that extrapolates to the larger community).

Anyway...you don't have reserves, so let's start with getting a reserve study (if you have less than $5K in reserves, I suspect getting a study hasn't dawned on anyone). This is one of the questions you could ask the specialist and with the study, you'll see where your community stands and how you'll need to prepare the budget for the next 10-20 years or so. Yes, it'll mean assessment increases, but better than than special assessments. After you get the study, you can call a special homeowner's meeting to have the specialist make a presentation on his/her findings and people can ask questions. Good luck!

At least the pool may fall into such disrepair that it will eventually become un-usable. Seriously, many here have reported that they feel pools are more trouble than they are worth, in an association run by mere volunteers. At lease one long time poster here can report on filling in the HOA's pool (after an owners' vote to amend the covenants?).

If the HOA is really lucky some state inspector will shut the pool down at some point. Then the board can say, "You want it back? Then understand this will cost you a large Special Assessment."

I see plenty directly from Fannie Mae on the subject of the 10% requirement for condos (never single family home associations). Also plenty of discussion about how this derives from the 2021 Surfside condo building collapse. I hesitate to post what I found though because (1) they do not quite nail this the way I think you want; a person has to be pretty sharp to understand what FM provides on this topic; (2) Fannie Mae changes its standards from time to time, and the sites I am seeing do not necessarily indicate the FM standards shown are the current ones; (3) whether there is law behind these standards (since FM is a government sponsored agency) is not fun to research (this is despite my being pretty capable IMO looking up statute sections and CFRs); and (4) Fannie Mae is just one resource that serves certain lenders yada.

I agree. Biggest mess I've ever seen. Getting rid of the pool requires it to be filled in with a specific ratio of materials that would cost 35-50K we don't have. On top of all of this, our current operating budget barely pays the bills ( $71,500 in operating expenses and $76,000 in funding). If pool contract, mowing, or insurance goes up, we could be operating in the red. This has happened in the past and they used the reserves to fund the operating budget, but that won't work this time because there are no reserves. To add to this, our neighborhood is totally private and 20+ years old meaning we are responsible for roads, stormwater, water lines, commons areas.