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HOA fees add to the cost of owning a home

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Nearly 44% of homes for sale in the U.S. now come with a homeowners association (HOA) fee, making monthly dues an increasingly common part of the cost of buying a home.

• HOA fees continue to rise, with the median monthly payment hitting $135 in 2025, up sharply from pre-pandemic levels.

• Florida stands out for both the prevalence and cost of HOAs, with several metros where dues consume a significant share of typical mortgage payments.

If you live in a neighborhood without a homeowners association, youre still in the majority, but barely.

Homeowners associations with monthly or annual dues are becoming a defining feature of the modern U.S. housing market. In 2025, 43.6% of homes listed for sale included a non-zero HOA fee, according to the newly released Homeowners Association Report from Realtor.com.

That marks a steady climb from 34.3% in 2019 and reflects how HOA obligations have moved well beyond condos and gated communities into the mainstream of homeownership.

HOAs are no longer confined to condos or brand-new developments, said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com.

HOA-heavy construction

He noted that a surge in HOA-heavy construction earlier in the decade is now reshaping the resale market, as those newer communities age and change hands. At the same time, rising insurance premiums, stricter building safety requirements, and higher labor and material costs are forcing many associations to raise dues, increasing the long-term financial commitment for homeowners.

The growth of HOAs is not just about how many homes are subject to them, but also how much they cost. The median HOA fee rose to $135 in 2025, up from $125 in 2024 and $108 in 2019, continuing a multi-year upward trend. Realtor.compreviously found that both HOA prevalence and fees were increasing between 2023 and 2024, and the latest data show that momentum carried into 2025.

Condo and townhomes

HOAs remain most common among condos and townhomes, where 84.8% of listings include monthly dues. Still, their presence among single-family homes is expanding, with about one-third (33.4%) of those properties now carrying HOA fees.

Homes governed by associations also tend to be larger and more expensive. Single-family houses with HOAs have a median size of 2,306 square feet, compared with 1,818 square feet for those without, and they sell for a higher price per square foot. Condos with HOAs, while similar in size to those without, also command higher per-square-foot prices.

New construction continues to lead the market in HOA prevalence. Nearly 68% of newly built homes are subject to HOA fees, compared with about 39% of existing homes. However, the share of resale homes with HOAs is growing faster, a sign that the construction boom of 2020 to 2022 is now feeding into the broader housing inventory.

On average, homes with HOAs list for $450,000, well above the $374,900 median for homes without associations. Much of that difference is tied to age: existing homes with HOAs were typically built around 1998, while those without date back to about 1968. Despite the added monthly cost, HOA status had little impact on how long homes stayed on the market overall in 2025.

Nevada has the most HOAs

Regionally, HOA prevalence varies widely. Nevada tops the list, with more than two-thirds of listings subject to HOA fees, while South Dakota has the lowest share at just over 12%. The West and South have seen the largest gains since the pandemic, reflecting high levels of new development in those regions.

When it comes to cost, Florida dominates. Several Florida metro areas rank among the most expensive in the country for HOA fees relative to mortgage payments, including Miami, Naples, and Cape Coral. In some markets, monthly dues account for more than a quarter of a typical mortgage payment.

Floridas status as an outlier is driven by a combination of climate-related insurance costs and regulatory changes. Following the 2021 Surfside condo collapse, new state requirements for inspections and reserve funding have increased expenses for condominium associations, which are often passed directly to homeowners.

Between rising insurance premiums and stricter safety and reserve requirements, many associations are facing higher operating expenses that ultimately get passed on to homeowners, Berner said.

As HOAs continue to spread across housing types and regions, buyers are increasingly forced to factor monthly dues into their affordability calculations making associations a central, and growing, part of the U.S. housing landscape.