Thank you very much for the info. How large should a reserve fund be? The place we are looking at is new, so the HOA is still under the control of the developer. It is a 42 story tower with 260 units.
I have read first 3-4 posts.
I have owned one condo (actually a townhouse) before and before that had money down on another, but pulled out because the salecritter and related folks could not get permits.
I would ask the following questions (some might be asking yourself these questions, not someone else) LOL...
1) What happens if the community does not finish building?
a) in my case, both units above were "new contruction". The reason we did not buy the unit we walked away from was the building permit process was taking too long. The unit we ended up buying (12 months later) was done and ground had not even been broken on the one we walked away from.
b) think of it in terms of property values, the various promotions sales critters will run to [-]sell the units[/-] fill the units.
2) I don't know how to interrogate an HOA. I would look for the following though
a) cap on the HOA fees (will they be fixed, or will they change drastically year over year)
b) if fees cannot be fixed, what is their history. Past performance cannot predict future results yadda yadda but past performance is all we have to go on sometimes.
c) what is provided with HOA fees (garbage, water, sewer, pool, snow removal, roof replacement, insurance all make my list).
The HOA fee is "dead weight" on the price of the unit... meaning when you sell (eventually) you cannot recover the fees you paid in, and the buyer has to assume the fees the HOA assesses yet it does not get factored into the purchase price at all (its almost like [-]a tax[/-] another bill. You probably already knew this, when comparing HOA fees, low is good if they pick the trash up, insure the properties and generally try to not be too ambitious with social events or other money draining line items (my current HOA has a social budget).