For 60 of his 64 years, Patrick Luzzi has lived in the red brick house in Yonkers, New York, where he was raised. His parents bought the two-family home, just north of the Bronx, in 1962 and Luzzi moved back in to take care of them before they both died.
But the retired accountant doesn’t want to stay. Like many older homeowners, he’d like to downsize to a single-story home that he can comfortably age in. But after nearly two years of searching for a suitable condo in his home county of Westchester, he’s not sure he can afford to.
Sky-high home prices in the New York City suburbs aren’t the only obstacle: Many condos also come with daunting and non-negotiable homeowners association fees.
Luzzi worries that even if he can afford to buy a new home, he won’t be able to keep up with the unpredictable communal costs. “HOA fees won’t go down in the future, they’ll go up,” he said.
Luzzi looked into a condo complex in the town of Somers, New York, about 40 minutes north of him, but was discouraged to find that the HOA fees run between $1,600 and $2,000 a month, he said.
He isn’t alone in this fear. Some older homeowners who are aiming to downsize told BI that they’re discouraged by the number of condos and single-family homes in their communities with high HOA fees. With elevated home prices and mortgage rates, signing up for a hefty monthly fee that’s likely to grow over time seems too risky.
The rise of HOAs
If you want to own a home in the US, it’s becoming harder to avoid HOAs — and the growing fees they charge.
The fees — which range from just a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars a year — are designed to cover a variety of communal services and amenities. In many urban condo buildings, they pay for things like building repairs, concierge services, and shared gyms or rooftop pools. In communities of single-family homes, they often pay for perks like landscaping or a clubhouse, as well as basic services like trash and snow removal and road repair.
Those fees are growing rapidly. According to the US Census Bureau, the average HOA fee in the US was $243 a month in 2023. That’s 42% higher than the average HOA fee in 2019, which was $170.
At the same time, a growing share of homes across the country are governed by HOAs. In 1970, just over 2 million people lived in homes in HOAs. Now, about one-third of American homes, housing about 77 million people, are part of a homeowners association.
A whopping 81% of newly built single-family homes sold in 2023 were part of HOAs — up from 62% in 2009, according to the Census.
Are you struggling to afford your housing costs, or unable to find suitable housing to age in? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].
Susan Hopkins, 76, and her husband have lived in Fillmore, California, a small city nestled among farms northwest of Los Angeles, for 50 years. They love their quiet neighborhood and the 1980s split-level home they bought and have lived in since 1991.
But Hopkins, a retired second-grade teacher, knows that she and her husband won’t be able to lug their groceries up multiple sets of stairs in their home or navigate their steep driveway forever. Hopkins recently had her hip replaced and her husband, an 84-year-old former surfer, has chronic back pain. But she said they have few options for accessible and affordable homes in Fillmore.
Many of the new homes in the city are built by developers and tend to be too large and expensive for Hopkins. They also come with hefty HOA fees.
“Everything they’re building around here is these big McMansion kinds of things,” she said. “It’s not just the size of the homes, but the other expenses that go with it.”
Hopkins also said she doesn’t want many of the amenities that the fees pay for. “I can live without a clubhouse or a swimming pool or a golf course,” she said.
Luzzi and Hopkins may be right to be wary of HOAs. Just 35% of those who live in HOAs said they would prefer to live in an HOA, versus 49% who said they’d prefer not to, according to a 2023 YouGov poll.
Both Luzzi and Hopkins are considering leaving their home states, which have among the most unaffordable housing costs in the country, for cheaper places. The Yonkers native said he’s looking into moving to Delaware, where he’s found some more affordable senior communities, but he’s worried about leaving many of his friends — and doctors — behind in New York.
Hopkins said she’s weighing moving outside Reno, Nevada, to be closer to her daughter and other family members.
“There’s so many things to consider that we’re just kind of stymied,” she said.
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