HOA Dues

The Board would like to address an earlier question that was posted on the blog about "Why Are My Dues So High?". This was discussed at this year's Annual HOA Meeting and the Board would like to share the WHY with you.

First and foremost, it is important to build a healthy reserve for future projects such as repainting the exterior, which will need to happen in the next 6 years. Paint begins to wear out in our Montana weather around year 14, so we are more than halfway there. This, as you can imagine, is going to be a large expense, and we would rather continue to build the reserve to apply towards this project in the future.

We are finally able to move forward with our landscaping goals and the HOA will start to benefit from that next spring. These enhancements will only add to everyone's investment in the HOA.

Besides covering the basic expenses of lawn care, snow removal, utilities, insurance and management fees, it is important to maintain a healthy reserve in terms of what mortgage companies are looking for. When properties sell, mortgage companies contact the HOA and require them to provide detail reports on the finances of the HOA to insure that their investment is going to be taken care of down the road. If they get involved in a property where the HOA has zero money reserved to maintain the common areas of the complex, this is viewed as a negative in the real estate world and may cause issues in the sale of your property.

Our HOA is in excellent condition financially. Most importantly, maintaining the current amount of dues will best provide a means to sustain our property values in the future. It is in all of our best interests.