Getting your player ready...
If you are buying a home or condo in a community with a homeowners association, not be focusing on the HOA. You may be more concerned about such things as the price you paid, your mortgage rates, and your monthly payments.
But Terry Jarrett, CEO of BEST Management, an HOA property management company and president-elect of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Community Associations Institute, a non-profit group dedicated to HOA issues and research, said there are questions and tips any one living or contemplating living in an HOA-governed community should address.
They include:
How much are the assessments or HOA dues?
What do they cover? In other words, what are you getting for your money?
Read the pile of documents you will be handed. Some people live in an HOA community for decades and may have never looked at the details of the agreements.
Read the minutes of the last HOA board meeting.
Get the financials. Find out how much is in reserve.
Find out the last time roofs were repaired or replaced. The same thing for boilers. If it has been a long time and the reserves are small that can be a red flag signaling that a special assessment will be required to fix a major problem.
“What I did, before I bought in an HOA community, was I actually sat in on one of the board meetings,” Jarrett said. “After I listened to the issues they discussed and how careful they were as far being good stewards of the money, I had a high-level of confidence of buying there.”
Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com
