HOA Fee Increases: Historical Rate and What to Expect

Since 2019, the median HOA fee on U.S. listings has risen 25%—from $108 to $135 per month, according to Realtor.com’s January 2026 report. For luxury high-rise owners in markets like South Florida, average monthly association fees now exceed $1,900, and those figures are still moving.

The compound math is the problem. A fee that climbs 7% annually doubles in roughly a decade. For a $150k+ household buying into a luxury condo or gated community, the question isn’t whether HOA fees will increase—they will—but at what rate, driven by what cost categories, and what that means for the 10-year total cost of ownership.

Key Figures at a Glance

Sources: Realtor.com Homeowners Association Report (Jan. 2026); U.S. Census Bureau American Housing Survey (2019, 2021, 2023); Foundation for Community Association Research snap surveys (2024); FirstService Residential High-Rise Benchmark Study (2025).

The Historical Rate of HOA Fee Increases

Two datasets capture the historical trajectory clearly, and they tell a consistent story. The Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey—conducted every two years—shows the national average HOA fee climbing from $170 per month in 2019 to $191 in 2021 and then $243 in 2023, a 43% cumulative increase over four years. Realtor.com’s listing-based data, tracking median fees across for-sale inventory from 2019 to 2025, shows a 25% increase over six years ($108 to $135). The gap between those two figures reflects methodology: AHS captures what existing homeowners actually pay, including premium urban and luxury properties; Realtor.com captures what’s on the market, which skews toward moderately priced inventory.

Neither dataset captures where the $150k+ household actually lives. HOA fees at luxury properties operate in an entirely different range—one where the national median is essentially irrelevant noise.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau American Housing Survey (AHS), 2019, 2021, 2023; Realtor.com Homeowners Association Report, January 2026. AHS is biennial; Realtor.com data is annual. Figures are not directly comparable due to differing methodologies.

The acceleration between 2021 and 2023 is the key inflection. A 27% jump in two years reflects the compounding of post-pandemic inflation, labor cost surges, and the beginning of a structural repricing in property insurance. That wasn’t catch-up growth. It was a cost-structure reset that has largely remained embedded in HOA budgets.

What’s Actually Driving the Increases

Three cost categories dominate HOA budget pressure, and they don’t move in lockstep with general CPI. Understanding them separately matters for projecting forward.

Insurance

Property insurance is now the single largest escalating cost in most HOA budgets. A 2024 survey by the HOA Leadership Network found that property insurance accounted for 34% of the average HOA’s annual operating budget, up from 27% in 2022. That’s a 26% increase in budget share in just two years—before accounting for premium increases on top of a higher base. U.S. home insurance premiums rose approximately 24% from 2021 to 2024, according to data cited by RealManage (sourcing S&P Global), with additional projected increases of 7–10% in 2026 for high-risk regions. In South Florida high-rises, the insurance component of monthly fees alone reached $377 per unit in 2025, per FirstService Residential’s benchmark study—a 25% increase in that line item year-over-year. For a $150k+ household evaluating high-rise condo HOA fee structures, the insurance line in any building’s budget disclosure is the first thing to examine.

Labor and Vendor Costs

Maintenance labor costs have risen 15–20% in many markets since 2020, according to HOA industry surveys. Landscaping, janitorial, and trade contractors have all repriced. This isn’t temporary—wage levels don’t deflate. Unlike insurance, which can theoretically ease if the carrier market stabilizes, labor cost increases compound permanently into the base rate.

Reserve Funding Catch-Up

The 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida triggered a wave of state-level reserve study legislation. Florida, Maryland, and Tennessee all updated their laws to mandate more rigorous reserve funding for condominiums. The Community Associations Institute released new Reserve Study Standards in 2023, recommending structural inspections alongside financial reserve planning. Many buildings that had been chronically underfunding reserves—running funded ratios well below 50%—are now forced to accelerate contributions. That catch-up doesn’t show up as a special assessment; it shows up as a permanent step-up in monthly fees. The reserve fund analysis at any building under consideration should include the current funded ratio and the trajectory in the most recent reserve study.

The Luxury Tier: Fees That Move Differently

The national median obscures more than it reveals for high-value properties. In South Florida’s luxury high-rise market, average monthly association fees exceed $1,900 per unit as of 2025, per FirstService Residential’s benchmark data. Miami-Dade’s median monthly condo association fee rose to approximately $900 in 2024 from $567 in 2019—a 59% increase over five years, per data cited by MillionLuxury.com. Ultra-premium towers run higher still: some boutique buildings reach $5 or more per square foot monthly.

Manhattan sits in a comparable range. Industry calculators cite average HOA fees near $1,500/month in Manhattan for luxury properties, with premium full-service buildings well above that threshold. For context, the HOA cost comparison across NYC, Miami, and Chicago illustrates how dramatically location and building tier drive the actual number.

The relevant benchmark for a $150k+ household isn’t $135/month. It’s the segment fee trajectory for properties priced at $450,000 and above—which is where HOA-governed homes tend to cluster. Realtor.com’s 2026 data shows the median price for a home with an HOA at $450,000, versus $374,900 for non-HOA homes. That $75,100 premium is partly absorbed by amenity value, partly by location quality—but the HOA fee obligation comes with it regardless of which factor you value more.

Sources: Realtor.com (Jan. 2026); FirstService Residential High-Rise Benchmark Study (2025); HOAStart.com segment analysis (2025); MillionLuxury.com market data (2024).

Finluxy HOA True Annual Cost: Worked Examples

The monthly maintenance fee is only the visible component. The Finluxy HOA True Annual Cost metric adds the annualized expected special assessment cost to the base fee total, capturing what owners actually pay over time rather than what the marketing sheet shows. The formula: (monthly fee × 12) + (expected annual special assessment, based on 10-year history or CAI industry proxy).

Special assessments are not rare. According to the Community Associations Institute, nearly 60% of associations levied a special assessment in 2022 due to unexpected costs or emergencies. Treating them as exceptional rather than recurring is the underwriting error most buyers make. The special assessment risk evaluation framework should be applied to any building before purchase—not after.

For the worked examples below, where a 10-year special assessment history is unavailable (which is typical for public data), the CAI industry proxy is applied: 60% of associations face a material special assessment in any given year, with amounts ranging widely by building size and age. A conservative annual amortization figure of $1,500–$5,000 per unit per year is used for the luxury tier, reflecting the scale of projects that trigger assessments in high-rise buildings (roofing, structural systems, elevators, façade remediation).

Monthly HOA fee figures sourced from FirstService Residential Benchmark Study (2025), Realtor.com (Jan. 2026), and HOAStart.com segment data (2025). Special assessment figures are proxies based on CAI industry data (2022) indicating ~60% annual assessment frequency; point figures not available for these scenarios. Actual assessment exposure depends on building age, reserve funded ratio, and local regulatory requirements. These figures are illustrative and should not be used as projections for any specific property.

What the Data Shows That Most Coverage Misses

Most HOA fee coverage focuses on the national median—a figure that’s nearly useless for anyone buying above $400,000. The more analytically significant finding in the data is the divergence in rate of increase between property tiers. The national average HOA fee rose 43% from 2019 to 2023 per AHS data. But Miami-Dade’s median condo association fee rose approximately 59% over a similar 2019–2024 period. The luxury tier is inflating faster than the market as a whole—not slower. The reason: insurance costs are a larger share of the budget in high-value buildings, labor intensity is higher in full-service towers, and reserve catch-up requirements are steeper in older urban high-rises where deferred maintenance has accumulated for decades.

The implication: buyers applying a 3–5% annual fee increase assumption—the conventional figure often cited for “standard” HOA communities—are systematically underestimating total cost of ownership in luxury segments. A 7–10% annual increase assumption is more defensible for a full-service urban high-rise bought in 2024–2026, particularly in insurance-stressed markets like Florida, California, and coastal Northeast cities. The consequences of underfunded HOA reserves ultimately translate directly into fee acceleration, not just one-time assessments.

Projecting Forward: What to Budget Through 2035

Three scenarios capture the realistic range for luxury HOA fee trajectories. All assume a $1,900/month base (the South Florida luxury high-rise average as of 2025) as the starting point.

Projections calculated by Finluxy using compound annual growth rates applied to a $1,900/month base figure (FirstService Residential Benchmark Study, 2025). These are modeled scenarios only, not forecasts. Historical rates from AHS (2019–2023) and Realtor.com (2019–2025) suggest the 6%/yr moderate scenario is most consistent with recent luxury-tier experience. High-stress scenario reflects communities facing compounded insurance and reserve pressures.

The 10-year cumulative increase under the moderate scenario—$1,900 to $3,404—adds roughly $18,048 in incremental annual fees by year ten compared to year one. Over the full decade, the cumulative excess cost versus a frozen-fee baseline approaches $90,000 per unit. That’s a number worth running before signing a purchase agreement. For a household with a gated community HOA cost anchored to high amenity levels—pools, private security, landscaping, concierge—that trajectory tends toward the high end, not the conservative end.

The Reserve Fund Problem That Accelerates Everything

Underfunded reserves are the structural accelerant behind sudden large fee increases. The Community Associations Institute defines a fully funded reserve as one where the actual balance equals the proportion of component life already consumed—a funded ratio of 100%. Most buildings operate well below that. When funded ratios fall below 30–40%, the board faces a binary choice: levy a special assessment or permanently step up monthly fees. Given that 60% of associations issued a special assessment in 2022 alone, a meaningful portion of those buildings subsequently embedded higher fee levels to prevent recurrence.

Florida’s post-Surfside legislation sharpened this dynamic. Condo associations in Florida were required to complete structural integrity reserve studies by December 31, 2024, and to fund reserves at required levels—a mandate that is pushing per-unit monthly fees sharply higher in older buildings. Some Florida condo owners are facing special assessments exceeding $100,000 per unit in extreme cases, per CAI reporting. Even without that outlier scenario, the legislative requirement to fund reserves adequately rather than waive them has permanently raised the floor on what luxury coastal condo ownership costs. The reserve fund analysis process and what to look for in financial disclosures is detailed separately.

For due diligence on any specific building, the funded ratio from the most recent reserve study is the single most predictive figure for near-term fee pressure. A funded ratio below 50% at time of purchase means fee increases above the baseline rate are virtually certain.

Context for the $150k+ Household

At a $150k+ household income level, the HOA fee itself is rarely a budget constraint in year one. The risk is trajectory, not starting level. A $1,900/month fee at purchase—$22,800 annually—represents about 15% of gross income for a $150k household, a manageable share. At 7% annual compounding over 10 years, that same fee reaches $3,740/month, or $44,880 annually—close to 30% of gross income, before accounting for any special assessments. That’s no longer a peripheral carrying cost.

The structural shift underway in HOA cost drivers—insurance repricing, labor inflation, reserve catch-up mandates—suggests the post-2019 acceleration is not reverting to the 2–3% annual increases that characterized the 2010s. For a buyer evaluating a property’s annual upkeep cost profile, HOA fees in the luxury tier now deserve the same scrutiny as mortgage rate assumptions. The monthly maintenance fee disclosed in a listing is a floor, not a ceiling. Treating it as stable for 10 years is an assumption the data no longer supports. Factoring in the 1% property maintenance rule alongside actual data on HOA increases gives a more complete picture of total annual ownership cost—one that should inform both purchase price negotiation and liquidity planning for the years ahead. Any acquisition that includes a high-rise condo with a funded ratio below 50% should include a frank discussion with legal counsel familiar with that state’s CC&Rs and reserve funding obligations, embedded naturally into broader due diligence rather than treated as an afterthought.