BuyableHomes Research · September 2026

The Cheap Condo Trap

The less the condo costs, the more the HOA hurts.

Among active condos listed for $50,000 to $150,000 with a published HOA fee, annual dues equal a median 5.7% of the asking price. That is roughly twice the burden in the next price tier and about six times the burden for condos listed from $500,000 to $750,000.

By BuyableHomes ResearchPublished September 13, 2026Active listing snapshot

5.72%

Median annual HOA burden

For condos listed from $50K to $150K

$506

Median monthly HOA

In the same lowest price tier

269

Qualifying condos

With a published HOA fee in the headline tier

States represented

Across 68 cities in the headline tier

The finding

A $506 HOA bill looks very different next to a $120,000 condo.

Condos are often the price point buyers turn to when a single family home feels out of reach. The listing price can look like the relief valve. The recurring fee can tell a different story.

In the BuyableHomes snapshot, median monthly HOA dues barely move across most of the market from $50,000 to $1 million. The typical published fee is $506 in the lowest price tier, $488 in the next tier and $483 among condos listed from $750,000 to $1 million.

The home prices, of course, move dramatically. That means the same few hundred dollars of monthly dues can represent a much larger financial load relative to the sticker price at the affordable end of the market.

The price ladder

The HOA burden falls sharply as condo prices rise

The median annual HOA burden drops from 5.72% of asking price in the $50,000 to $150,000 tier to 0.67% in the $750,000 to $1 million tier.

Median annual HOA burden

Annual HOA dues as a share of each condo's asking price

n = 2,493 from $50K to $1M

$50K to $150K

5.72%

$150K to $250K

2.90%

$250K to $350K

1.82%

$350K to $500K

1.43%

$500K to $750K

0.94%

$750K to $1M

0.67%

The chart includes active condo listings with a positive published monthly HOA fee and asking prices from $50,000 to $1 million. Condos below $50,000 are excluded from the headline analysis because only 23 listings qualified and the group was geographically concentrated.

Condo asking price	Listings with HOA	Median asking price	Median monthly HOA	Median annual HOA burden
$50K to $150K	269	$120,000	$506	5.72%
$150K to $250K	541	$205,000	$488	2.90%
$250K to $350K	554	$299,000	$449.5	1.82%
$350K to $500K	515	$414,999	$487	1.43%
$500K to $750K	398	$615,000	$481.5	0.94%
$750K to $1M	216	$849,950	$483	0.67%

The surprising part

The fee itself barely gets cheaper

Across these price bands, median monthly dues stay in a relatively tight range even as the median asking price rises more than sevenfold.

$50K to $150K condos

$506

median monthly HOA

$500K to $750K condos

$481.50

median monthly HOA

$750K to $1M condos

$483

median monthly HOA

That does not mean a cheap condo always has a higher HOA bill than an expensive condo in the same building or market. It means that across this listing snapshot, HOA dues do not fall nearly as fast as asking prices do.

The distinction matters. A $500 monthly fee attached to a $120,000 condo and a $600,000 condo is the same cash outflow, but it is not the same affordability signal relative to the price a buyer is being asked to pay.

Buyer signal

People shopping for condos are describing the same tension

Reddit is not a representative survey, but it is useful as an on the ground signal. Buyers and sellers repeatedly describe the same basic problem: a low asking price can lose some of its appeal once the monthly HOA enters the budget.

“the cheaper 2bed/2bath condos in my area are selling for about $300k-$350k with an absurd HOA monthly fee (like $400-$500 a month).”

A first time buyer questioning whether lower priced condos still made financial sense once HOA dues were added.

r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer, May 2026 ↗

“condos are supposed to be the affordable option, the step before a house.”

A buyer reacting to $200,000 condos carrying HOA fees as high as $700 per month.

r/RealEstate, January 2025 ↗

“How do you attract buyers to buy a condo with HOA above $600 a month?”

A condo seller asking how to overcome the fee when trying to sell quickly.

r/RealEstate, January 2026 ↗

Robustness check

One beach market does not create the result

The lowest price group has some geographic concentration. South Carolina accounts for 67 of the 269 qualifying condos, including 58 in Myrtle Beach. We reran the analysis after removing the most represented markets.

Test	$50K to $150K	$150K to $250K	$250K to $350K	$500K to $750K
Full sample 269 condos in the lowest tier	5.72%	2.90%	1.82%	0.94%
Excluding Myrtle Beach 211 condos remain in the lowest tier	5.18%	2.74%	1.75%	0.94%
Excluding South Carolina 202 condos remain in the lowest tier	5.28%	2.68%	1.74%	0.93%
Excluding SC, MN and MD 124 condos across 24 states remain in the lowest tier	3.89%	2.28%	1.61%	0.90%

Myrtle Beach amplifies the gap, but does not explain it

Removing Myrtle Beach lowers the median burden in the cheapest tier from 5.72% to 5.18%. Removing all of South Carolina leaves it at 5.28%. Even after removing South Carolina, Minnesota and Maryland, the three most represented states in the lowest tier, the burden remains 3.89% versus 0.90% for $500,000 to $750,000 condos.

The headline is not being driven by Florida

There are no Florida listings in the $50,000 to $150,000 qualifying group in this snapshot. That matters because Florida's condo market has received heavy coverage for rising insurance costs, reserve requirements and HOA fees. The pattern measured here appears without Florida driving the headline tier.

Same state test

The pattern usually survives when we compare price tiers inside the same state

To reduce the chance that geography alone explains the result, we compared the lowest price tier with higher tiers only in states that had at least five qualifying listings in both groups.

Versus $150K to $250K

12 of 14

states had a higher median burden in the $50K to $150K tier

Versus $250K to $350K

12 of 12

states had a higher median burden in the $50K to $150K tier

Versus $350K to $500K

10 of 10

states had a higher median burden in the $50K to $150K tier

Versus $500K to $750K

8 of 8

states had a higher median burden in the $50K to $150K tier

Some state queries in the underlying snapshot reached retrieval limits, so this is not a test of each state's share of the national condo market. It asks a narrower question: among states with enough qualifying listings in both price groups, does the direction of the HOA burden gap still hold within the same state?

This test reduces one source of geographic bias, but it does not make the analysis causal. Condos at different price points within a state can still differ by metro, building age, amenities, insurance costs and many other characteristics.

Why this matters

The affordable option can carry a surprisingly large fixed cost

The sticker price tells buyers how expensive the asset is. HOA dues tell them something about the recurring cost of owning it. At the low end of the condo market, those two numbers can move very differently.

National research already shows that HOA obligations are becoming more common. Realtor.com reported that 43.6% of U.S. homes for sale carried a nonzero HOA fee in 2025, up from 34.3% in 2019. Condos and townhomes were much more likely to have them than single family homes.

Redfin has separately documented a softer condo market, with rising HOA fees and insurance costs repeatedly cited as factors that can push buyers out of the market. Its 2025 research found that 68.4% of condos sold below their original list price in February, the highest February share in five years.

Our question is narrower. Instead of asking whether HOA dues are rising, or which metro has the highest fee, we ask how large the recurring HOA obligation is relative to the condo's own asking price. That lens is where the low end stands out.

What this does not mean

A high HOA fee is not automatically a bad deal

HOA dues can pay for expenses a single family homeowner would otherwise face separately. The published fee alone does not tell us whether an association is well managed or whether the services are worth the cost.

Fees can include very different things

Depending on the building, dues may cover exterior insurance, water, trash, landscaping, security, amenities, building staff, maintenance and reserve contributions. The dataset does not itemize what each fee includes.

Price and HOA may influence each other

A high recurring fee may reduce what buyers are willing to pay for a unit. Older buildings, local insurance costs and deferred maintenance can also affect both price and dues. This analysis cannot separate those forces.

These are asking prices

The analysis uses active listing prices, not final transaction prices. A condo may ultimately sell above or below the price shown in the snapshot.

This is a burden ratio, not a full monthly payment

The ratio does not include mortgage principal and interest, property taxes, unit insurance, utilities, special assessments or tax effects. It is designed to isolate one recurring cost relative to the listed asset price.

Methodology

How BuyableHomes calculated the HOA burden

Data source and snapshot

BuyableHomes analyzed a snapshot of 24,392 active U.S. for sale listings collected September 11 and 12, 2026 through the RentCast property listings API. The file contained 3,256 listings classified as condos. Of those, 2,729 had a positive published monthly HOA fee. RentCast defines the HOA field as the monthly HOA fee or assessment amount supplied with a listing.

Main analysis sample

The primary price tier analysis covers 2,493 active condo listings priced from $50,000 to $1 million with a positive published HOA fee. The $50,000 to $150,000 headline tier contains 269 condos across 27 states and 68 cities. Listings below $50,000 were not used for the headline finding because only 23 met the HOA criteria and the group was heavily concentrated geographically.

The calculation

For each condo, we calculated annual HOA dues as a percentage of that property's asking price, then reported the median of those listing level percentages. This is different from dividing the median HOA fee by the median asking price, so readers attempting to reproduce the analysis should calculate the ratio on each listing first.

annual HOA burden = (monthly HOA × 12) ÷ asking price

Missing HOA values

Listings without a published HOA amount were excluded from HOA calculations. They were not treated as zero. This matches the general approach used in major listing based HOA research, where nonzero published dues are analyzed rather than assuming a missing field means no fee.

Sampling limitation and same state check

This dataset is a cross sectional listing snapshot, not a weighted census of every active U.S. condo. Several state queries reached retrieval limits, so state counts should not be interpreted as national market shares. The same state test does not rely on those market share weights. It compares price tiers only within states that had at least five qualifying listings on both sides of a given comparison, asking whether the direction of the gap persists inside the same state rather than whether that state is proportionally represented nationwide.

Robustness tests

We recalculated price tier medians after excluding Myrtle Beach, all of South Carolina, and then South Carolina, Minnesota and Maryland together. We also ran the same state comparisons described above. These checks address geographic concentration in different ways, and the direction of the main finding remained intact in each test. They do not turn the snapshot into a nationally weighted sample or establish causation.

A $506 HOA bill looks very different next to a $120,000 condo.

The HOA burden falls sharply as condo prices rise

Median annual HOA burden

The fee itself barely gets cheaper

People shopping for condos are describing the same tension

One beach market does not create the result

Myrtle Beach amplifies the gap, but does not explain it

The headline is not being driven by Florida

The pattern usually survives when we compare price tiers inside the same state

The affordable option can carry a surprisingly large fixed cost

A high HOA fee is not automatically a bad deal

Fees can include very different things

Price and HOA may influence each other

These are asking prices

This is a burden ratio, not a full monthly payment

How BuyableHomes calculated the HOA burden

Data source and snapshot

Main analysis sample

The calculation

Missing HOA values

Sampling limitation and same state check

Robustness tests

Sources and further reading