‘People Can’t Sell Their Place Because of the Homeowners Fees’: Clark Howard to Iowa Listener Watching HOA Homes Sit Unsold
HOA fees are quietly doing to some homeowners what timeshares do to their owners, and an Iowa listener's question to Clark Howard reveals just how trapped sellers can become when monthly dues spiral out of control.
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“There are communities in Florida where people can’t sell their place because of the homeowners fees,” Clark Howard told listeners on the October 2, 2026 episode of The Clark Howard Podcast.
The consumer advocate was answering Vanessa, a listener in Iowa, who asked: “Given the soaring increases in HOA fees, is it too much of a risk to purchase a property that has an HOA? I see a lot of homes with a high HOA to home value ratio and these homes aren’t selling.”
Then she asked a sharper question: “Is this situation becoming similar to timeshares?”
If you buy into an association with climbing fees, you pay more monthly. You also pay when you sell, because every buyer deducts that fee from what they can afford.
Clark’s HOA Test Works, but His Map Is Too Small
Howard called it a coastal problem: “I’m not aware of it being a general problem all over the country.” He pointed to Florida condos facing legally required repair schedules on top of “much, much higher building insurance costs that are being passed on to the owners.”
That’s accurate for Florida, and the same math applies everywhere. HOA fee math works the same in Des Moines as in Miami. Zillow (NASDAQ:Z | Z Price Prediction) chief economist Mischa Fisher said on CNBC on October 1 that the housing market is struggling, with newly pending listings down 11%.
Existing home sales slowed to a 3.98 million annualized pace in August, the slowest in over a year. Supply reached a decade high. When shoppers have more choices than any time in ten years, the home with the oversized fee sits unsold.
How a $275 Monthly Fee Can Cut $43,500 From Your Sale Price
Lenders count HOA dues as part of a buyer’s monthly housing cost. Every dollar going to fees is a dollar that can’t go toward a mortgage payment.
Picture a $200,000 home with a $350 monthly HOA fee. That fee eats up 2% of the home’s value each year. Compare a similar house nearby with a $75 fee.
The $275 monthly gap is the payment on about $43,500 of loan, assuming an example 6.5% 30-year rate. So a buyer approved for a set monthly payment would offer roughly that much less for the high-fee home. The seller takes the discount or the house doesn’t sell.
Rising Fees Cost You Twice
The direction of the fee after closing drives the outcome. Howard’s point that runaway fees usually have “something behind that” is key: underfunded reserves, delayed repairs, or insurance increases.
Take that same $350 fee over 10 years. If it stays flat, you pay $42,000.
If it rises 10% annually, it hits about $825 a month by year 10.
The total comes to roughly $66,900, an extra $24,900.
The bigger hit comes at sale. By year 10, the rising fee is $475 monthly higher than the flat one. At 6.5%, that gap cuts about $75,000 from what the next buyer can pay.
Four Checks to Run Before You Make an Offer
- Ask the neighbors. This is Howard’s free screening test. Ask current residents: “Have you found your homeowner association fees have stayed steady or they’ve been going up and up and up?” If they start complaining about past hikes and another increase on the way, he says, “that’s your fair warning.”
- Get the fee history and the reserve study. Ask the association for five years of dues and its latest reserve study. Work out the average annual increase. Increases running well above inflation usually point to deferred repairs that someone will eventually have to pay for.
- Calculate the HOA-to-value ratio. Multiply the monthly fee by 12 and divide by the asking price. Compare the result with similar listings in the same ZIP code. If your home is the outlier, the next buyer will notice too.
- Profit from the fee yourself. Enter the monthly HOA fee into any mortgage calculator as a payment at current rates and see how much loan it would cover. That figure is roughly the discount a future buyer will expect, so factor it into your offer now.
As listings keep piling up, buyers will examine HOA dues more closely, and communities with steady fees stand to hold value best.
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Jake has been been working in financial media for almost 15 years. He focuses on all things personal finance for 24/7 Wall St. with high hopes to educate and entertain. Most recently, Jake spent 12 years working various roles at The Motley Fool. He started copy editing fool.com content, worked on premium and marketing campaigns, and helped launch The Ascent, a personal finance brand.
His work has been featured on platforms like MSN, Yahoo Finance, USA Today, and more. He's written about credit cards, social security, ETFs, savings accounts, and just about anything else you can imagine when thinking about money. Jake love to cook, play golf, and tell people he's never had a cavity. (It's true!)
