How Lower Mobile Home HOA Payments Cost You MORE MONEY! How does the title of this article make any logical sense?
Don’t get confused with the title of this article and don’t assume that this is just clickbait because this is not. Hear me out first and thank me later!
How can one pay a lower HOA payment per month and wind up still paying more money at the end of the day?!
I know what you are thinking, “Mark, to your admission, you are not a math major, but you have this one backward, buddy.”
Now, before you jump on this bandwagon about my lack of math skills, please hear me out on this one!
We can all agree that one of the driving forces for purchasing a mobile home is a desire to obtain affordable housing.
With skyrocketing real estate prices in the Sarasota area for single-family homes and no real end in sight with that, we are all in the same boat in that we want to find cheaper and more affordable ways to live.
One of the main driving forces for this is that so many people do not want to be chained to a huge house payment that inhibits their ability to go and do some of the other fun things that Florida allows to offer, such as traveling throughout the state to new cities, going to the beach, or hanging out by the pool.
Mobile homes offer this option with most homes being purchased for a far cheaper price than single-family homes with the home being very low in cost to maintain.
Mobile homes will come in three different options here in the greater Sarasota area:
1. Homes on private land, which are usually out in the country or in a rural setting
2. Homes in a park, where you own the home and the land.
3. Homes in a park where you own the home and lease the land through a monthly payment called lot rent.
For this discussion, we will be focusing on how the cost of a mobile home, where you own the home and the land, is more expensive to own, compared to a mobile home on leased land.
Many times we have Buyers contact us and state that they want a low monthly fee and have found a home within a resident-owned community that has much lower HOA fees compared to a similar home in the area that has monthly lot rent.
Great, that’s fantastic!
I am all about living as economically as possible, so I always get excited when I hear that there are ways to bring down your operating expenses.
However, my excitement is often short-lived when I have dug deeper into what that means. You see, most land-owned communities, where you own the land and the home, actually require you to purchase what’s called a “share” of the community.
Now the share is a term used in the mobile home industry to describe the buy-in cost to purchase the land that your home sits on.
Sarasota mobile home
For reference, share prices around Sarasota, upon researching this, cost anywhere between $40,000 and over $100,000 to purchase that share. On top of that share price, you also have the price of the home that can add over $20,000 to well over $100,000 on top of that to buy the property.
Let’s compare that to the average price home that we sell at The Mobile Home Dealer in a land-leased community.
That average price is $19,000.
The Sarasota County lot rent average is around $850 per month whereas, the average HOA payment is around $250 per month.
The HOA payment does not include your property taxes, your lawn care, your home insurance, or any additional charges the land-owned community requires you, the Buyer, to pay for while living in that park.
It would be reasonable to say that your monthly carrying costs in a land-owned community, with all of those other fees factored in, could be around $500 per month. Again, compared to that of an $850 a month lot rent. So $350 per month is certainly an amount of money worth noting. If we were to look at that over 12 months, you’re saving about $4,000 annually.
If the Buyer is saving $4,000 per year but is paying, on average $80,000 more than the original price, is that a good idea?
To answer that question, a mobile home Buyer will need to discuss and review several things we’ll go over next week!
Owning a mobile home in Sarasota can have advantages and disadvantages as there is no such thing as perfect, but when it comes to financial considerations, owning a mobile home and maintaining it is always far cheaper compared to owning a fixed home on land.
Living in a mobile home can often be an affordable option for those looking for a place to live. However, when living in a mobile home park, you may have to pay Homeowners Association (HOA) fees. Although these fees may seem minimal, they can cost you more money in the long run.
Mobile Home for Sale in Florida
When you pay an HOA fee, you are essentially paying to maintain the common areas of the mobile home park. This includes keeping up the grounds and roads and providing services like garbage collection. While these are important services and need to be paid for, the fees can add up quickly. In addition, since HOA fees are usually divided among all residents if someone doesn’t pay their share of the fee, then everyone else has to make up the difference.
Another way HOA fees can cost you more money is when they increase over time. As the park’s costs go up, so will the HOA fee, forcing you to spend more money just to keep your home. In some cases, the HOA fee may increase faster than your income. This can cause your housing costs to become unaffordable, forcing you to look for more affordable housing.
Finally, it’s important to note that the lower your HOA fee is, the less money you may have available for repairs and other upkeep. Since HOA fees are used to cover maintenance and repairs of the common areas of the park, if your fee is too low, then you may not have enough money to cover your repairs. This could end up costing you even more money in the long run.
In summary, while lower mobile home HOA fees may seem like a good deal initially, they can end
If you are planning to own a mobile home in Sarasota, we highly suggest contacting experts in selling mobile homes and this is the reason why we are here.
This is Mark Kaiser with The Mobile Home Dealer and we help mobile home Buyers and Sellers get to a better place in life.
See Also:
Recent Comments