Do Condo Fees Ever Decrease? Almost never.
When looking at properties to buy and evaluating how it’ll play into your monthly budget, in addition to your mortgage payment, you’ll also need to consider condo fees and taxes. If you get a Fixed-Interest Rate mortgage, your monthly payment will stay the same for the life of the loan (ex. 15 years or 30 years), BUT it will fluctuate when your taxes change from year to year. Your total monthly payment will also change year to year based on your condo fees.
Generally condo fees increase year to year by some small increment. For example, they may increase by 4% (so on a $350/mo condo fee, that may be an increase of $14/mo).
That said, there’s always an exception!
A condo’s Board of Directors has the ultimate say when determining the fiscal year budget for the condominium. They handle the budgets, the audit reviews, etc. It is up to them to decrease, increase, or leave condo fees (otherwise known as assessments) unchanged. It’s rate that you’ll get an email that says this, but this is a sign of a fiscally responsible ands trong condo board:
Continuing the financially conservative precendent and conservative spending, the board has decided to reduce monthly assessments by 0.52% effective FY 2012.
A similar email just went out to unit owners of the Continental Condo Building in Ballston. I am HAPPY to be wrong on this one, but don’t bank on it happening often (or at all) for your condo purchase! If you have questions, please contact me.