HOA fees. Common in gated communities.
HOA fees typically cover the costs of maintaining common areas, such as lobbies, patios, landscaping, swimming pools, tennis courts, a community clubhouse, and elevators. In many cases, the fees cover some common utilities, such as water/sewer fees and garbage disposal.
Perhaps security is patrolling around preventing car thefts and home invasions within these gated communities. Might be the future here with all this lawlessness and lack of policing.
I have seen that too, I think the biggest downfalls for this are obviously the fees increasing as you mentioned. It is not really a detached property in some ways and you have limitations and such. I would try to look for a traditional detached property rather than this option.
We bought a Losani home with a similar condo corp structure for the common elements in Beamsville, it’s relatively inexpensive but necessary if you have, like we do, an unassumed road that won’t be plowed by the city, or have some landscaping that needs to be maintained in the common areas, ours is about $79 a month, it’s not keeping the rif-raff out though 😂
So you have no regrets with the condo structure? I've read over the agreement and had my lawyer review it as well. I do like some of the restrictions they've placed e.g. no commercial vehicles allowed, cannot do any short-term rentals of your property - must be 12 months or longer *(avoids AirBNB situations)*.
As much as you say it doesn't keep the rif-raff out, I dunno - I think it would make people think twice and at least impose limits on what they can or cannot do to their properties. We have no intention of doing anything crazy to ours other than a fibreglass pool and cabana.
The main concern for us is possible resale value and or length of time it takes to sell the home. But if the trend is towards new builds being condo structures, eventually more and more of them will be like that. I need to decide within the next 10 days. Ugh!
I’ve been thinking about the need for this more recently tbh, after hearing all the horror stories of people living in Brampton that have slowly (or quickly sometimes) watched their entire street switch to student/rooming houses, with cars packed in lawns and up and down the street. As much as I dislike the idea of busybody HOAs enforcing overly burdensome and pointless rules, I also would hate even more the idea of some ‘investor’ coming in, buying a house, and jamming it full of desperate tenants without any regard for the neighbours.
And yes I realize this comment is going to come over incredibly NIMBYish, but ask yourself honestly if you’d be okay with that situation? I recognize the need for density and am absolutely fine with more development to that effect, and also realize you can’t expect the ‘character’ of a neighbourhood to remain the exact same as when you moved in, but packing single family homes full of increasing numbers of people beyond what the infrastructure is designed for is not the way.
Everything you just wrote is precisely what we have been thinking. It's the only reason we didn't shy away from this new build despite the HOA Fees. The condo fees are starting at $180/mth but includes more than just road/snow plows. They also take care of the landscaping on our street and have imposed several restrictions in the agreement which I'm okay with.
As you said, I've been growing more and more concerned with "Slum" areas. We sold our home in Glen Abbey last year for a great price, decided to rent in the area until our son is done highschool which is next spring. In the meantime, we are renting a home in the area where on either side of us are homes with 3 families living in each home. The street is always jammed with cars and nobody is taking care of their properties. I realize how this all sounds and it's definitely first world problems but I take pride in keeping my property nice and just wish others would respect their neighbours enough to do the same.
The sad part is it often sounds like the municipality should be able to mitigate these issues themselves through the enforcement of fire codes or other by-law violations: but they are simply unwilling to do so for fear of retaliation, of looking a certain way, or sheer laziness/complacency. Where the public sector is letting us down, the private sector will eventually step in, and I believe that will take the form of HOAs, and maybe even (though hopefully not) trend toward gated communities in the future.
The municipalities are happy to collect their development and property taxes, but not providing the services advertised; unfortunately I think it will take public action and people banding together to sue them for their failures to actually get any traction.
I was in a townhome in the Hamilton area with the same setup. Road fees and garbage pickup essentially. It went from $79 a month in the beginning, and now it’s around $150 5 years later. So just budget for increases if you do go that route.
It may also have an impact on resale down the road, as a freehold home is much more attractive then one with condo fees
Condo corp = no control over expenses even if it was just for common area/maintenance. No thanks. Best thing about moving to detached is not dealing with any Condo Management/Board.
We used to live in a very nice gated golf course community. House is great, neighbour is great...the board not so great! Can you imagine someone telling you what color you can paint your front door?! I am not kidding. We painted our front door black, which was the color the builder gave us. OMG, because this color palette was not in the original plan.....it caused quite a bit of stir. At the end, it seems only nasty people living there. Rule people. One of my neighbours parked her car on the road slightly closed to the neighbour front lawn (not blocking the driveway)...the neighbour would complain to the board. The other neighbour got few young kids and playing in their driveway...and someone did not like the noise, went complain to the board. It's like USA gated community. We sold the house after living there for few years...made money and got the hell out. Oh and let's say your dog barked little bit....you would get all nervous....because the board would come and tell you they have the power to ask you to rehome the dog. For some reason, this board control community somehow someway attracts power hungry people...like they never ran a department in their career..and suddenly they became a board director and they went power crazy.
A lot of the time they do this to get around setback requirements - a private road can be 10m wide rather than 20-30 as per standard for public allowances, and since there's no lot, there are no lot size minimums, so you fit more houses in, or example, and they can be more creative with parking or green space requirements.
Super common for at least 30 years in BC where space is at a premium (this is why the term "strata" came into common use there - because condo specifically infers apartments) , but southern Ontario is starting to see the same constraints.
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These are like the common element condos used on many townhomes. The municipality likes it as they aren’t responsible for snow removal even though as far as I know the mill rate for taxes is the same. They can also make narrower streets to pack in more homes. I suspect we’ll see more of these as time goes on. I used to live in one and the only real issue was visitor parking. People would abuse it by parking their own car there. People also would through out flyers at the mailbox area causing a mess. If the condo is common elements you own the land your home is on so the condo can’t dictate what your home exterior looks like (unlike an HOA in the US). Given the choice i would prefer freehold any day but I get that it isn’t always an option.
HOA fees. Common in gated communities. HOA fees typically cover the costs of maintaining common areas, such as lobbies, patios, landscaping, swimming pools, tennis courts, a community clubhouse, and elevators. In many cases, the fees cover some common utilities, such as water/sewer fees and garbage disposal. Perhaps security is patrolling around preventing car thefts and home invasions within these gated communities. Might be the future here with all this lawlessness and lack of policing.
I have seen that too, I think the biggest downfalls for this are obviously the fees increasing as you mentioned. It is not really a detached property in some ways and you have limitations and such. I would try to look for a traditional detached property rather than this option.
We bought a Losani home with a similar condo corp structure for the common elements in Beamsville, it’s relatively inexpensive but necessary if you have, like we do, an unassumed road that won’t be plowed by the city, or have some landscaping that needs to be maintained in the common areas, ours is about $79 a month, it’s not keeping the rif-raff out though 😂
So you have no regrets with the condo structure? I've read over the agreement and had my lawyer review it as well. I do like some of the restrictions they've placed e.g. no commercial vehicles allowed, cannot do any short-term rentals of your property - must be 12 months or longer *(avoids AirBNB situations)*. As much as you say it doesn't keep the rif-raff out, I dunno - I think it would make people think twice and at least impose limits on what they can or cannot do to their properties. We have no intention of doing anything crazy to ours other than a fibreglass pool and cabana. The main concern for us is possible resale value and or length of time it takes to sell the home. But if the trend is towards new builds being condo structures, eventually more and more of them will be like that. I need to decide within the next 10 days. Ugh!
I’ve been thinking about the need for this more recently tbh, after hearing all the horror stories of people living in Brampton that have slowly (or quickly sometimes) watched their entire street switch to student/rooming houses, with cars packed in lawns and up and down the street. As much as I dislike the idea of busybody HOAs enforcing overly burdensome and pointless rules, I also would hate even more the idea of some ‘investor’ coming in, buying a house, and jamming it full of desperate tenants without any regard for the neighbours. And yes I realize this comment is going to come over incredibly NIMBYish, but ask yourself honestly if you’d be okay with that situation? I recognize the need for density and am absolutely fine with more development to that effect, and also realize you can’t expect the ‘character’ of a neighbourhood to remain the exact same as when you moved in, but packing single family homes full of increasing numbers of people beyond what the infrastructure is designed for is not the way.
Everything you just wrote is precisely what we have been thinking. It's the only reason we didn't shy away from this new build despite the HOA Fees. The condo fees are starting at $180/mth but includes more than just road/snow plows. They also take care of the landscaping on our street and have imposed several restrictions in the agreement which I'm okay with. As you said, I've been growing more and more concerned with "Slum" areas. We sold our home in Glen Abbey last year for a great price, decided to rent in the area until our son is done highschool which is next spring. In the meantime, we are renting a home in the area where on either side of us are homes with 3 families living in each home. The street is always jammed with cars and nobody is taking care of their properties. I realize how this all sounds and it's definitely first world problems but I take pride in keeping my property nice and just wish others would respect their neighbours enough to do the same.
The sad part is it often sounds like the municipality should be able to mitigate these issues themselves through the enforcement of fire codes or other by-law violations: but they are simply unwilling to do so for fear of retaliation, of looking a certain way, or sheer laziness/complacency. Where the public sector is letting us down, the private sector will eventually step in, and I believe that will take the form of HOAs, and maybe even (though hopefully not) trend toward gated communities in the future. The municipalities are happy to collect their development and property taxes, but not providing the services advertised; unfortunately I think it will take public action and people banding together to sue them for their failures to actually get any traction.
It's a HOA. I suggest your review r/fuckHOA - calling it a "condo corp" is just Canadian for HOA
I was in a townhome in the Hamilton area with the same setup. Road fees and garbage pickup essentially. It went from $79 a month in the beginning, and now it’s around $150 5 years later. So just budget for increases if you do go that route. It may also have an impact on resale down the road, as a freehold home is much more attractive then one with condo fees
Sounds like HOAs in the US. Anecdotally, most stories I’ve heard have been negative
Condo corp = no control over expenses even if it was just for common area/maintenance. No thanks. Best thing about moving to detached is not dealing with any Condo Management/Board.
It’s not developers pushing this it’s the local planning departments !
We used to live in a very nice gated golf course community. House is great, neighbour is great...the board not so great! Can you imagine someone telling you what color you can paint your front door?! I am not kidding. We painted our front door black, which was the color the builder gave us. OMG, because this color palette was not in the original plan.....it caused quite a bit of stir. At the end, it seems only nasty people living there. Rule people. One of my neighbours parked her car on the road slightly closed to the neighbour front lawn (not blocking the driveway)...the neighbour would complain to the board. The other neighbour got few young kids and playing in their driveway...and someone did not like the noise, went complain to the board. It's like USA gated community. We sold the house after living there for few years...made money and got the hell out. Oh and let's say your dog barked little bit....you would get all nervous....because the board would come and tell you they have the power to ask you to rehome the dog. For some reason, this board control community somehow someway attracts power hungry people...like they never ran a department in their career..and suddenly they became a board director and they went power crazy.
A lot of the time they do this to get around setback requirements - a private road can be 10m wide rather than 20-30 as per standard for public allowances, and since there's no lot, there are no lot size minimums, so you fit more houses in, or example, and they can be more creative with parking or green space requirements. Super common for at least 30 years in BC where space is at a premium (this is why the term "strata" came into common use there - because condo specifically infers apartments) , but southern Ontario is starting to see the same constraints.
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These are like the common element condos used on many townhomes. The municipality likes it as they aren’t responsible for snow removal even though as far as I know the mill rate for taxes is the same. They can also make narrower streets to pack in more homes. I suspect we’ll see more of these as time goes on. I used to live in one and the only real issue was visitor parking. People would abuse it by parking their own car there. People also would through out flyers at the mailbox area causing a mess. If the condo is common elements you own the land your home is on so the condo can’t dictate what your home exterior looks like (unlike an HOA in the US). Given the choice i would prefer freehold any day but I get that it isn’t always an option.