Last year, Realtor.com took a look at homeowners associations in the stock of homes for sale on its website and found that HOAs grew in popularity from 2023 to 2024 and that the associations’ monthly obligations also grew in cost.
The website said that it is of little surprise that those trends continued into 2025.
Homeowners associations manage and govern residential communities, providing communal amenities and enforcing rules for homeowners in the community who become members when they purchase a home there. Homeowners benefit from access to things like pools and clubhouses, landscaping and security service, and private roads that are provided by the HOA, but it comes at a price: monthly HOA dues.
HOAs Are Allowed in Every State, D.C.
HOAs are allowed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and Realtor.com said that the share of homes for sale in the U.S. that are subject to a non-zero HOA fee reached 43.6%. That’s up from 41.9% last year and 34.3% in 2019. It said the median HOA fee was $135, an increase from $125 last year and $108 in 2019.
The study noted that roughly one-third (33.4%) of single-family homes have HOAs and that more than four in five (84.8%) of condos and townhomes have HOAs. Both shares are on the rise, Realtor.com said. Single-family homes subject to HOA fees are bigger and costlier than those without HOAs, Realtor.com said, with a median square footage of 2,306 and a median price per square foot of $216.76 compared to 1,818 square feet and $205.10.
It noted that condos with HOAs are about the same size as those without, but have a higher price per square foot ($276.97 vs $255.35). Realtor.com said that in 2025 being subject to an HOA had little effect in aggregate on the time listings spent on the market.
Realtor.com said that HOAs are more highly concentrated among new builds (67.9%) than existing homes (38.9%), but the share of existing homes with HOAs is growing faster in recent years.
Age of the Home can be a Factor
The website said that the 2020-2022 runup in the share of new construction homes with HOAs, as well as the increase in new construction activity that led to a peak of new construction listings as a share of the market in 2022, has begun to make its way into the existing market in 2023-2025.
The median listing price of new builds with HOAs is roughly the same as the median listing price of new builds without them, Realtor.com said, but among existing homes, the median price for a home with an HOA is $450,000 compared to $374,900 without one. Realtor.com noted that the age of these homes is a major factor. The average existing home with an HOA was built in 1998 while the average existing home without one was built in 1968, according to Realtor.com.
Which state leads all states and the District of Columbia in terms of the share of listings subject to an HOA. That would be Nevada with 68.3%.
Realtor.com said that the fewest HOAs are in South Dakota, where the 2025 share was just 12.3%. Nevada has a high share of both new construction and condo listings, while there are relatively few condos in South Dakota, the website noted.
The West and South are home to more homeowners associations, and are also the big gainers in HOA share since the pandemic. Realtor.com said those regions have high levels of new construction activity.
