If you are a realtor working with a client that is looking at condos, or a buyer yourself, you may have found out by now that financing is not so easy. With so many homeowners upside down on their mortgages, you can almost bet those same homeowners are not paying their HOA dues as well. That is causing associations to raise their fees for the ones that are paying their bills to help keep the HOA on track. Prices have fallen dramatically to help compensate for these high fees and it is working as people's interest in condos has risen in the last year. Unfortunately, many of these people will not be able to buy unless they pay cash, because of the guidelines laid out by lenders. A good rule of thumb to go by when looing into assocations are HOA delinquency, and number of investors. An association may not have more than 15% delinquency rate in their HOA payments, and no more than 20% of owners can be investors. Ask for these rates from the management company, or a board member and you may save a lot of time and money. Some good questions to ask are:

1. How many units are in the condo development?

2. How many are owner occupied and how many are non-owner occupied?

3. How many unit owners are more than one month delinquent on their HOA fees?