Houston, Austin and San Antonio homeowners are getting hit with a not-so-fun line item in their budgets: homeowners association dues that keep climbing. A new LendingTree analysis finds owners in the three Texas metros are among the likeliest in the country to owe HOA fees, and locals say the bills are rising fast enough to sting.
In neighborhoods around Cypress and other west Houston communities, homeowners report monthly HOA charges that run from roughly $100 to $500, depending on the development. For some residents, those payments have jumped by hundreds of dollars over the last several years, on top of higher property taxes and insurance that are already squeezing household budgets.
The pressure shows up clearly in individual stories. Cypress homeowner Jeffery Byers told Spectrum News his HOA fees “have increased by hundreds of dollars a month over the last six years.” Diane Sanders, who runs a family real estate business in west Houston, said about three quarters of her active listings are in HOAs and pointed to insurance as a major reason fees have climbed.
Study shows where HOAs are most common
LendingTree’s analysis, as highlighted in industry coverage, shows just how embedded HOAs have become in major metro housing markets. Las Vegas and Orlando sit at the top of the rankings, with Houston coming in third. Across the 100 largest U.S. metros, the report estimates nearly 18 million homeowners paid HOA or condo fees in 2024. Roughly 2.6 million of them were shelling out $500 or more every month, according to National Mortgage News…