As we consider a home for our future years it becomes clear Sun City has choices for almost everyone. I've recently been looking (online) at the patio homes. While they come with an HOA fee of over $200 a month the maintenance and other costs included may be worth it. I'd love to see comments on this choice and why did you choose, or why would you choose, a patio or detached home in Sun City.
$200 HOA for a patio home sounds like way too much. Aren't patio homes small? I have a 2 bedroom 2 bath 1,600 sq ft condo and my HOA is $185 (7 years ago it was $165. AH. inflation!). That includes water, trash, gardener (I have grass), and a few other things. IMHO, a detached home requires a lot more work than other types of homes.
Some condo or homeowners associations also include the county property taxes. This may make the monthly assessment higher.
There is something for everyone R and the Patio Homes are an interesting option. Funny thing is people tend to think the terms of some of the variations are interchangeable. They're not. There are Garden Court apartments, twins, quads, apartments, single family homes (and probably a few names I have missed). Some of the earliest units were single bedroom and bath 800+ sq ft and are still listing as low as $40,000. They tend to be garden court arrangements with 4 to 8 sitting side by side and a courtyard in the middle. You'll find those spread throughout all of the phases of Sun City. The true "Patio" homes are essentially located within blocks of the Lakeview Rec Center. The first ones are quite unique. There are only 72 of them and while they have common walls, they have no home owner association. Here's a link for one on the market now. Directly adjacent to them are what look like garden court apts but also are called Patio homes. Some of them are quite large, running into the 2200 sq ft range. Honestly I don't understand the line that separates them from garden court apts but those living in them want them called Patio homes. They tend to have higher association fees and cost more because of the additional square footage. Finally, the largest difference in home owners fees is whether the roof is included in their coverage. Many of them are flat roofs and escrowing enough to cover the upkeep can make a difference of $30-$50 per month.
The patio homes I was seeing for sale on line are in duplex or quad design. The HOA included Water, Sewer, maintenance and structural hazard insurance. They were also north of Bell near 95th on the Golf Course.
I'm revisiting this 'patio home' issue. Since the several I've looked at online included water, sewer, trash and other items in the hoa of about $200 I'm wondering what would those items cost in a detached single family home. I was looking at a 1900+ sq foot 'patio home' in Phase III. So, residents, sort this out. give me some estimates on the cost of water, sewer and trash if it were not included in an HOA.
Utilities are quite reasonable. Our 1500 sq ft SF home has a monthly water/sewer bill under $40 per month. Trash is billed for an annual amount of $184 and they pick up trash twice a week. We only pay an annual $20 to the Sun City Home Owners Association(SCHOA). The HOA fees for attached dwellings may also include insurance on the structure or roof as each HOA has different items.
The biggest question and concern Rusco is if it's a flat roof or hip and are the costs to repair the roof included in that monthly maintenance fee? And then of course the other item is yard maintenance. In a single family home, do you have lots of trees and greenery or are you desert landscaping with little or no yard work? The fact is on an attached property you are paying a higher price tag but you get the convenience of someone taking care of it for you. And just to flip your switch a bit, there are these Patio homes with no HOA fees. There's only 72 of them and are wholly different from anything you will find in Sun City.
My HOA includes those items plus painting every 10 years and some roof damage for $185. The fee also includes yard maintenance, mowing, trimming, blowing courtyard etc.
Hey Emily - - There really is only so much you can do on a computer, and that is where a good realtor and this forum come in handy. For us, we only want to move once. Our friends, the snowbirds, are willing to rent (yes we will pay them and have their place professionally cleaned) if needed next summer. You see, we have two adorable, absolutely rotten (in a spoiled sense), cats. We need to have a place to move them so we can thoroughly clean our current home before we put it on the market. If we can't time the move we will store all of our stuff and pray Judge and Jurie (the cats) handle the move better than I am expecting them to.
