Condos are Life Dormitories. You're at the mercy of the crazy bastards down the hall. Of course, in college it was a good thing when they finally dropped out. You might even get a better education. With condos, every time someone flunks out of school your tuition goes up and you get a lesson you didn't sign up for.
Help. Call the analogy police...I can't stop.

$450 monthly maintenance fee.

Ouch! That's nuts.

This will never happen in Portland. Portland is going to grow by 1 bajillion people in the next 5 years. Plus, Portland is morally superior to every other place in America, due to great urban planning, and therefore deserves to always be awesome!

And property taxes will be going down, because there will be so many more of us to bear the burden.

The City that Works is also the city that cares. Especially about middle class retirees living on fixed incomes.

Really.

...[one resident] struggled to get a lender to pay $2,500 in association fees after it foreclosed on one of the seven units in her building. The bank eventually paid the money...

Here's one lender that I would never endorse any kind of assistance or bailout - not that I ever would anyway. I hope the board went after them with gusto for any legal fees incurred.

Some of this is already happening in SoWhat. Do you think Homer is going to be holding the bag? Now the condo owners are faced with the upcoming Local Improvement District taxes to pay for the transportation, greenway and park infrastructure that the developers aren't paying for. Short sale is SoWhat's motto now.

Relax . . . they can bliss out watching the twin-trams, "Boon" and "Doggle" as they zoom back and forth overhead. Repeat after me . . . it's alllllll worth it . . . it's alllllll worth it . . . Ommmmmmmmm