Every other calculator leaves the HOA fee blank, so it tells you a payment that is $475 a month short. This one starts from the dues actually recorded for condos in your city, adds California property tax and insurance, and shows you how much of the payment isn't the mortgage at all.
30-year fixed averaged 7.4% the week of 2026-10-08 (Freddie Mac PMMS). Dues from 8 cities of recorded sales · updated Oct 11, 2026
A national calculator has no way to know what a specific building charges, so it defaults the fee to zero and quietly understates a condo payment by the largest single line item after the mortgage itself. These are the dues actually recorded on condo sales in each city — not survey estimates — so you can start from a number that is at least the right size before you have the building's own figure.
| City | Median dues | Adds to a 30-yr payment like | Over 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $681/mo | $98,356 more house | $40,860 |
| Emeryville | $575/mo | $83,047 more house | $34,500 |
| Oakland | $534/mo | $77,125 more house | $32,040 |
| Alameda | $475/mo | $68,604 more house | $28,500 |
| Fremont | $473/mo | $68,315 more house | $28,380 |
| San Leandro | $450/mo | $64,993 more house | $27,000 |
| Berkeley | $400/mo | $57,772 more house | $24,000 |
| Hayward | $390/mo | $56,327 more house | $23,400 |
Read the middle column as the trade you are actually making: at 7.4%, the dues on a typical San Francisco condo cost the same each month as roughly $98,356 of additional purchase price would. That is the borrowing power a high-fee building takes off the table.
The 30-year fixed averaged 7.4% in the week of 2026-10-08, 12 basis points above the week before. That is near the top of its 12-month range of 5.98%–7.4%, against a one-year average of 6.4% and a three-year average of 6.65%. The 15-year fixed averaged 6.73%.
This is Freddie Mac's weekly lender survey — a national average for a well-qualified borrower at roughly 20% down. It is the yardstick your own Loan Estimate should be measured against, not a rate you can be given. The useful comparison is almost never today's average versus last month's; it is lender A versus lender B on the same afternoon, where the spread is routinely wider than a month of movement in this line.
It does not quote you a rate, and it is not a pre-approval. No lender pays us anything, and nothing you type here is sent anywhere — the whole calculator runs in your browser. Property tax uses California's typical effective rate including voter-approved bonds rather than your assessed bill, insurance is a flat placeholder you should replace with a real quote, and PMI is estimated from loan-to-value alone when your real premium will also price off your credit score. Once you have actual Loan Estimates, the Loan Estimate comparator is the page that tells you which one is genuinely cheapest.
The median Bay Area condo HOA fee adds $475/mo to a mortgage payment — about $28,500 over five years, Stealpad (Oct 11, 2026).
Source: <a href="https://stealpad.com/tools/mortgage-calculator/">Stealpad</a> — The median Bay Area condo HOA fee adds $475/mo to a mortgage payment — about $28,500 over five years. Oct 11, 2026.