70% of homeowners do NOT want to live in an HOA

[Dan_Frisbie]

I never have and never will live anywhere with an HOA or a city that pushes one.

 

[DutchmenSport]

I never have, nor will I ever purchase a house in an HOA. In fact, city zoning drove us out of a city about 15 years ago and we ended up on agricultural zoned property the next county over and have been happy ever after.

I think HOA's are a good thing, UNTIL someone decides they don't want to conform to the established status quo and want to inject some personal identity on their own property. That's when the HOA really sucks!

Unfortunately, like first time RV buyers, folks are so taken in by the "blitz" at purchase time, they don't consider the long term repercussions when their situation changes. And face it, life's situations change all the time. No one knows where the future is headed and what changes will occur. And here you are, LOCKED into a prison which there is no escape. Then HOA's are pure he!! !

About the only solution is sell out and let some other person who thinks not being responsible for mowing their own grass is a marvelous lifestyle.

HOA's, no. Not for me. But if someone buys into one, then you have to conform. After all, isn't that was socialism is all about?

 

[NY_Dutch]

About the only solution is sell out and let some other person who thinks not being responsible for mowing their own grass is a marvelous lifestyle.

HOA's, no. Not for me. But if someone buys into one, then you have to conform. After all, isn't that was socialism is all about?

Most HOA's don't mow your grass for you, but they'll damn sure tell you when YOU should mow it...

 

[garyb1st]

About three years later the city forced us to have an HOA,

Why did the City do that? What legal basis do they have to enforce such a requirement?

 

[DonTom]

If you have a significant amount of money invested in your house you want your house to appreciate not depreciate.

Why would I want to pay more property tax on a house that I am not selling?


-Don- Reno, NV

 

[Alan_Hepburn]

Most HOA's don't mow your grass for you, but they'll damn sure tell you when YOU should mow it...

...and then complain that you mowed it too short, or too tall, or left the incorrect papttern ...

 

[DonTom]

I think HOA's are a good thing,

Yes, for 30%. A bad thing for 70%.

And this is one of those rare times that I agree with "most people".

-Don- Reno, NV

 

[Domo]

We're fine with ours - I don't worry about the landscape except for what we've planted, I don't care if we have a "select palette" of colors to paint our home or use for our roof, I like the clean facilities, garbage/trash pickup and all. We do pay through the nose for our community HOA PLUS our OverLord development HOA. We actually speak to our neighbors and seem to get along fine - people that wish to identify as "lower extremity body access portals" are welcome to avoid us and we, them.

For us, we are lucky enough to live in a nice neighborhood and I'm glad I don't have to ride herd on the community to keep it that way.

Oh, and we knew there was an HOA when we moved in, read all the rules and bought here - so anything we don't like is on us.

EDIT: correct spelling of palette.

 

[Kirk]

While a city may not directly order developers to create a Homeowners Association (HOA), it can create conditions that make an HOA the most practical or even the only way to get a project approved. This happens because cities often require developers to provide and maintain common facilities and infrastructure, for which an HOA is the most efficient and legally sound solution.

Our son bought a house in one because part of the HOA property was a swimming pool in each section of the neighborhood, for a total of 5 pools. The major streets were boulevards with HOA maintained islands. The house designs were not required to be the same but did require a 80% brick veneer exterior and several other things and they did have some minimal landscaping requirements. As I recall, there was a minimum size of 2400 sq-ft and I believe a maximum of something like 4000 sq-ft. It was a fairly upscale neighborhood, and they were satisfied that they got what they were paying for in services. We have owned 6 different houses in 4 different states and one of them was in a co-op that was organized similarly to the Escapee parks, with no HOA in any of the other locations. But none of the other homes were in areas with common property either. If you have common property with any sort of landscaping or fences, you really need an HOA to take care of it.

 

[JudyJB]

HOAs and Condo associations can be a problem and they can be a solution. The key is before you buy, you need to read the covenants and restrictions very carefully. Ditto for any covenants and restrictions imposed by your city, town, or county.

Some are overly restrictive, such as the one my handicapped cousin lived in that forbid pickup trucks, even the one he used for his large motorized wheelchair. However, way back when, in our first house, our next door neighbor raised the level of his back yard by 1', causing our back yard to become a swamp because the yards were set up to drain through one another. There was no HOA to prevent this and the township also had no rules against that.

On the other hand, I was President of the BOD for 10 years on our condo association because no one else would do it, and we had some weird neighbors that we had to develop rules to control. The units were organized with four lower units entrances in a sort of u-shape around a courtyard. We had a 50-year-old woman move in who was "disabled." She did not work so had almost nothing to do during the day, so she worked on creating holiday decorations for every tiny holiday she could find. In the u-shaped entrance area for the four units, she put out maybe 70-100 items for Easter, for example. Eggs hanging from common trees, bunnies under bushes and next to sidewalks, lighted lanterns, Cute little Easter baskets spread all over the place, and flashing pastel colored lines of lights. The 20' by 20' space looked like one of those places along the highway that sells yard decorations. And the lights were flashing into people's windows, to boot!! One neighbors had trouble selling her unit because of all the tacky junk around.

Then there was the 4th of July, Christmas, New Years, Presidents Day, Lincoln's Birthday, Memorial Day, Election Day., First Day of Summer, etc. You can imagine what this looked like, so we had to write rules restricting decorations on common areas and in trees and shrubbery owned by the association.

Our units all had basements, and we once had two families (9 adults) living in one unit with five cars because they had teenagers. Since the cars would not fit in the single-car garages or small driveways, they were parked in visitor areas. Plus, the basement had no legal safety egress. And these were renters, not owners, but it took a long time to get the owner to evict them!

So read the legal docs before you buy something and if you do buy into a HOA or condo association, attend meetings so you know what is going on!!

 

[Oldgator73]

The houses here in this area of Reno are quite close together, so an HOA.

Our neighborhood is quite small, only 26 homes each sits on at least one acre. Until the leaves fall from the trees we cannot see our neighbors homes on either side. We have an HOA. I don’t have too much of a gripe about our HOA. With only 26 homes everybody pretty much knows each other. Nobody wants to get too much into the others business. We do maintain our properties well. Not because we fear retribution from the HOA but because we like our properties to look nice.

 

[Larry N.]

Why did the City do that? What legal basis do they have to enforce such a requirement?

I don't know, Gary, but we didn't "fight city hall." So we made the rules rather gentle.

 

[garyb1st]

From my limited perspective, the biggest issue with HOAs is a lack of or inadequately funded sinking fund. I'm pretty sure most people don't fully appreciate the importance of such a fund and how quickly they will be assessed if there is ever a major uninsured loss to a common property.

 

[Brad Buchanan]

Some HOA have real reasons to exist. Being outside of the city limits means my HOA has to maintain the streets, the lake and dam, the private water and sewage systems, the 8' high fencing around the neighborhood, and the gates into the neighborhood. They do all this for $660/year which is more than reasonable and shows the HOA is honest about where the money is going.

They do maintain typical HOA standards like cleanliness, mowing, paint colors, and anything that doesn't match the cookie cutter theme of the neighborhood. But you have to realize all it takes is one crazy neighbor to ruin an entire neighborhood. If you have a significant amount of money invested in your house you want your house to appreciate not depreciate.

Hive living at its best!

 

[Oldgator73]

If you don’t want to live with rules purchase your property, and a lot of it, where there are little to no rules. The reason I say buy a lot of land is since the codes will be so lax you might be far enough away from the guy with a hundred rusted vehicles with waist high weeds. Maybe two or three mobile homes in varying states of disrepair.
I know some HOA’s have ridiculous rules but it’s incumbent on the buyer to do their research. If you don’t like the rules don’t buy in that development.

 

[Tom]

25 years ago we bought our current S&B that was subject to a HOA and governing board.

One year my neighbor decided to have the exterior of his house repainted. The painters started just before we left on a long (4 months) RV trip. When we got back from the trip, the house painting still wasn't finished and my neighbor told me that someone had complained to the local design review committee about the color. Shortly after this my neighbor left on a cruise.

While he was away I saw a couple of guys on my neighbor's rear deck and went to find out what they were doing there. They told me they were from the design review committee and had come to decide what color my neighbor's house should be. I suggested they not make him buy all new (expensive) paint and repaint the entire house, especially since there were other houses in the neighborhood the same or similar color that they had approved. We talked about it for a while and they settled on changing just the color of the trim, which helped change the perception of the main color.

Just as they were leaving, one of the guys told me he was color blind! Now what was this guy doing deciding what color folks may or may not paint their house???

Eventually, many folks in the neighborhood got tired of all this stuff, fired the board and disbanded the HOA.

 

[DonTom]

Eventually, many folks in the neighborhood got tired of all this stuff, fired the board and disbanded the HOA.

That is usually very difficult to do, but it varies for different HOAs in different states and areas.

See here.

"Some states require a 100%, unanimous decision, others something less. States that have adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) of 2008, for example, require an 80% majority for dissolving an HOA. (Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, and Washington are on this list.)

When a homeowner does not participate in the voting, it often counts as a vote against dissolution."


-Don- Reno, NV

 

[Lou Schneider]

When a homeowner does not participate in the voting, it often counts as a vote against dissolution."


-Don- Reno, NV

That's a problem we're having in the co-op park. The bylaws state it takes an affirmative vote by 2/3s of the membership to modify them. Not to dissolve the co-op, just modify the bylaws. That's hard to obtain when only 70-80% of the eligible members vote in any given election.

 

[Oldgator73]

Eventually, many folks in the neighborhood got tired of all this stuff, fired the board and disbanded the HOA.

That is usually very difficult to do, but it varies for different HOAs in different states and areas.

Aren’t city code enforcement a type of HOA. According to code we are not allowed to have farm animals and the city dictates how many dogs we can have. If you don’t keep your grass cut the city will cut it and charge you. Our HOA has a building committee that is the approval authority for any plans a homeowner submits for paint color (most of the homes are log homes so it’s moot for them) shed design, placement and color; basically anything on the outside of your home. There are rules most anywhere you live. I do not want to live where there are no rules; unless I have hundreds of acres.

 

[Mr Lars]

Why did the City do that? What legal basis do they have to enforce such a requirement?

Municipality’s would have a ‘wet dream’ every day if HOA’s would be everywhere inside their boundaries. The increase in property taxes, because of the perceived higher resale value of properties governed by an HOA.