House hunting is a hassle

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HueyPilotVN

HueyPilotVN

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 5, 2012
Posts
3,289
Location
Lake Havasu City, AZ
Here is the update.

First house that we submitted a contract on was quite an education. Turns out the they were going thru a divorce. The husband signed the contract.
The wife flew off to Cabo and said that she might sign in a few days or a few weeks.

On to the second house. Another divorce but this time the wife wanted to stay a few months after closing to shop for a new home.

Finally found a house and offered $20,000 over listing. They accepted and we thought we were set. We already had a contract on our house in Lake Havasu. At the last possible legal date to cancel. Something happened and we never got a reason but our buyer backed out. This screwed up the closing in Las Vegas.

We are mostly back to square one.

The good news it that we were only looking at homes in gated communities and they did not allow RVs.

Now considering a house with enough side parking to build a 50 foot RV garage next to the house.

Film at eleven.

Huge RV parking. Pool.
👍
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2704 Fire Water Court, Las Vegas, NV 89117 | Compass
 
Looks nice. You might double check local building codes about that RV garage, I know I am limited what I can do in my area in Indianapolis.
 
I think that if it matches the architecture of the house it will be allowed. The house next door has an RV in the side lot on Google Earth views.
 
HueyPilotVN said:
I think that if it matches the architecture of the house it will be allowed. The house next door has an RV in the side lot on Google Earth views.
Click to expand...
FWIW forum members Jerry & Ardra Fitzgerald included an RV garage when they designed/built their house in Vegas.
 
Nice home. Looks very well cared for.

Ditto on looking into HOA and local ordinance if having space for your RV there would be a deal-breaker. The process to get approval to build a shop structure here (upper left, USA) is yearS. Plural. And we're on wooded acreage in an unincorporated area.
 
Glad to see you are looking at a place where you can keep an RV! We would miss you. The only comment I would have about the lovely house is we deliberately looked for a house with the main living areas, bedroom, bath, and laundry all on one floor. It is much easier to age in place without stairs!
 
This past spring, we moved from Midland TX, to Coleman TX. Told the wifey, this is the last move. Got a property with a building large enough to keep the 35 UWB Bounder inside, plus the tow dolly, toad, and work bench, w/floor space to spare.
2500 sq ft house, 3bd, 3 ba.
 
HueyPilotVN said:
We were looking in gated communities, now we are not.
Click to expand...
Good choice, IMO. BTW, are all gated communities in an HOA?

Anyway, IMO, gated communities are a hassle. I have a buddy who lives in one north of me in Auburn. Less hassle if you live there of course, but there is often a line of cars when I go there for the visitors like me. And I have noticed in most gated communities, if not all, the houses are very close together, unlike my house in Auburn where they are well spread out.

And there are still many houses being ripped off inside of gated communities.

-Don- Ocala North RV Resort, FL
 
Re: FWIW forum members Jerry & Ardra Fitzgerald included an RV garage when they designed/built their house in Vegas.
Click to expand...

Yes we did and we love it. However this was a brand new residential area of only ten homes. We looked at many homes supposedly RV friendly but they always said "buy the house first and then we'll consider building your RV garage" - that is, if they would even discuss it. We already had experience living in an area that was trying to control RVs so our primary requirement was the builder would have to build it as part of the original house. The builder said that, if a builder builds it as part of the community, then no one can try to force demolition (which apparently has happened). If you add it after-the-fact you have to get HOA and other building approvals which may not happen.

are all gated communities in an HOA?
Click to expand...

Usually they are because they have common areas like streets, walls, lawn. We explored the idea of eliminating our HOA but it would have been a huge hassle, not to mention who would handle paying utilties (gas lamps at each home, telephone system at the gate, water for irrigation, gardeners, etc.), maintain the gate, maintain the surrounding community wall, maintain the front and side yards, maintain the common street, etc. The community manager for the HOA handles all that, including making sure the HOA meets reserve requirements for maintaining common areas, assessing fines if necessary (just saw the fees list for that yesterday and it takes almost an entire page!), and other functions required by the local authorities (county, city, state). There's a whole lot more to it than we ever imagined when we started wondering if we should disband our HOA. We decided it wouldn't work because we have common areas. By the way, the association manager also handles such things as foreclosures if one of the neighbors defaults on paying their fees.

By contrast, a friend built a four-house cul-d-sac with no gate and no association. I guess it works because each homeowner is responsible for his own share of everything. But they don't have much in the way of common areas so it's not as complex. Our street is private so we maintain it ourselves; theirs is public and maintained by the city. Last year our street was sealed, our gate motor died and had to be replaced, the gates were painted as was the exterior wall. Also, the water district was giving rebates for changing grass to desert landscaping (we're in a huge drought) so we did that with a significant discount. All of those costs came out of our reserve fund. A lot of HOAs are a pain but we lucked out and have nice neighbors and a pretty good association manager. So we have our wonderful garage and no one can complain about it!!! :giggle:

ArdraF
 
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Hopefully we have finally secured a accepted and signed contract that will result in getting our new home in Las Vegas.

It is located in Summerlin, which is on the west side of town. It has a large side parking space that can park more than one RV. I will put in a large concrete pad, maybe a RV garage and two sets of hookups. I wanted a place that would allow for Framily guests. The house also has 4 bedrooms for anyone that wants to stay without thier RV.

Last night we were with Jackiemac and Steve in Boulder City when we got the phone call that our contract had been accepted, countered and signed.

Here is the side yard and a link to the house.

Huge RV parking. Pool.
👍
👍

2704 Fire Water Court, Las Vegas, NV 89117 | Compass
 

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Congratulations, Bill! See, things work out for the best. If I remember right the first house you considered didn't have any RV parking.
 
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