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But more than once I have have elderly neighbors stop their car walk up to my back fence peek through the slats and spy on us for like 10 minutes. then they come to the front of our house and stop to write stuff down. Talk about an invasion of privacy.
I'd at least write down their license plate # and call the cops about a suspected burglar.
If I catch someone peeking through my fence spying on us while standing on my property, your age will not exempt you from an ass kicking.
There is also a myth that one has a choice where you live.
Exactly, some of us are limited in our choices by other factors.
I have a need to live close to where I work, and all of those homes have deed restrictions which prevent me from making the home as energy efficient as is reasonable with current available building options.
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Originally Posted by IC_deLight
There is also a continuing misperception that HOA corporations are miniature democracies. They are not. They have none of the protections for individual rights. So what if 50% of the neighbors don't like something. Majority rule might be fine for setting pool hours for the HOA corp's pool, but majority rule is not a democracy and it is not appropriate for your home. Indeed, if majority rule were the law there would still be racially restrictive covenants and other explicitly discriminatory restrictions and many other abhorrent practices. In other arenas, would you consider it acceptable if a majority of the homeowners demanded that all homeowners drive a particular brand of vehicle, require contribution to a particular political lobbying group, prohibited you from posting political signs at election time, etc., and threatened you with the loss of your home if you did not comply?
However, is majority rules PREFERABLE to small committee rules?
My idea was to attempt to invoke change, taking the power the small committee now has, and giving it instead to the majority.
The current rules allow for the rules to be changed, if 60% of the homeowners agree.
For many things the Majority does not care.
However, if someone were to want to do something that was really going to be a serious issue, then the majority would still have some power to prevent it.
But I am questioning the sanity of this idea.
I am thinking my best option is to just NOT purchase a home, and continue renting an apartment. I expect to be told what I can do with the property if I am renting.
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Originally Posted by IC_deLight
There is no empirical evidence that HOA corporations improve property values - at least not for the owners. Indeed, when you add in the cost of perpetual liens, the legal morass, ever increasing assessments, the idiots that that can rationalize anything under the pretext of "property values", and the fact that your home serves as security for whatever liabilities the HOA corp board chooses to incur, HOA-burdened property represents a liability rather than an asset.
Is my decision to NOT purchase a house, due to the restrictions; combined with the fact the house has dropped in price and still not sold; evidence that the restrictions in that area are actually having a negative effect on property values?
I represent only one person.
However, I know others who have made similar decisions to NOT purchase due to restrictions.
HOA restrictions add value to homes and the neighborhoods in which the homes are located by providing a legal and logistical mechanism through which the common will of the majority of home owners can be carried out and enforced. For most home owners, that means simply that they want an easy way to respond to those who would impose their lack of common sense and good taste on others and to force those violators into compliance without personally having to do anything other than make an anonymous complaint.
Steve
I would agree that SOME rules are a good thing, and add more value than they take away.
What I am trying to figure out is which rules really do add value, versus those that detract from the value.
Since I know of multiple cases, where people did NOT buy, because of the restrictions, I have some evidence that, at least some of the restrictions are DECREASING value.
I have (and have had) several clients or potential clients who have stated that they will NOT purchase in a neighborhood that has an HOA. Some have even said if they can't find a suitable home that is not in such, they will simply remodel and stay put. The numbers that tell me this are growing. I've also had listings where people were interested until they read the CCRs, and then they decided not to purchase. To me, that says that in many cases, the HOA not only does not preserve property values but creates a devaluation of them.
One only has to look at some of our most expensive and desirable neighborhoods that have no HOA in order to see the fallacy of that premise.
That being said, there are people who absolutely want and enjoy the idea of HOAs, and for those people, the restrictions above (your neighbors, or a committee, get to dictate what you can do with your house, though usually they think of it as themselves or a committee getting to dictate what everyone ELSE does with their house, to be honest about it) are perfectly acceptable. And that's fine - this is a matter of personal preference and there should be a place for everyone.
The problem is, as also mentioned above, that the HOA is becoming the norm (more due to developers and cities' interests rather than the homeowners', again if you're being absolutely honest about it). That makes it difficult for those who absolutely want to have final say over their own property (even if they would do nothing different than the HOA requires) to find suitable housing. So that means that it's getting to the point that there ISN'T a place for everyone.
When I have clients who want to live in an HOA neighborhood, or find a house they want to purchase that happens to be in one, I make sure to tell them that they need to read the CCR's BEFORE making an offer if at all possible, and to understand that those can change (they need to read HOW they can be changed), so they are also purchasing the responsibility to be proactive in watching what's going on with their HOA association if they have any concerns at all. (It's not always possible to read the CCR's before making an offer, but more and more, these days, they're available online on the HOA website.)
An HOA is a deal breaker for me. My experience with an HOA was similar to IC_delights (Alliance Property management was involved). The HOA rules/management changed very drastically during the time that we owned our house in that neighborhood. The rules we found ourselves living under were not the same rules we had agreed to when we bought the house. Until Texas law restricts the rights of HOA's to privately fine, foreclose on houses, hold secret meetings/elections, and blacklist homeowners from attending meetings and voting in elections, I am not willing to take the risk of living under an HOA again.
I also do not see a lot of evidence that the HOA itself in retaining property values. It seems like the % of rentals and the demographics of residents plays a much larger role in how well a neighborhood is maintained than any HOA is capable of doing.
I do live in a subdivision with deed restrictions. Since I live outside of any city limits, the deed restrictions serve as zoning requirements and I do see value in that. In unicorporated Travis County, very little is restricted in what someone can do with their property.
Yeah, it's a trade off. Not being able to put up an eight foot tall storage shed in my backyard because it rises above my 6 foot privacy fence is an inconvenience. However, I like the fact that I don't have to look at a primered 1982 Datsun "project car" sitting on blocks in my neighbor's driveway. As long as the HOA stays reasonable, it's great in my opinion. I also understand the fear of them getting out of control. So far, my experience with HOA's has been positive. Hopefully that view doesn't change.
I agree with Mark311, and many of the previous posters. HOAs are a lot like many other laws and freedoms - fine and helpful in the hands of people who are reasonable and rational, but can go either way when taken to the extreme. So I guess you have to go back to the beginning of why HOAs were originally created - Because too many people took their homeowner freedoms and ran with it to the point it make people around them miserable.
I am not at all turned off by HOAs. And I think they give value to the home by providing some guarantees that the community around the home will have standards.
Exactly, some of us are limited in our choices by other factors.
I have a need to live close to where I work, and all of those homes have deed restrictions which prevent me from making the home as energy efficient as is reasonable with current available building options.
However, is majority rules PREFERABLE to small committee rules?
My idea was to attempt to invoke change, taking the power the small committee now has, and giving it instead to the majority.
The current rules allow for the rules to be changed, if 60% of the homeowners agree.
For many things the Majority does not care.
However, if someone were to want to do something that was really going to be a serious issue, then the majority would still have some power to prevent it.
But I am questioning the sanity of this idea.
Yes, "choice" is lacking.
The redistribution of powers would seem preferable at first, wouldn't it? There is no question that forced "delegation" of such authority to a small number of individuals effectively places "majority rule" into the hands of a very few individuals - disenfranchising the vast majority of the homeowners. Moreover, there is still missing protection for the individual homeowner. However, if you take the position that the submission must be automatically approved unless the HOA corp can timely get a majority of homeowners to expressly oppose it then although untenable in principle such an arrangement might work in practice because the HOA is unlikely to be able to get 50-60% of the people to actually vote and to oppose the project. How about going one better and requiring notarized signatures and provision of copies of these "votes" to the applicant homeowner?
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I am thinking my best option is to just NOT purchase a home, and continue renting an apartment. I expect to be told what I can do with the property if I am renting.
Renters in an apartment have more rights than homeowners do in an HOA. Moreover, the apartment owner knows that tenants have choices and can move to different apartments and thus will generally not intrude too much on tenants.
HOA corp vendors and board members, however, recognize that membership is involuntary and that homeowners have significant transaction costs associated with moving including at least 7% loss due to transaction fees, the cost of moving (usually in the thousands), and the pain of always being prepared to show the house.
Quote:
Is my decision to NOT purchase a house, due to the restrictions; combined with the fact the house has dropped in price and still not sold; evidence that the restrictions in that area are actually having a negative effect on property values?
I represent only one person.
However, I know others who have made similar decisions to NOT purchase due to restrictions.
At the very least it is evidence that HOAs do NOT preserve property value for the owners. I always found it disingenuous for HOA industry folks to make such an unsubstantiated claim AND to avoid mentioning the carrying costs (regular and special assessments, dealing with the legal morass, etc.) when discussing HOA burdened property from an economic standpoint.
If you are in a non-HOA neighborhood inside the city, you're probably ok due to city enforcement (no parking in yards, no chained dogs, code enforcement, etc)
.
If you are in a non-HOA neighborhood in an unincorporated area of the county, you better understand completely the risks of living in an area that has no enforcement mechanism. I left a non-HOA County neighborhood because I didn't like what the neighbors were doing and I didn't want to personally sure anyone.
I am currently three bloack away in a $300/yr HOA, which is working fine. As one of the volounteers who handles ACC, I'm stunned at the high percentage of requests for variances received. People just don't want to follow the rules.
This summer we're moving back into a city non-HOA neighborhood and I'm looking forward to having no HOA but also knowing that there is an accountability mechanism in place for serious violators.
Steve
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