Best suburb/ neighborhood of Cincy WITHOUT HOA's? (Mason, Blue Ash: HOA fees, condominium) - Cincinnati - Ohio (OH) - City-Data Forum

StuckHereinFL · 10-04-2011, 12:33 PM

I'm looking to move to the Cincy area in about 6 months. I don't want to live in a neighborhood with a HOA. They are ridiculous power trippers.

Montgomery/ Mason/ Blue Ash areas look nice. Is it possible to find a nice, decently priced neighborhood in these areas without a HOA?

kjbrill · 10-04-2011, 01:48 PM

It may take some looking. Just stay away from the newest neighborhoods as they will likely all have HOAs. I agree with you, HOAs are a drain I do not want to put up with. I turned down a purchase of a property very close to me a few years ago when I learned the HOA fee exceeded my current property tax and on top of it I still owed property tax. I hope the HOA fees dry up and shrivel away.

StuckHereinFL · 10-04-2011, 03:25 PM

Not to mention they try to regulate everything you do outside of your house as well as some of your curtains and window treatments inside.

Ohiogirl81 · 10-04-2011, 05:02 PM

The older the neighborhood, the easier it will be to be HOA-free.

StuckHereinFL · 10-05-2011, 09:08 AM

Thanks.

kjbrill · 10-05-2011, 10:18 AM

If you live in a neighborhood with a HOA, can you vote to dissolve it? Seems to me there should be some legal avenue available to dissolve the HOA. Is this possible or not?

wolden · 10-05-2011, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StuckHereinFL

I'm looking to move to the Cincy area in about 6 months. I don't want to live in a neighborhood with a HOA. They are ridiculous power trippers.

Montgomery/ Mason/ Blue Ash areas look nice. Is it possible to find a nice, decently priced neighborhood in these areas without a HOA?

Terrace Park doesn't have HOAs as far as I know. Nice place to live.

jlawrence01 · 10-05-2011, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjbrill

If you live in a neighborhood with a HOA, can you vote to dissolve it? Seems to me there should be some legal avenue available to dissolve the HOA. Is this possible or not?

First, there are a lot of us who LIKE HOAs. Go out to Las Vegas into some of the communities without them. Six FULL-SIZED Ford Trucks parked on the lawns on one street and a guy running a "home garage on the next block." It does WONDERS for the property values.

Condominium laws are based upon state law and MOST of the states provide some provisions for the dissolution of the HOA. The problem is that such a change would generally require an affirmative vote of between 75-100% of the homeowners. Try getting 75% of owners to vote on ANYTHING is nearly impossible. If you do break up an HOA in a community of multi-family units, it gets very tricky to determine which unit gets which common and semi-common elements.

kjbrill · 10-06-2011, 07:12 AM

HOAs are not the only method to protect property values. A well planned subdivision will have a set of covenants attached to the plat/deeds to cover a range of undesirable activities such as prohit front yard fences, prohibit the parking of RVs in direct view of neighbors, prohit off road parking other than on paved surfaces, plus a host of others. Always ask for a list of the covenants when considering purchasing property. In higher end developments they may be very comprehensive and restrictive, such as no chain link fencing, no detached storage structures, even down to the exterior paint colors which may be used.

I have a friend who has a feuding situation with his HOA ever since he moved in. He is in a condominimum development and has an end unit. Right after he moved in the adjacent property was sold for commercial development and a large 4-story office building erected and a parking lot up to the boundry of his development. The office building is an international corporation and operates multi-shift, so the activity, parking lot lights, etc. are a big distraction. Our City re-zoned it commercial and approved the plan as I am sure they coverted the jobs and taxes.

My friend asked his HOA what they planned to do to help shield from this distraction. The answer was nothing. So my friend went out and purchased a number of young white pine trees and planted them in the common area along his property which is the border. The HOA said this was not permitted as it would adversely affect the ability to mow the grass in that area and they would remove them. My friend can be a very stubborn person and so he sued the HOA, stating the situation had changed and they were doing nothing to protect his interests. What I found very interesting is he won! Those white pines are providing an effective screen.

Briolat21 · 10-06-2011, 08:17 AM

Yes - the whole HOA's protect property values argument has been found to be spurious..

A good stable neighborhood protects property values, there are many ways to have that - and an HOA is not necessarily the only way.

If the HOA is overly draconian, it can have the opposite affect, as who wants to move into the neighborhood where the HOA forced the homeowner into bankruptcy over a flower garden??

In general -- stay in OLDER neighborhoods (pre 1990's certainly, possibly even '80's or earlier). All the newest subdivisions seem to be HOA, as cities are basically dumping their responsibilities (or what used to be their responsibilities) on the developments now, and that's usually why the HOAs come into existance in the first place..