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My wife and I are planning on relocating to Arizona in March or April of next year. We also have a real estate agent who sends us homes on a weekly basis of which nine out of ten are in HOA's. (I think you all can see where this is going). The one good thing HOA's do is keep up the value of the property or so I'm told. Now here comes the perpetual slide for me. What else do they do that's positive? It seems to me that the committees who head up these boards can dictate what a home owner can and can't do...and maybe more can't's than can. I don't particularly care for that. I know that homes can be only a certain color or two and maybe three shades from the original color. Shrubs can only be so high, flag poles can be just so high, cars have to be in the garage at night, etc. I have a friend in Texas who lives in one and he put out his trimmings bag FOUR HOURS TOO EARLY ONE EVENING!!!. He received an e-mail about this and was warned not to do it again...or receive a fine. I don't plan to be nutured like a child and scolded if I commit an infraction of someone's rules or regulations. Some people have said the that the rules and regs. can be up to 30 pages long or longer. I have read that some are good and some are a living hell. I don't want to buy a home in one and regret it from day one. My suggestion to my wife is to sit in on a committee meeting several times to get a feel for them. I just get scared to even think about calling neighbors "comrade." It's like these places are "controlled environments" i.e. a smaller government than the one is D. C. Convince me that they are good or bad. I need thoughts on this...and thanks again for the inconvience since it has been discussed "ad nauseum."
My wife and I are planning on relocating to Arizona in March or April of next year. We also have a real estate agent who sends us homes on a weekly basis of which nine out of ten are in HOA's. (I think you all can see where this is going). The one good thing HOA's do is keep up the value of the property or so I'm told. Now here comes the perpetual slide for me. What else do they do that's positive? It seems to me that the committees who head up these boards can dictate what a home owner can and can't do...and maybe more can't's than can. I don't particularly care for that. I know that homes can be only a certain color or two and maybe three shades from the original color. Shrubs can only be so high, flag poles can be just so high, cars have to be in the garage at night, etc. I have a friend in Texas who lives in one and he put out his trimmings bag FOUR HOURS TOO EARLY ONE EVENING!!!. He received an e-mail about this and was warned not to do it again...or receive a fine. I don't plan to be nutured like a child and scolded if I commit an infraction of someone's rules or regulations. Some people have said the that the rules and regs. can be up to 30 pages long or longer. I have read that some are good and some are a living hell. I don't want to buy a home in one and regret it from day one. My suggestion to my wife is to sit in on a committee meeting several times to get a feel for them. I just get scared to even think about calling neighbors "comrade." It's like these places are "controlled environments" i.e. a smaller government than the one is D. C. Convince me that they are good or bad. I need thoughts on this...and thanks again for the inconvience since it has been discussed "ad nauseum."
Everything you said is absolutely true. Don't move in if you don't like the rules. Read them first. If you don't like them, buy a house in a different neighborhood. If you don't want someone telling you what you can and can't do with your property just out of principle, don't move in.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but that is the point .... a group of people have committed to keeping THEIR homes and property and neighborhood to a more strict guideline than a city may dictate.
I've been president of my HOA before i moved and I only looked at neighborhoods with an HOA when I moved to PHX. AND i read every single bylaw, CCR, etc... My new neighborhood is much more strict and powerful than my older one, and I don't like all of the rules, but I weighed them out and decided I could lived with them. I consider them a positive.
Last edited by dfwtransplant; 07-12-2010 at 08:46 PM..
Why don't you just ask to be sent homes without an HOA?
Probably because just about everything built since around 1985 has a hoa.
There aren't any easy solutions in your situation - you can sort mls listings by year built to find older homes without HOA's - side benefit is that they often have bigger yards, a possible disadvantage is they are usually closer to the center of town, but exceptions abound in Phoenix.
I, much like you, despise HOA's, my last rental was in a neighborhood with a very bad and expensive HOA. I believe we were excellent neighbors, but we got 7 letters in one year from the HOA for everything from having a "loose" cable TV wire on the side of the house, to not having "enough" plants in the front yard.
I got lucky with my current home - there are deed restrictions that prohibit all the things HOA's prohibit, but there never was an election for an HOA board. If any neighbor violates those deed restrictions, any neighbor in the sub has the right to sue, but instead of having the HOA to do it for them, they have to front the funds for their own lawyer to do so - it keeps the nit-picking to a minimum.
I think the whole idea of HOA's is kinda silly anyway - you don't trust your neighbors to "preserve the value" of your neighborhood, so you "elect" some of those same people (that you don't trust!!!) to make & enforce rules.
If you do decide to buy in a HOA, take your dog (or borrow one) for a walk in that neighborhood about 5pm. Talk to your future neighbors - lots of people in PHX walk in the evening, and they'll gladly give you all the dirt, good, bad and ugly. Some HOA's are great and don't bother anyone.
As far as hoa's magical ability to "stabilize property values", It doesn't seem to be workin' real well right now
Seriously, when I took the RE agent classes the phrase I heard over and over again was,
"Well, I don't live in an HOA, but the way I understand it is..." -
the hidden gem being that those who are in the business of RE avoid them.
I've lived in a lot of places in various areas of the country. I've owned two homes in developments with HOAs and two that were unrestricted. My simple truth is: the homes in the HOA areas held their value much better.
If you have no HOA, you have very little to say about anything your neighbors do. And their antics often drive down your home value. It's not so bad if you have a large piece of real estate, but in areas where homes are cheek-to-jowl, watch out. I owned a home in one urban area near a university and the entire street literally became a dormitory in the 13 years I owned there. It was ungodly and there was NOTHING I could do about it. The city was very lax in enforcing how many unrelated people could live in a home and did nothing about the fact that each of these college-age residents had his or her own car, making parking impossible. Every weekend the beer parties spilled out into the narrow street and my house throbbed from heavy bass music. Not pleasant.
Judging by your OP, however, I don't think you're the kind of person who will be able to live with an HOA. So if I were you, I'd look for a home without one and let's hope no one starts breeding Dobermans next door.
And just for the record, I personally know five Realtors who live in developments with HOAs. One of them is on the architectural review committee of her neighborhood. Yes they're very strict, but their homes are $700,000 to a million-dollar investments, so I would be, too.
When we looked in the Gilbert/Chandler area the pattern became clear: properties with HOAs looked well-kept, neighborhoods without them tended to have a 5 cars in the backyard and crap in the front.
In principle, I'd rather live HOA-free. Did that once in WA, and yes the prop 2 down was a virtual junkyard (even had a rusting schoolbus in the yard). A well run HOA is a good thing, a bad one is hell. The CC&Rs lays out exactly what an HOA can and cannot control on your property. You are getting good advice when people say READ IT BEFORE YOU BUY. Talking to potential neighbors is GREAT! How do they feel about the HOA?
Boils down to this: HOAs are common, so people have to be determined to avoid them. The folks who chose HOAs are willing to submit a request when they want to paint their house a new colr or change the front landscaping (hassle) in exchange for not worrying about 3 dogs barking at 2am for hours, broken down cars on blocks in the front yards, or hundreds of other annoyances of living in higher density. People who avoid HOAs are folks who don't want anyone telling them what the heck to do with THEIR land, and will likely do some things that you as a neighbor will NOT like, never considering how what they do with their land affects you.
IMO, property rights never say "do whatever you want", rather "do whatever you want AS LONG AS it does not negatively affect anyone else's property rights". People LOVE the first part and IGNORE the second part. HOAs are designed to enforce the second part. The tricky part is how good of a job they do and whether you like their interpretation of what negatively affects your neighbor.
Not to mention those pesky rules that change AFTER ya move in.
I know someone that was fined for drinking beer while waxing his car (no alcohol in common areas); another was fined for having a roomate and not reporting a new tenant.
While MOST rules are just common sense, occasionally a gestapo like person gets voted in as an officer. Fines and such can be unjustified and unequitable.
If north Peoria is within your scope, then I would recommend Vistancia/family side. Our HOA's are pretty much like all the others, but the staff are very lax in enforcement in my opinion. Still, the homes are well kept but you don't get fined for every little offense, just an email reminding you to bring your cans in etc.
For everyone who has responded to my inquiry...thank you very much. Some of you people are really funny and it amuses my wife and me to read them. I didn't mean to come off harsh or create a division between the ones who support them and the ones who don't. I just didn't want to be in a structured environment where one has to constantly be afraid of creating a problem for themselves and their neighbors. I should have mentioned this but the five (5) areas that we are particularly looking at would be Cave Creek, Carefree, Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and North Phoenix. 1) I'm thinking most of these areas don't have college kids who drink and party until all areas of the night since I don't believe there are colleges in these areas. I could be wrong so correct me if I am. 2) I don't think one is going to see cars strewn across the front lawns either or cars on blocks. 3) YAZ, you really made me laugh about drinking a beer while waxing a car. I don't drink, AT ALL, but I do wax my car. And my wife and I would not sub-lease to a tenant. 4) A cable T. V. wire for being loose on the side of the house and not having enough plants in the front yard!!! That in itself makes me shudder. 5) Jukesgrrl, I think you are pretty much right on target. I don't think I am the type to live in an HOA. I think the five cities or areas that my wife and I have targeted are fairly upscale although I'm not totally sure and I don't forsee too many problems. This is not to denegrate other cities, large or small in the Greater Phoenix area, it's just what we have observed. I'm thinking also that I should go to city hall(s) and see some of the basic laws or ordinances that a city requires or suggests what people should do to make it better for all.
AZJoeD...I understand what you are asking. Why not just request homes that are not in an HOA. I don't mind looking at the homes that are there in all areas, HOA's included, as it gives us something to compare them all to. I, for one, just tend to lean away from such a restrictive environment.
Thank you ALL again for your great insights and inputs regarding this. I also welcome more or many more as they are humorous, entertaining and give me/us something to consider when moving and buying.
I grew up in Texas and lived there for 31 years. I live in another country right now and have for 34 years. That country is California. (read between the lines). I want to live in Arizona until I'm 100 +. I'm 65 right now so I still have a ways to go and I will get there. Whenever I go to Arizona I always feel like I'm coming home. I LOVE your state and I mean LOVE it. I love the beauty, the diversity, the sunrises and sunsets and different areas of it. I can't wait to move there.
And just for the record, I personally know five Realtors who live in developments with HOAs. One of them is on the architectural review committee of her neighborhood. Yes they're very strict, but their homes are $700,000 to a million-dollar investments, so I would be, too.
$700k to one million before or after the bubble? If they really knew the trade and they were working during the bubble I'd expect them to be the guys living at the tops of mountains or on multi-acre "horse properties" without HOA's. The money was fast and easy for several years here, and although there are quite a few "pretenders" in the business, the top performers during the bubble shouldn't have to deal with annoyances like mortgages or HOA's.
As for a hoa "protecting you" from listening to dogs barking, well, good luck with that. Giving your neighbors the ability to tax and seize your property, and to assess unspecified fines without judicial review isn't a very smart move imho. The one statement woefully lacking from every cc&r document I've seen so far is any kind of "cap" to fines and assessments.
I've told friends and family looking at Phoenix real estate that the first clue that a property doesn't have enough land is a HOA.
I could care less what my neighbors do on their property. It's none of my business.
If you can hear your neighbors flush the toilet, smack their kids, or get biblical with their wives, you might live in a trailer... or in a HOA neighborhood.
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