Quote:
Originally Posted by Sassygirl18
My hubby and I are in our 50s. He was just barely 55 when we decided to rent a condo in an over-55 community. At the time, we weren't looking to live in an over-55 community, but after selling our big money pit house, we were looking to rent and a BEAUTIFUL condo in such a community came up for rent in and the rent was comfortably in our budget. After having toured a lot of other regular apartments and condos in our budget and finding them to be lacking, we were really excited about this condo because it was super gorgeous, spacious, in a newer community that had a lot of nice amenities.
We lived there for 3 years and while we were very happy with our condo and our landlord, and generally liked the people in our building, we really didn't care for over-55 living.
First of all, we were the youngest people in the complex and there were VERY FEW people in their 50s, or even early 60s. Most of the residents were 70 - 90. We love elderly people, but we felt odd and out of place being the only younger people there and we didn't have a lot in common with our neighbors. We work full time, and most of the residents were retired and very fixated on the complex, the rules, who is breaking the rules, how the management company is managing things. We were on the email list for residents and our email boxes would be filled with emails of residents complaining about every little thing. The complaining was the thing that drove us the most crazy. The complex was beautiful and well-maintained and the people living there were better off than 99% of the world's population, but still there was always this back-and-forth nitpicking about every little thing. We stopped in at a couple HOA meetings just to get updates on things, and they were filled with residents complaining, "WHY WASN'T THE SNOW REMOVED BY 6:00 A.M!!!?", "WHEN IS THE (barely visible) STAIN IN THE ELEVATOR CARPET GOING TO BE CLEANED!????" and on and on. It seemed to us that complaining was how these retirees gave purpose to their lives.
Anyway, after 3 years, we moved to a different (regular) complex and we like it better. We realized that being around people of all generations suits us better, even though we do have to be irritated by an occasional noisy kid sometimes being too loud at the pool.
Has anyone else ever lived in an over-55 community and decided it wasn't for them?
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Aside from the age restriction, nothing here is specific to a 55+ community.
You're describing an HOA.
You're also describing the difference between renters who simply live in an HOA because it's usually NICER than non-HOAs who typically want nothing to do with the purpose of them - for people with common goals and values to work together for the good of the community.
That's why HOAs have limitations on renters.
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