HOA's in Texas- General Discussion (Fort Worth, Waco: real estate, foreclosures, HOA fees)

[RaleighLass]

Welcome to the HOA discussion!

HOA's are a HOT topic in Texas. Newer residents not familiar with them, are puzzled. They want to know the benefits or drawbacks of living in a HOA community. Some folks have no problem living in such communities, others, will have nothing to do with them.

Where do you stand?

For an overview of what an HOA is see Homeowner association - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Melissa78703]

Me? Never again will I live in a piece of real estate that comes part and parcel with a HOA.

You have a few people making decisions for the many. Any sometimes these are capricious decisions–we're not talking about paying for things that actually need to get done.

The people on your board are not experts in what they're trying to "fix." All it takes is a board president and a few cronies in avid support who hires his "best friend who's a contractor" (and said contractor is not bonded and insured and takes off with the HOA's special assessment fees not once, but twice) and you have people who've expended their savings and taken out second mortgages on their homes.

Play your cards right, like I did, and your monthly HOA fees will be more than your mortgage payment!

[BigDGeek]

I am not a fan of HOAs myself. I bought a house in 2009 and we do not have an HOA in this neighborhood; only a voluntary neighborhood association.

[texasdiver]

Lived in one community that had one. It worked decently from what I could tell, the board was honest and earnest and did good work keeping up the public areas. It was a small community of about 40 homes and a few homeowners were general contractors so they knew how to get things done. Cost was about $500/year for no real public amenities except a gate that I thought was unnecessary and generally a pain, especially when we were having friends over or a party. The paranoid retirees in the neighborhood were always fretting about the gate and wanted to spend money to put video cams around the front gate for additional security. I said let's build a playground or something else with the money. Oh, and they were very much the fence Nazis. You could only build one certain kind of fence and you had to have everything pre-approved. But I've heard about much worse HOAs in this area (Waco). Some get into great detail about approving landscaping, regulating bird feeders, the number of dogs you can own, the kind of trampoline your kids can have, where you park your car, and so on.

We moved 2 years ago to a new neighborhood within the city itself so no HOA. We are on an ordinary city street with sidewalks, lamp posts, and such. And I couldn't be happier about being rid of HOAs. I don't think I'd intentionally go back to a neighborhood with one.

[CptnRn]

We bought our current home 8 years ago in an area that has an HOA. We have been very happy with it, although there was one year they got a little carried away complaining about dead patches of sod or someone leaving a trash can out more then 24 hours after the pick up. In general we feel that the HOA has helped keep the maintenance up to reasonable standards in the subdivision.

If you want to live in a master-planned area with all of its amenities, such as hike and bike trails, landscaped greenbelts, pocket parks, swimming pools and playscapes for the kids, then you pretty much have to have an HOA to maintain those amenities. Subdivisions that have a City maintained park to provide those things, within walking distance are pretty rare.

I do agree that HOA's need to be accountable to the people that live there. I have read of abuses by HOA organizations in the past, such as one recently who auctioned off the home of an American soldier serving in Iraq, because his wife had failed to pay the HOA fee's for two years. There definitely needs to be better checks and balances to prevent those kinds of abuses.

If you are considering moving into an area with an HOA it would behoove you to ask others living there what they think of the organization.

We still own another house purchased in 1981 in an area just north of here that does not have an HOA. That area is not maintained nearly as well. It takes only one irresponsible home owner to drag down the property values of everyone living around them. The only recourse neighbors there have against a really bad neighbor is when it gets bad enough to constitute a health and life safety issue, then the City might get involved if they are actually breaking a law. The only way to even enforce deed restrictions in those areas is with individual law suits between property owners. The City typically won't get involved in those cases.

[Westerntraveler]

I live in a HOA community but I dont like HOA's.

[spielboogie]

Where do we stand? My wife and I will be in the house buying market by next summer. We have never lived in a neighborhood/development with an HOA, but from everything we've heard about them on the news and from people we know who have lived under HOA rule- chances are, we will be limiting our search to NON-HOA neighborhoods, hence we are not exactly setting our sights on a 'new-build'. Seems like every single new neighborhood going into Fort Worth and surrounding areas has an HOA attached to it. Frustrating, to say the least.

[EmergencyOps]

I have read hours' worth of horror stories on the internet regarding HOAs in the past year. We definately took it into consideration when looking to buy a house. We did end up purchasing a house that was part of an HOA out in the county; when a home you want is in the county (not city), you really have to weigh the pros and cons. I attended an HOA meeting after-the-fact and was pleased at how it was run and who was on the board. They have not bothered us thus far. I just sent a proposal to the Architectural Control Committee for a new fence. They only had a few stipulations (cannot be re-used wood, must be set back from the front of the house).

Dues are about $75/month, which go toward road maintenance, community pool, and workout facility. Board members are in communication with the Sheriff's Department addressing any concerns that members have regarding speeders, loitering, etc.

[BigD_JT_14221]

I will never buy another home if there is a mandatory HOA. I've lived with ours for 7 yrs now and they are awful. The administration of our bylaws is done by a 3rd party property management company that wont return phone calls, sends phantom "citations", will not apply one once of common sense to rules interpretation. We have foreclosures with 2 ft tall grass and falling down fences and yet I get threatened with legal action for having a few weeds in my flower beds in February and upgrading to a board-on-board fence when I replaced my cheap builder-grade fence.

[richflocker]

Mandatory Associations Foreclosing in America.

The acronym says it all