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....It all seems all the more strange I a place like Colorado Springs, where 70% of homebuyers are vets. I am not a vet, but it seems weird that you would put your life in the line to defend your (and my) freedoms, only to readily surrender most of your rights and freedoms to a non-democratic regime that imposes rules on almost every aspect of how you can live. But I digress...
First, I'm not sure that 70% of COLO SPGS homebuyers are vets. I lived there 11 years and had no where near 70% neighbors who were vets.
My perspective is that I'm not going to plunk down $575k for a new home (which we did) and surrender my right to a dignified neighborhood only to find I'm living next door to Junkyard Joe with a yard full of cars up on blocks so he can play shade-tree mechanic or listen to Nascar Nick blast away tuning up his race rods. SORRY.
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I have lived in an HOA neighborhood for 15 years and like it vastly more than the non-HOA neighborhood, 3 miles away, that I lived in for the previous 21 years. The houses and properties in the HOA are maintained much better and the property values reflect that. In addition the HOA maintains the nicely landscaped streets, HOA swimming pool and children's playscape park areas. Which are things you will rarely find in non-HOA areas, because the local government jurisdictions do not want the responsibility of maintaining those amenities. Those jurisdictions are the ones who usually require that an HOA be put in place before they will allow those amenities to be built in the subdivisions.
I don't believe I've ever heard of an HOA going into someone's house to count cats, that is a huge exaggeration, but I do approve of the HOA regulations limiting the number of pets and types of animals that a homeowner can have on their property. I don't want a farmyard popping up next door to my home, even if its just a cat farm.
I think your characterization of a few rules like that as being "oppressive", is a huge exaggeration. I don't find them to be oppressive, I find them to be entirely reasonable.
No, life in an HOA is not nearly oppressive and horrible as you paint it. During my time in the HOA I have received two warning letters. One for leaving my trash cans out in the street for several days, I was out of town and I was in the wrong there. Since then my next door neighbor and I look out for each other in that regard. Whoever gets to it first puts the trash cans away. I do prefer the looks of the neighborhood when everyone puts their trash cans away rather than leaving them out in front of their houses.
The only other time I received a notice from the HOA was when my front lawn developed a grubs infection and was looking really terrible. It took me a while to figure out what was causing the problem and get it fixed. But it did take the letter from the HOA to make me take it more seriously. I did not find it oppressive or horrible, they were right, it looked terrible and I'm glad I got it fixed.
Yes, I agree, your perception of life in an HOA is a personality issue, you may have a very low tolerance in this area, rather than recognizing that your neighbors, the HOA, have a vested interest in how your property and behavior effects the neighborhood that you all share and everyone's property values.
Good!
Now there you go exaggerating again. Neighbors adhering to a common set of rules is not insane, and everyone can agree with the rules or not buy there. No one is forcing you to live in that area. So the rules are not "imposed" on you.
The property values in most HOA's are actually usually much higher than in non-HOA neighborhoods. They are doing more good than harm. And the fact that some real estate listings advertise "No HOA's" is simply an acknowledgement that some people, such as yourself, have a low tolerance of HOA rules. But that is not enough of a hinderance to cause HOA neighborhoods to be unpopular. Quite the opposite is true.
I believe DrDog explained this extremely well in the preceding post. I will add that an HOA is not a "non-democratic regime". Most of the HOA's, once the subdivision is built out, are turned over to and ran by the democratically elected representatives from the neighborhood.
I have never lived in an HOA, and never said I did. I am telling what the rules are, at houses I’ve seen at HOAs and asking about their enforcement. Ergo, I’m not sure I am exaggerating anything. I’m just telling you what the rules are of various HOAs I have seen.
If people are not going into your house to count cats, then why have a rule about it in the first place? Similarly, if no ones going to cite you for parking in your own driveway overnight, then why have a rule about it? It seems to me that much more narrowly drawn rules could keep you from starting a junkyard at your house, starting cat farm, or blaring NASCAR. Indeed most cities have ordinances preventing all those things. So why pay a bunch of busybodies to.cite you for it? Probably my biggest problem with HOAs is what would happen if ai die? I rack up a bunch of citations, a lien gets put on my house, and the house gets foreclosed, maybe before my next of kin even realizes I am dead?
At any rate I do appreciate your time in sharing your experiences.
First, I'm not sure that 70% of COLO SPGS homebuyers are vets. I lived there 11 years and had no where near 70% neighbors who were vets.
My perspective is that I'm not going to plunk down $575k for a new home (which we did) and surrender my right to a dignified neighborhood only to find I'm living next door to Junkyard Joe with a yard full of cars up on blocks so he can play shade-tree mechanic or listen to Nascar Nick blast away tuning up his race rods. SORRY.
That’s fine, thanks for sharing your perspective. Not sure why you assume I want to blare NASCAR. Seems there’s a world of difference between someone changing the oil in their car and starting a scapyard.
I’ve lived in the springs/woodland park area for 6 years, and I can count on my hands the number of people I know or have met who are not vets. Nevertheless, DRDogs response did make a lot of sense. HOAs at least don’t tell you what time to wake up and whatnot (well that I’ve seen), so I suppose it’s more freedom than being in the service.
In regard to property values, HOAs have been the norm in COS for the last few decades. Property values are higher simple because the houses are newer (and often larger). Further, HOA fees are something to figure in when deciding how much home you can afford, so they may make the house price less than one ina nonHOA area, much like property taxes do. That said, if HOA fees paid for things like trash service, plowing, a pool, etc. then that may add value and I really don’t have a problem with HOA fees if they are actually providing services like that. But hoa fees that simply fund the hoa enforcers are another matter.
Non-democratic is probably not the right term, but there is no recourse if the HOA starts enforcing rules arbitrarily (ie you get citations for not cutting your grass while Junkyard Jim starts a car lot). This could easily happen if the hoa board members decide they don’t like you for whatever reason- your religion, race, occupation, whatever. They could literally foreclose your home and make you a pauper through arbitrary use of their rules.
So no I won’t be buying a home in a HOA with what I feel are arbitrary rules. I’m not sure this means I have a personality “issue.” Maybe the person that wants to control everyone’s life in the neighborhood could be said to have a personality “issue.”
Oh and PS, might want to brush up on you Constitution, there is no right to live in a dignified neighborhood. There is OTOH, a right to privacy, one I would not give up just to ensure my neighbors house color is acceptable to me.
You have a very misguided knowledge of HOAs and a chip on your shoulder that won't let you listen to reason.
The HOA I was a part of never spent a damned cent on any of us, we were 100% unpaid resident volunteers who put in many hours of unpaid attention to assure a good community that ran smoothly for all of us.
Our funds went to trash pickup, snow removal, common area maintenance, insurance, a reserve fund for eventual replacement of a stone fence after 20 or so years, electricity for our signage, water, sprinkler system repairs, and a Property Management firm to manage it all as having real property management professionals on the job was essential. Our area looked great and our homes had quick resales at market prices. We did all that for $450/year, it was a stone cold bargain and our residents voiced their appreciation often.
I've lived in areas in the DC area without HOAs and won't do that again. I don't want any more school buses parked on the street, or 30+foot RVs, or boats on trailers. I don't want to hear more NASCAR wannabes tuning un-mufflered race cars again either, and I don't want the guy two doors down whose dogs run loose to poop everywhere or the guy two doors the other way who mows his lawn twice per summer whether it needs it or not.
We had one crazy person in our HOA who swore we were all crooks, that every cent was wasted on cronies, and one year made their dues check payable to "The Crooks at XXXX HOA." Our bank took the check! But one year we had to sue for payment and serve papers on them to get their money. I can assure that we would have foreclosed on these clowns. I hope you don't morph into that kind of resident. The vast majority of HOAs are fine, though some are goofy. Check before you buy. Get a copy of the covenants. Talk to residents. The state of COLO has a government function that rates HOAs, google it up and check on it. But please don't paint all HOAs with your industry-wide and highly biased brush, such blanket accusations are just another form of trolling, like those folks who bash all realtors as evil.
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You have a very misguided knowledge of HOAs and a chip on your shoulder that won't let you listen to reason.
The HOA I was a part of never spent a damned cent on any of us, we were 100% unpaid resident volunteers who put in many hours of unpaid attention to assure a good community that ran smoothly for all of us.
Our funds went to trash pickup, snow removal, common area maintenance, insurance, a reserve fund for eventual replacement of a stone fence after 20 or so years, electricity for our signage, water, sprinkler system repairs, and a Property Management firm to manage it all as having real property management professionals on the job was essential. Our area looked great and our homes had quick resales at market prices. We did all that for $450/year, it was a stone cold bargain and our residents voiced their appreciation often.
I've lived in areas in the DC area without HOAs and won't do that again. I don't want any more school buses parked on the street, or 30+foot RVs, or boats on trailers. I don't want to hear more NASCAR wannabes tuning un-mufflered race cars again either, and I don't want the guy two doors down whose dogs run loose to poop everywhere or the guy two doors the other way who mows his lawn twice per summer whether it needs it or not.
We had one crazy person in our HOA who swore we were all crooks, that every cent was wasted on cronies, and one year made their dues check payable to "The Crooks at XXXX HOA." Our bank took the check! But one year we had to sue for payment and serve papers on them to get their money. I can assure that we would have foreclosed on these clowns. I hope you don't morph into that kind of resident. The vast majority of HOAs are fine, though some are goofy. Check before you buy. Get a copy of the covenants. Talk to residents. The state of COLO has a government function that rates HOAs, google it up and check on it. But please don't paint all HOAs with your industry-wide and highly biased brush, such blanket accusations are just another form of trolling, like those folks who bash all realtors as evil.
No I wouldn’t morph into that type of resident (well so I say now, who knows?). I even mowed my yard, despite any rules telling me too!! Again, I am not painting anything with any sort of brush. I am not saying that any HOA I know of is doing these things, I simply don’t see any check on HOAs from doing such things if they wanted to. Obviously each HOA is going to be somewhat different in covenants and enforcement. I personally don’t care about RVs or boats on trailers. These are things families have, and are a whole different league than farming operations, dumps or junkyards or any other parade of horrible being thrown out as justifications for HOA rules. I do hate NASCAR, but in 20+ years of living in non HOA neighborhoods I’ve never had this be a problem. I guess I’m coming from more rural, lower density areas where privacy is a premium. If you’re coming from back east then you’re probably more used to high density living and HOAs make sense.
Also again, if the hoa is paying for stuff, awesome. Many don’t and their fees (which are not usually high when they aren’t providing services other than covenant enforcement) are low. I think I’m getting folks projecting onto me being the worst case scenario neighbor, but I’m just a dude trying to figure out if I could even tolerate dealing with HOAs and the potential for abuse I perceive being inherent in them.
But there are checks and balances on HOAs, that's the state governing board which oversees these things in COLO. Drive through some neighborhoods that are shipshape and there's probably an HOA doing their job and home to residents who don't need to be chastised into getting with the program. Stop and talk to someone who is out washing a car and ask them of their experience. IMO your concerns are mostly unfounded. HOAs on which I have heard horror stories were in rural areas and being run by amateurs who think they need to rule with an iron fist. A few years ago COLO put in rules that HOA officers must have training to be on a board. Keep an open mind and check out some neighborhoods if you're interested in COLO SPGS.
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MrGuy, you seem like a pretty decent and reasonable person to me. My agreeing with your comment about yourself "Yeah you are probably right about my personality vis-a-vis HOAs" was just that, my agreeing that you are perhaps a little overly sensitive to some of the concerns that you expressed. My comments were in answer to the questions you posed. There was no intention on my part to paint you as the kind of person who would make a bad neighbor. My perception of you is quite the opposite. I think that is also true of the comments made by "Mike fbe".
I do think the requirement that people should park inside their garages at night is over the top, and that is not a requirement my HOA has, but it would not be a problem for me as I already do park my vehicles inside the garage. Next to my house my cars are the second most expensive things I own, so it makes sense to me to protect them from weather, etc. in the garage.
I grew up in Wyoming, you can't get much more rural and low density than that. When you have more space, you can be more tolerant of an inconsiderate neighbor, as long as they don't put in a wrecking yard next door to your house. I'm generally a live and let live kinda guy, until someone's bad habits start hurting my property values. We did have problems in my first neighborhood with a few people who did not maintain their houses, paint was faded, streaked and peeling, yards were over grown with weeds, grass was dead and driveways were parking lots for construction trailers and junk. Those are things that you cannot count on the City or police to do anything about. So I greatly prefer living in an HOA where there are people and an organization that will do something about those problems.
Regardless of where you decide to live, I wish you all the best and hope you find a place where you are content.
I think that most or all areas where new homes are being built all have HOAs; certainly at the $500K+ level, they do. I can understand why, and if I was shopping for a new house, I'd go over those rules in detail to make sure I could live with them. The best plan is to believe that those rules will be enforced to the letter. If you cannot live with them, don't buy.
In my own neighborhood, with a lapsed HOA and nobody enforcing "rules", the biggest deviations from the original HOA rules are cars parked in driveways or on the street, a few (~5%) boats or RVs parked in driveways, and a few houses suffering from deferred maintenance, e.g. deteriorating paint, windows, roofs and decks. The deferred maintenance houses are usually owned by a retiree who may have exhausted savings and is close to checking out. Eventually, they are sold and flipped.
Also, there is one house where the owner rents it out short time through Airbnb. I think this could become a problem for all areas and I'd expect it to be addressed in new HOA contracts.
Generally, people try to maintain their properties because they do care about resale. There is also a certain amount of informal peer pressure to maintain the property. Although most people are reasonable, a few outliers can ruin a good neighborhood.
Another observation we made was that in lower priced properties, e.g. at the $250K level, many neighborhoods have rental houses and they have "groups" living there, e.g. 4 guys each renting one room. I've seen some of those with the faded paint, broken window screens and pickups parked on the front lawn. In the summer they also have dead grass. All it takes is one water bill for June, and the water for lawns is turned off. Guess how much beer you can buy for $150! It's one reason we quit looking for houses at that price. Expensive neighborhoods tend to have fewer rentals.
I live in an HOA and could not agree more with you. Their are always people that are going to push the envelop so to speak so it is nice to offer a friendly reminder that we all have to live together and get a long so a reminder is often appropriate. I prefer to live in an area where homes hold their value and people are respectful of each other. Safety is important to me and people with alot of dead trees in their yard(fire hazard) is not someone I want to live next to. Also those who feel the need to park in front of fire hydrants are not only breaking the law but putting others in danger. Snow plows have a hard time cleaning off the roads when cars are parked out front and especially RV's. The list goes on and on. Their certainly are areas with land that can get you away from all that but remember, that has its issues too like junk cars, garbage etc. It all depends on what you want to put up with or tolerate.
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But one year we had to sue for payment and serve papers on them to get their money. I can assure that we would have foreclosed on these clowns. I hope you don't morph into that kind of resident. The vast majority of HOAs are fine, though some are goofy. Check before you buy. Get a copy of the covenants. Talk to residents. The state of COLO has a government function that rates HOAs, google it up and check on it. But please don't paint all HOAs with your industry-wide and highly biased brush, such blanket accusations are just another form of trolling, like those folks who bash all realtors as evil.
I live in an HOA and could not agree more with you. Their are always people that are going to push the envelop so to speak so it is nice to offer a friendly reminder that we all have to live together and get a long so a reminder is often appropriate. I prefer to live in an area where homes hold their value and people are respectful of each other. Safety is important to me and people with alot of dead trees in their yard(fire hazard) is not someone I want to live next to. Also those who feel the need to park in front of fire hydrants are not only breaking the law but putting others in danger. Snow plows have a hard time cleaning off the roads when cars are parked out front and especially RV's. The list goes on and on. Their certainly are areas with land that can get you away from all that but remember, that has its issues too like junk cars, garbage etc. It all depends on what you want to put up with or tolerate.
