What's your experience with HOAs? (Plano, Garland: 2013, rent, HOA)

[warrenbuffoon]

Interested to hear people's experiences with HOAs in the DFW suburbs.

I've previously had a condo and had a negative experience with the HOA, arbitrary fines, board members with personal vendettas against one another, the whole deal. We're looking to buy a single family home in a DFW suburb and would like to know what to expect with those HOAs.

Would be great to hear the good, the bad, the ugly -- in particular which HOAs to avoid (or those that do a great job!)

In case it helps, we are looking primarily at Flower Mound, Keller, Trophy Club, Coppell, Frisco, Plano, Allen, and McKinney and our budget is $500-800K.

[Grainraiser]

No HOA is the same. Some enforce basic rules while others are run by petty people. You will need to research the HOA in the subdivision you are considering buying a home from.

[warrenbuffoon]

Originally Posted by Grainraiser

No HOA is the same. Some enforce basic rules while others are run by petty people. You will need to research the HOA in the subdivision you are considering buying a home from.

Unfortunately there hasn't been much information available online on specific HOAs, so I was hoping to get some dirt here on C-D. I suppose my question is too open-ended with many variables as you mentioned. The safest bet would likely be to try and avoid HOAs altogether, but that narrows the pool of available homes by an exceeding margin.

[EDS_]

Outside rural properties give me a strong, well managed, HOA every time.

[WorldKlas]

If you like a neighborhood, go online and research the HOA to see if you get any hits on your search. You can also go on the Collin County appraisal district site and get names of owners on any street you are interested in and perhaps send some emails asking about the HOA. If I were that interested, I might buy a month’s subscription to one of those background search sites so I could feed in names and addresses and get email or phone numbers.

Are you searching with a Realtor? Ask the realtor to do a little research for any HOA if there’s a community you are interested it.

[Leonard123]

First, you should settle on what kind of neighborhood you want. Older neighborhoods (pre-1980s) won't typically have them, and a few from the 1990s did not either. Examples would be Preston Vineyards in Frisco or Northbrook in McKinney. You have a whole historic section of east McKinney, and I would estimate at least half of Plano is old enough to not have one.

I live in Stonebridge Ranch in McKinney, and you may as well not have an HOA. Basically, anything goes. They love to chop down as many trees as they can though.

[tcualum]

After living in a nice neighborhood that went downhill because of the lack of rules, I'm happy to live in a neighborhood that has a well-managed HOA.

[Angie682]

I think the key is if the HOA is well managed. Ours back in 2004 was not and the neighborhood (DR Horton new construction) went down hill relatively quickly. We ended up selling our house to get out of that neighborhood.

[widespreadfan]

I just became the president of my HOA because no one else would do it. Our neighborhood is only 35 houses, so we do not have a property management company. I am sure I may live to regret this.

[tmtex]

I live in one in the only nice part of Garland. When I moved here in 2001, they were very strict. A old lady either drove or walked around looking for something to put a notice on your door. If you had a boat, trailer it could only be there 24 hrs, any type of blemish on your house and you had a notice on your door to fix it ASAP. You couldnt even rent your house.

2013 or so another management company took over, (not sure why) and now, anything goes. Rent your house, park the boat/camper in the driveway, dont want to fix your fence, thats fine.

I will never do it again. Not sure where my $439.00 goes every year