HOAs and City Pet Limits (Houston, Dallas: real estate, HOA, how much)

[Koshka2]

Our Situation

We are considering moving to DFW area, probably closer to Ft Worth than Dallas. I grew up in Ft. Worth and have family and friends in the area. This will be a retirement home so commute is not an issue. Schools don't matter except in the sense that we don't want to be in a horrible school district that would depress home value.

Our two main criteria are related to pets and amenities. We currently live in a county adjacent to Houston. We live in an unincorporated area. We are in an acreage HOA but there are no pet limits. We currently have 2 dogs and 2 cats. We know that would work for many municipalities in the area. But, once the dogs pass on (they are old) we would like to be able to have 2 more cats (for a total of 4).

One reason we want to move is that it takes us 20 minutes to get anywhere. That has gotten really old.

In our ideal world we would prefer an unincorporated area with no pets limits and, if in an HOA, it would not have numerical pet limits.

I've read the ordinances for most of the cities in Tarrant County and some in Denton/Dallas. There are some that are acceptable (I am a little leery of the cities that have no pet limits because ordinances can be changed, sometimes very quickly). There are some unincorporated areas but I am leery of most of them as they are mostly in the Ft. Worth extra territorial jurisdiction or are one annexation away from it. I don't want to live in Ft. Worth itself. So, to avoid that it looks like we will need to buy within a city limit.

If there are any unincorporated areas that are close to amenities but aren't likely to end up in the Fort Worth ETJ I would be interested in hearing about them.


My Question

My primary question deals with the cities that have acceptable pet limits. Within those cities are most of the homes in HOAs? To the extent they are, do most of the HOAs have more restrictive pet limits than the city itself would have? That is, it doesn't do me much good to buy in a city that allows 6 pets if the homes are mostly in HOAs that allow only 2 pets.
HOAs would be more restrictive.

Some of the locations that look possible from a city ordinance point of view. The question is whether the
Below is what I found in the ordinances

Trophy Club - 4 of one species - 6 total

Flower Mound - 4 dogs/4cats if under 2 acres

Colleyville - No limit

Northlake - No limit

(While more Dallasy than Ft. Worth Lewisville has a limit of 6 and Highland Village limit of 4 dogs/4 catsP.

Bedford - 5 total
Hurst - 4 dogs/4 cats

Haslet - No limit

Newark - No limit

Aledo - varies by amount of acreage

Mansfield - 4 dogs/4 cats - 6 total

So all of the above would be OK from a pet ordinances standpoint. The question is whether we can actually find houses in those areas that allow the number of pets that the ordinance allows. FWIW, our cats are solely indoor cats.

What We are Looking For in a House

I want to be reasonably close to amenities. I want to have at least a basic grocery store within 10 minutes (but my preferred one can be farther away). Would like places to eat within at least 15 minutes. Hospital within 20 minutes or so. DH and I are healthy now but we are mindful of getting older so want to have reasonably easy access to amenities (although we are willing to pay to get there if we couldn't drive someday).

We want a house that is not more than 30 years old. We are amenable to buying an older house and remodeling although we do want a basically acceptable floorplan. That is, we would be willing to remodel the kitchen or the master bathroom. I don't want to have to move them or to build an addition.

Budget - Probably $300 to $350 although we could go a little higher if we had to. If we are going to have to do more than $50k remodeling we would want to spend less on the house though.

From locations of people that we know I am probably less interested in Mansfield and Aledo than the other locations. I put Haslet/Newark on the list but I'm not sure they are close enough to amenities.

[WorldKlas]

I think Haslet is within your proximity range.

I am not going to research your pet desires to make recommendations. I think Mansfield will not work because of the very high property taxes. Trophy Club, Flower Mound, Colleyville and Northlake are all HOA places, but if your only concern is 4 cats I don’t know what the objection is to HOA communities. Others you might research:

Burleson
Alvarado
Granbury

[Koshka2]

I am not at all expecting anyone to research my pet desires. Basically I was asking if anyone knew if -- in the locales I specified - whether most of the homes had HOAs that were more restrictive on pets than the city ordinances.

We have an had over 65 homestead exemption for about 5 years so that may help with property taxes. But, all things being equal we would prefer places were taxes weren't the highest. So, I would put Mansfield farther than the list.

We are going up there in a couple of weeks to visit family and plan to drive to some of these areas and get an idea on the amenities. I will check out Haslet

Only objection to HOA communities would be if the community didn't allow 4 cats. We would prefer to be in compliance.

[TexasRedneck]

I would think you'd be best served getting the services of a good Realtor to help in your search.

[Koshka2]

Oh, we will certainly do that. However - my experience is that realtors know little to nothing about pet limits in HOAs. When we bought our current house, we had a good buyer's agent but she didn't know anything about specific subdivisions pet limits. I had to look it up for each subdivision on either the HOA website (if they had them there publicly) or in the County online real property records.

However, in our current house we didn't have any ordinances as we were in an unincorporated area. I have picked the cities in the Tarrant County (and surrounding counties) area based upon the ordinances for the cities. That is all of these have OK pet ordinances and would seem to also fit my location criteria.

What I was curious about was if these areas typically had HOAs that were more restrictive than the City Ordinances. And - while it is a long shot - if someone here happened to be familiar with any of these cities and knew that X HOA had no pet limits more restrictive than the ordinances while Y HOA allows only 2 pets -- then I would like to know it. Or if some of these cities have areas that don't have HOAs and just rely on the ordinances I am interested in that also.

But, yes, we will definitely get a good buyer's agent but trying to gather as much info from people who might be familiar with these areas.

[Threestep2]

A lot depends on your budget and what kind of house you are looking for. Most HOAs have websites and covenants are posted. Otherwise have your realtor provide them. You will find restrictions for live stock but not much in regards of pets. We had no issues in Haslet with our whiskered friends.
HOA has nothing to do with cities. You will be hard pressed to find newer construction in your target areas without HOA - builders and developers protect their interests.

[Koshka2]

Originally Posted by Threestep

A lot depends on your budget and what kind of house you are looking for. Most HOAs have websites and covenants are posted. Otherwise have your realtor provide them. You will find restrictions for live stock but not much in regards of pets. We had no issues in Haslet with our whiskered friends.
HOA has nothing to do with cities. You will be hard pressed to find newer construction in your target areas without HOA - builders and developers protect their interests.

Do you live in Haslet? How do you find it in terms of how long it takes to get to amenities such as grocery store, restaurants, hospitals, etc? It is on my list since it doesn't have any ordinances restricting pets at all. As Haslet grows in terms of greater population, do you expect that to change?

Yes, I was expecting to likely have to buy a house in an HOA. Living in unincorporated areas as I have I've seen a lot of variations in HOAs. Where I am now, there are no pet limits (and, no ordinances). But, even so, there are some HOAs that do have limits.

I was mostly wondering if in the cities we are interested in if anyone had a sense as to how much more restrictive (if at all) the HOAs were as compared to the city ordinances. That is - on the cities I posted about - the city ordinances were acceptable to me. I wondered how likely it was that I would find an HOA in the city that wasn't more restrictive than the city ordinance.

We are mostly looking for a 1 story no more than 30 years old. Prefer to spend no more than $350k and would be willing to do about $50k in remodeling/updating. We could spend a little more than $350k but then wouldn't want to have to do major remodeling.

We don't want a large house. We have about 2900 SF now and it is more than we need. Probably 2400 SF or so would be ideal. We are OK with having a large lot (currently have 1 acre, how before was about 2 1/2) but would be OK with a standard lot as well.

[Threestep2]

We left Haslet two years ago and briefly visited last summer. You will find all your amenities and more within reasonable driving distances. Your budget may buy a fixer upper on an acre or a house in a neighborhood.

HOA covenants seem to pretty standard in Texas; some more established can be more restrictive. Speaking of restrictions - Ft. Worth has active community rangers so do not put your trash out on the wrong day:>)

Take a week and do some exploring.

[abelinkkin]

Are your cats indoor or outdoor pets? Be aware that some HOA neighborhoods are very aggressive to people with outdoor cats. Our HOA actively fines people for letting their cats roam outside their property and have started trapping cats when people do not head the fine. Personally I would avoid an HOA neighborhood, from my experience it is just a bunch of bitter people with nothing better to do then spy on their neighbors.

[loves2read]

Originally Posted by Koshka2

I am not at all expecting anyone to research my pet desires. Basically I was asking if anyone knew if -- in the locales I specified - whether most of the homes had HOAs that were more restrictive on pets than the city ordinances.

We have an had over 65 homestead exemption for about 5 years so that may help with property taxes. But, all things being equal we would prefer places were taxes weren't the highest. So, I would put Mansfield farther than the list.

We are going up there in a couple of weeks to visit family and plan to drive to some of these areas and get an idea on the amenities. I will check out Haslet

Only objection to HOA communities would be if the community didn't allow 4 cats. We would prefer to be in compliance.

You need a real estate agent for specifics on HOAs
They are much more likely to know the particulars for an HOA than people posting here who likely only know their own HOA's requirements--if that--
I think your budget will keep you out of Colleyville
And probably Trophy Club

And if you think you will get a better drive time moving to DFW/Tarrant then pay attention when you come for your visit
While I think traffic may not be as bad as Houston overall
There are still huge traffic problems in DFW area