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While there are a lot of 'urban legends' about extremely bad HOA Boards, it seems to me that much of the CD complaining about HOA's is based only on second-hand opinions. We've been part of HOA's for the last 10-years and have served on HOA Boards for about 5 of those years. We're grateful for the hard-working volunteer HOA Boards and have never had the problems some speak of involving "busybody, intrusive board members."
We've seen a lot of problems, however, with homeowners who don't seem to grasp the concept of HOA-living. They buy into an HOA-governed property and agree to abide by the rules; ... and then go about doing whatever they want, with no regard for their neighbors or the rules. Finally, when they are asked to honor the HOA rules and their agreement ... they act like their 'rights' are being infringed upon!
HOAs are a necessary evil. We were sighted for weeds in our driveway cracks. They are a bit fanatical, but it's better than anarchy.
Why, do you live in the wild? My local municipal government has laws that generally keep things under control, no need for a bunch of unqualified morons setting the rules. It is amazing that people seem to think that HOAs are needed. My guess is you live in the west or new south, as neighborhoods in the north east and mid west survived for decades just fine with out them.
Despite what has been posted by some in other threads, I feel my HOA is a good thing and does maintain my community very well. Any other thoughts by others?
"my HOA" - think you've got that ownership thing
"my community" - you must be a board member. Are you referring to HOA-owned property or the property belonging to homeowners? Is this term intended to include the homeowners themselves?
Given that you did not identify "your HOA" or "your community" no one else can provide any feedback about "your HOA". No doubt you believe "your" HOA is a good thing. After all you don't have elephants in the trees there do you? Must be the HOA maintaining things.
Lighten up. I don't "own" the HOA and never claimed to. I serve on my board and that is correct. I only own my home in the HOA and the land beneath it, not the yard itself. Don't read more into it than that.
Go trolling elsewhere as your comment is useless. I posted a statement and asked for others for their feedback. Does it bother you that somebody actually favors an HOA community ??
While there are a lot of 'urban legends' about extremely bad HOA Boards, it seems to me that much of the CD complaining about HOA's is based only on second-hand opinions. We've been part of HOA's for the last 10-years and have served on HOA Boards for about 5 of those years. We're grateful for the hard-working volunteer HOA Boards and have never had the problems some speak of involving "busybody, intrusive board members."
We've seen a lot of problems, however, with homeowners who don't seem to grasp the concept of HOA-living. They buy into an HOA-governed property and agree to abide by the rules; ... and then go about doing whatever they want, with no regard for their neighbors or the rules. Finally, when they are asked to honor the HOA rules and their agreement ... they act like their 'rights' are being infringed upon!
We have a vacation home that is in a very "cookie cutter" type neighborhood. That is fine with US. However, my neighbor can't seem to understand ANY of the rules. He has had problems with his company business truck and has been told that he cannot park it in front of the house.
He has now put in two window a/c units. I'm not sure why as the house has central air. He also has lots of JUNK piled up beside his house and he refuses to leash his german shepherd so he has had plenty of issues with the neighbors.
Someone like that should live out in the country where he can junk up his yard and not have any rules to abide by.
He once told me that he didn't understand all these rules. My comment to him was that he signed the agreement to abide by the HOA covenants, at closing and perhaps, he should have read them first!
All of the homeowners benefit and own a proportional interest in the common areas, but IC would have you believe that there is a mysterious nefarious character behind the scenes running things in conjunction with evil vendors bent on greed. In reality HOA's are ran by volunteers from the community. If your HOA is failing then you need only look in the mirror and ask yourself if you could volunteer to help fix it.
HOA's serve their purpose and they are what you make of them. If your individual HOA is messed up, get on the board and clean it up.
We just moved from a non HOA neighborhood, all the comments we got were "love the house, hate the neighborhood". Very few of our neighbors kept their houses and yards looking nice. Trailers and boars in the driveway, fences half down. Unfortunately for us, we had the nicest house in the neighborhood and to sell it we took a huge hit. After that experience, give me an HOA any day.
You are EXACTLY right!
I had a home listed that got the exact same comments. My sellers' house was lovely and their yard was immaculate.
However, when you looked out the large kitchen window, you saw the neighbor's house and yard. He had 3 junk cars in his front yard and lots of junk items beside his home.
We kept dropping the price, hoping we'd gets a buyer that didn't mind the neighbor's junk. My seller even asked the neighbor if he could clean up his stuff for a while but the neighbor refused.
I guess the neighbor didn't realize that he was bringing the property values DOWN.
After reducing the price again and again, my seller decided to rent the house.
I think HOAs should be against the law, with regards to home OWNERSHIP. If you are RENTING (or leasing) a house, that's one thing, but if you own the house, it's YOUR house to do with as you please. Your concern over your property values shouldn't dictate how I live my life in MY space. And what business is it of yours how orderly I keep my lawn, or whether I have an antenna you think is ugly, or you don't like how I decorate for Christmas because you think it's trashy? It's MY yard to do with as I please. Mind your own stinking business and tend to your OWN yard.
Now, I'm not saying it's a wonderful thing to have a messy lawn, and typically I don't, but really, what business is it of yours? Your yard is YOUR yard, my yard is MY yard. You tend to your yard, I'll tend to mine.
Now, things that destroy your ability to enjoy your yard, like a barking dog or loud music, I can understand that, or if a neighbor's tall grass results in the existence of rodents that now come into your yard, then again I understand that. I also understand people not liking a lot of "thru traffic" from "rat-runners" or someone parking in your yard because the neighbor is having a garage sale. But what kind of petty person does it take to base the sanity of their existence on what color Mr Jones or Ms Bigglesworth paints their house, or that they cut their grass every-time it's more than 3 millimeters tall, or how well they color-coordinate their rosebushes relative to how others do it, or that they have an old car in the yard they're working on & it looks trashy? That sort of thing is just silly, and it's none of your freaking business, not even the whole "property values" concern changes that.
I don't live in a HOA, and I am so glad I don't, and yet even more, I don't they should exist at all, in the home OWNERSHIP realm of things, because if you OWN a home, you shouldn't be subject to such petty nonsense. If you rent, then it's totally understandable to be subject to such things.
shyguylh, I understand where you are coming from 100%, however, if you feel it is 'okay' to leave cars in your backyard or a huge trailer in your driveway, you bring the price of the houses down around you. In essence, you bring the price of the house next to you down.
When we moved to the neighborhood, we drove around three times, it was beautiful. Sadly within five years a few of the houses declined tremendously.
It's about taking pride in the ownership of your home. I don't care if you put out tacky decorations for a month. However, letting your yard look like a jungle, an RV in the driveway, eight cars for a three bedroom, makes MY house look trashy. It isn't nonsense, it is infuriating. If you want to live like that, move to a house with ten acres and no neighbors!
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