Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have lived in my townhouse condo for 26 years under an HOA and I LOVE IT (obviously or I would have moved by now). The community I live in is absolutely beautiful, much like a resort (according to guests) with lush landscaping, mature trees and little rivers and ponds around the property. I even have a waterfall that runs under my front deck. There are no little kids playing in the pond (RULE), there are no open garage doors with jacked up cars (RULE), there are no pool towels hanging from the balconies (RULE), there are no barking dogs at 5 AM (RULE) and there are no wild drunken parties on the patios at 2 AM (RULE). What there is is a quiet peaceful community where the homeowners can enjoy life without all of these kinds of disturbances. Maybe I'm a curmudgeon, but I LIKE the fact that there are rules because, truth be told, most people only care about themselves, not their neighbors. I cannot count the number of non-HOA homes I've appraised with 5 barking dogs next door, crap all over the yard and there's always one Lime green house on the street. So the next time I see the unpaid President of our HOA fixing a sprinkler head just to save us all water or I see the unpaid landscaping committee picking out some new plants for an area, I will make a point of saying, "Thank You".
One who is willing to get in their car and drive through a few neighborhoods ... will quickly be able to see the difference between those that have an HOA and those that don't -- Even if one has no first-hand knowledge of an area's situation, the difference will be intuitively obvious.
That's the stock answer. The REAL answer is that it helps to defray costs of road maintenance from a municipality and thus helps developers get their projects approved by town councils, etc. Since this adds additional tax revenue vis-a-vis residential property taxes but adds little in burden to the town, towns are all too happy to have HOA developments built in their municipalities.
They sell the idea of HOAs to potential homeowners by telling them it will help their real estate value, blah, blah, blah. As you will see with responses on this thread, many, many people truly and genuinely believe their HOA helps their home values. I, on the other hand, am a skeptic. A nice neighborhood is a nice neighborhood with good market value no matter if an HOA is in place or not. I've lived in both - no impact up or down on the market value of my home but living in an HOA is a lot more of a pain in the rear.
Agreed.
HOAs also take the place of strong zoning and building codes and the enforcement of same. So, instead of the city council or town board elected by all the citizens deciding that "perpetual garage sales" (ie, every weekend from May through October) are really businesses and are not allowed in residential areas or that collecting junk cars on the back end of your lot constitutes an illegal junk yard, builders and/or largely self-selected HOA board members decide that nobody can have a garage sale and that nobody can park a car on his property outside the garage for more than 12 hours at a time.
Governments have many more restrictions on what they can or can't do as well while HOAs don't. For example, if you live in a city or town without an HOA, and you get a great job opportunity in another city, you can always rent out your house. Many HOAs won't allow you to do that.
One who is willing to get in their car and drive through a few neighborhoods ... will quickly be able to see the difference between those that have an HOA and those that don't -- Even if one has no first-hand knowledge of an area's situation, the difference will be intuitively obvious.
Yeah, gates and/or mailbox "stations" at the entrances; all the houses the very same pale shades of tan, gray, green, and blue or else "earthtones"; three styles of houses with tiny variations like a bay window here or a bump out there; no sidewalks; lots of cul-de-sacs ... and visitors need a GPS to figure out how to get back to the public street.
I'm researching buying my next home. I'm pretty sure I want a condominium, but I'm not completely ruling out houses, either. Over time, I learned that tract home subdivisions almost always have a home owner's association (hereafter: HOA). Houses on traditional gridded streets usually don't have one. So far, I'd prefer not to have one. It's easier to deal with just one set of cops (city) than two (city + HOA).
In the research process, I've read plenty of horror stories about HOA's. The horror stories were plentiful, ranging from having to fix a broken window (reasonable, even good) to paying a $50 fine for a newspaper left out in the yard (stupid). In that light, it seems like HOA's are just a nuisance, run by people with too much time on their hands, who were bullied in school, and are now delighted to make other people's lives more difficult, not to mention play favorites with certain residents. Plus, charge X dollars per month for the privilege of that. True or not, don't shoot the messenger; I'm just posting what I read in other sources.
But there has to be some tangible purpose to HOA's. Otherwise, they'd be disbanded long time ago. So what do HOA's actually do? What benefit do they provide for residents, outside of enforcing rules? Either way, if I were to buy a house and not a condo, I'd buy one that doesn't have an HOA. But I'm still interested in finding out about its role.
I rented a room from a guy in an HOA who asked me to not say anything to the neighbors as it wasn't "Permitted" to rent out rooms...
He also told me that they had 4 colors you could paint your house, I was suggesting he get a balcony made as it would be nifty, he said the HOA wouldn't permit it (He'd tried 2 years previously) He showed me a book (Yes a BOOK) of rules and reg they had....damn,,,45 pages....
One who is willing to get in their car and drive through a few neighborhoods ... will quickly be able to see the difference between those that have an HOA and those that don't -- Even if one has no first-hand knowledge of an area's situation, the difference will be intuitively obvious.
What "one" will see is that those who can afford a lawn maintenance service are making more money than those who can't afford one!
You really can't be that ignorant!
A lot of people work long hours, for shameful wages, so when they get home the last thing they want to do is mow a lawn! Let's hold that against them!
If you drive around you see social classes. Those well manecured aren't all manecured by those who live there. Our HOA takes care of our lawn maintenance in the front, and in the back its up to the homeowner. Some look better than others.
Instead of being so judgemental, maybe consider circumstances & incomes first.
Our society sucks at offering equal opportunities...people do the best they can with what they have. IMO HOAs should jump and help rather than sit on a high horse pointing fingers at hard working ppl. It's insulting.
One who is willing to get in their car and drive through a few neighborhoods ... will quickly be able to see the difference between those that have an HOA and those that don't -- Even if one has no first-hand knowledge of an area's situation, the difference will be intuitively obvious.
Not in my town. The nicest homes are the ones in the non-HOA area - a very small and incredibly desirable area. The rest of our town is filled with huge planned developments and while nice enough, they have nothing on the area where there aren't HOAs as those are really stunning homes.
HOA is also like a maintenance fee for the pool, tennis courts, playgrounds etc. I personally love living in a HOA community. I like that my community stays clean and pretty :-) Living in Florida, we mostly have HOA fees. Not too many communities without it.
One who is willing to get in their car and drive through a few neighborhoods ... will quickly be able to see the difference between those that have an HOA and those that don't -- Even if one has no first-hand knowledge of an area's situation, the difference will be intuitively obvious.
This is not always true. I live in a non HOA home and I can see the HOA home I was looking at from my back yard. The two neighborhoods are so close as to be practically identical. Yet another assumption that an HOA neighborhood will superior in appearance.
Either way, keep posting. I like hearing both perspectives, despite being against the idea of HOA's and HOA's themselves.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
