I'll use my childhood home as an example.

When we lived there:

Nicest or 2nd nicest lawn on block

Bushes and the 11 mature oak trees well trimmed

House trim painted regularly. Big task as it had giant 2 story white pillars

Above ground pool partially visible from street built into side of a hill (i.e. too hilly for in-ground pool)

After my brother and I moved out, my parents sold and moved to a smaller home. Here are what the new owners (moved from rural to neighborhood) did to a once picturesque home:

brought a 10 ft satellite dish and never hooked up and left in view from street. Not sure why they brought it as it's a neighborhood full of mature oak trees backed up to a state game forest full of oak trees (i.e. little/no views of sky). Swimming pool in location with only visibility of sky.

Tore out the front bushes in front of living room. There was a wood fireplace insert in there an apparently storing wood in garage or backyard was too far. Just tear out the front shrubs, stack wood in front of window, and get more firewood by opening window.

Tore out the above ground swimming pool, didn't plant grass, and didn't contour the previously hidden (behind pool and under a wood deck) cut into the side hill.

Every time I've driven by the grass/weeds (no longer a lawn) are knee high.

Windows in garage door apparently broke so been covered with plywood for years.

The picturesque white pillars are gray and pretty much all the paint peeled off. Same to all door/window trim.

There was no HOA. The homes on boths sides of us tended to sell every 5ish years, and sold quickly as they were decent and maintained plus were next door to a picturesque home with white pillars. Now, they're trying to sell with a redneck eyesore next to them. All of the stuff the new owners did would be HOA violations in both HOA neighborhoods I've resided, and none of the stuff would be code violations for city to enforce.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Also, my HOA doesn’t allow sex offenders. We had a high level SO a few houses away and in view from our previous house. We never saw him out and about on our street, but on the bisecting street to ours.

However, one day, this guy came to our house asking if we wanted our yard mowed, and only my wife was home at the time. He was a little simple minded, and I’d see the local mugshots where he’d get arrested for various things, but lesser than assaultive offenses.

Oh, and other than him being a high level SO, his house and his buddies next door to him always had some drama going on. All the neighbors wanted our HOA to take action taken against them, but they didn’t know what to do with meth houses and SO’s since they dealt with fence location and height, unkept yards, architectural control, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
I was going to refrain from posting here and probably still should, but...

There's a REASON I live in the boonies. The thought of living in a cheek-by-jowl development with somebody controlling every little detail of what I can and cannot do with my own property is abhorrent.

I'm not THAT far out, I do have neighbors on both sides and across the street, and yes there are occasional annoyances and even a couple of pretty trashy places in the general area, but I'd much rather put up with that than get micro-managed by a bunch of prissy karens.

And (other than how it impacts my property taxes) I don't give a rat's ass about property values. I'll leave this property in a body bag and my kids can deal with it.

Me too. I refuse to live in a commune.

HOA forces you to live by rules not of your making of which you may not agree.

HOA fees around here are easily $400-500 minimum per month. And it’s basically a fee to ensure common consideration. Consideration (reasonable level) of your neighbor should be common but unfortunately it is not.

One thing for me: I would never want to enable some prissy Karen to put a lien on my house. Especially when paying $400 per month. Around here, I will never buy into an HOA area.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
HOA forces you to live by rules not of your making of which you may not agree.

False. Every single homeowner in a HOA had to sign legally binding documents when they closed on their house stating that they both understood the CC&Rs and agreed to live by them. The problem is twofold:

A minority of people actually read what they're signing and when an issue arises months/years the remainder finally read it or have it read to them.

A percentage of people don't believe they need to live by legally binding documents they signed.

CC&Rs can be amended, but it takes a vote by HOA members. It varies from state to state how many people have to be present (or sign legal documents granting their vote to someone like a neighbor or the HOA board) to have a quorom to vote on an amendment. Care to guess which percentage of people attend a routine HOA meeting or even a pre-announced meeting for something like a CC&R amendment? Hint: It's orders of magnitude different from the percentage of people who complain about it.

Yes, HOAs can be problematic and I've posted many times about the horrific board of directors my Alaska neighborhood had and the lengths we had to go to fix it (e.g. this link). Frankly, my personal apathy as well as the apathy of more than 80% of the neighborhood was the root cause of the problem.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Not quite what I meant so apologies. Yes, you should be aware of the rules since they may be disclosed before you make an offer, or at least during the escrow process. You may not agree with some of the rules but buy the house anyway for other superseding reasons. Doesn’t mean you agree with the rules, just that you agree to conform to them. I don’t consider my statement false but it’s perhaps subject to interpretation.

Each has their own opinion of an HOA. Living in a land overcome by prissy entitled Karens where dues are upward of $400 per month, I’ve come to be averse. Your mileage may differ.

quote:

Doesn’t mean you agree with the rules, just that you agree to conform to them

Abide, not conform...... HOA's are not prisons, although some here think they are......

quote:

Living in a land overcome by prissy entitled Karens

Well, we're not all in California

I never thought I would live in one…now I live in two of them…

The first one we moved into was due to our first grandchild being born and us needing to be closer to them…so we moved into the same S/D as they live in. The second one was because it is the nicest community in the area we wanted a vacation home.

The benefits for us is that there is 24/7 security in both places and since we travel frequently it’s nice to have someone impartial keeping an eye on the place.

One of our places has the external maintenance included in the cost. It’s nice to see that when you drive through the property everyone’s property is nicely kept. It doesn’t preclude anyone from planting whatever they want so it’s not cookie cutter but since the lots are all over an acre and steep it’s nice to have someone else do the heavy lifting.

They are most assuredly not for everyone but for us it works. I think the key is finding a place that doesn’t go overboard and has active community engagement. When you have a small handful of people running the show without any community involvement that’s when things can go off the rails.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:

They are most assuredly not for everyone but for us it works. I think the key is finding a place that doesn’t go overboard and has active community engagement. When you have a small handful of people running the show without any community involvement that’s when things can go off the rails.

I see a benefit of an HOA in your situation.
Being gone and having extra eyes on your home.
But like you and Tatortodd bring up-
General apathy from the community can bring up some serious issues.
“Yeah, whatever” attitude or just to appease someone can lead to crazy issues.
Ie- your lovely neighborhood Karens running the show.

A move is in our future- 3 ish years.
We pretty much know about where, but nothing specific. YES, IT WILL BE IN A FREE STATE!

There’s one area that has an HOA, it looks attractive, but the HOA thing worries us.
Everything else doesn’t have an HOA.
Just weighing out some of the options right now.


(One of my Bosses at work is leaving in a few years as well. Florida bound! This is another reason HOA’s don’t seem attractive- this guy is an anal retentive FREAK! Some serious OCD issues! And Im not joking. He is telling us that he can’t wait to get down there and on the board of the HOA. He’s the one that’s going to be driving around in a golf cart with emergency lights on it, writing up some homemade “tickets” for obscure violations. We keep telling him that there’s no medals or stuff like that when he gets his ass kicked being way too overbearing in a made up uniform down there.
Thankfully we keep him in an office and out of any decision making loop here. )

I am currently a fan. Rewind to 2008, we buy our first home (New construction) in a smallish neighborhood ~1hr west of NOVA. Really nice, big homes, all new of course... Lucky me get these pieces of shit next door. They have no business living in this kind of neighborhood. Pretty sure here parents bought it for them. I'm talking backyard weeds waist high. A ring of trash all around the house. They are horders with junk pouring out everywhere to include 4+ grills in the yard, mowers, broken pool. And the piece de resistance: SEVEN cars parked out front and usually only one ran. Very frustrating. Turns out HOA was pretty weak and maybe they could get a little clean-up once or twice a year, but the cock suckers played the legal game, don't know why, they were psycho.

Sad, in the end real estate agent estimated we lost 25-50k just because of the eye sore. So, fuck them. I'm in a new place with a better HOA (FWIW: only $53/month and that includes trash and snow, so pretty much even $)

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd: ... Every single homeowner in a HOA had to sign legally binding documents when they closed on their house ...

Virginia, you get a printed and electronic copy and there is actually a legally binding time frame that affords you the time to review and can back out with a 100% refund if you are not happy with it.