There are a few things in life that cause a bit of a reaction in people. There’s the whole “Windows or Mac” thing, or “Republican or Democrat”, “Gay marriage or no gay marriage”, “Abortion or no abortion”. Obviously some of these are more serious than others.
There is one other that springs to mind when we talk about opinions and that’s “homeowners association, or no homeowners association”. I’ve heard arguments on both sides of the fence and have lived in both types of neighborhoods. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I think that HOA’s help increase the value of my home. “Penty” made a couple comments on a previous post and pointed out that I need to look at how much my HOA dues cost and what kind of return I could make on that money over the long term. Well, in my case, my HOA dues are quite low. I only pay $170 a year total. I believe it’s worth it. My neighborhood has increased in value better than other neighborhoods near me that don’t have HOA’s. I also think it’s worth it from a quality of life point of view. I want to have a bit of predictability on how my neighborhood looks. I don’t want to have to worry that a neighbor will use his “freedom” to paint his house in bright pink with lime green trim. I don’t want to have multiple old vehicles covered in blue tarps, and yes, I really don’t even want my neighbors to leave their garbage cans at the curb ALL THE TIME just so they never have to actually bring them out from their side yard on garbage day. I could probably go on and on.
The flip side of this is that I give up some “freedoms” to do what I want with my house and yard. After living in my previous neighborhood, I’m okay with that. It turns out that in my old neighborhood, I was one of the houses that had good taste and improved my house drastically. My yard was well kept, the colors of my house were nice and everything was kept up. That’s when I realized that giving up the freedom to leave my garbage can out 24/7, or having to get approval for changing the paint colors on my house was okay. I haven’t had a “run in” with my HOA yet, but I’m sure I will. Sometimes the HOA can be a little bit ridiculous. Take the time that my next door neighbor got a letter because he hadn’t put his garbage cans away within the 24 hours after garbage day. (They were up next to his garage but still within “sight”.) I found that absolutely ridiculous because he keeps his house and yard up very nicely. Much nicer in fact, than most other houses in our neighborhood and probably nicer than the moron on the HOA board that turned my neighbor in. Sending that letter was just plain stupid. He always puts his cans away on time, but was out of town for a couple days and none of us neighbors thought it was a big deal to just move them up near his garage as opposed to leaving them out by the street.
So, yes. homeowners associations do carry baggage. But they also do give you a bit more leverage in helping to keep your neighbors “in check”. It’s nice to know that when a homeowner decides not to ever paint his house, or let his yard go, that someone will “keep him honest”. I fully believe that it’s worth the small amount of money I pay, and that it is drastically increasing the price of our house (more so than if we didn’t have an association)
With Freedom comes the ugly stuff as well, I would take the freedom over most anything. I’ll be hard pressed to move into an HOA and pay to be micromanaged.
#“It’s nice to know that when a homeowner decides not to ever paint his house, or let his yard go, that someone will #“keep him honestâ€.â€
How is that “keeping him honestâ€? “Gee, Joe, we’re sorry you lost your job but you haven’t painted your house in 6 years and 2 months. That’s a $200 fine. Can’t pay? Sucks to be you. We’d help but that’d just encourage more slackers like you.â€
I’ve seen an HOA ban any more backyard pools being built in a subdivision because more than a certain % of pools supposedly lowers property values. Of course all the HOA officers had pools.
I’ve also had friends receive letters for the HOA because their kids used chalk on the sidewalk in front of their own house and it didn’t get washed off the sec the kids were done.
Theses aren’t helpful to home values. It’s power tripping, the ability to force your will on to others be it to better your own position or just because you can.
As Americans, have fought wars to NOT have this kind of control placed upon us. So it’s frustrating to me when there seems to be plenty of people blindly willing to give it way. It’s like people don’t learn from history anymore.
I wasn’t for HOA when we bought our house in a suburb about 20 min. outside of the city (we drive past cow pastures and horse farms to get home). It was a nice quiet neighborhood, with a good mixture of people – retirees, families, couples, etc. It was all nice until our neighbors moved and instead of selling their house let their sister “stay” in the house. Since this woman has been here I think our home values have gone down. She got two pitbulls and has them chained in the yard, and there are always cars coming and going at all hours of the night.
I wish now that there was an ordinance against having dogs that aren’t in a fenced yard! I wouldn’t even mind a ban on certain breeds of dogs. I’m frightened now for the children in the neigborhood — if these dogs pull up their stakes, these children could be in danger.
Basically, this one woman has taken a family oriented middle-class neighborhood and brought the ghetto to it.
I guess an HOA could prevent homeowners from renting out their houses right?
I hate that I suddenly wish we lived in a more expensive, perhaps even gated, neighborhood. I hate how some inconsiderate and trashy people can make a person like me wish to “outprice” less desirable folks. I HATE feeling this way!
Even though we dont have one in my neighborhood, I wouldnt mind being in a HOA. Its basic upkeep in the neighborhood to ultimately drive up value… I think I could sacrifice a little there. Either that or it ends up like the post you mentioned about www.parkitonthelawn.com LOL
Penty,
Like I said in the post, people either love it or hate it. You obviously have some strong feelings against it. I, on the other hand, think they can be a positive thing if controlled carefully. I don’t disagree that there have been some HOA’s that have gotten out of control. Our neighborhood is small and has been very moderate on the kinds of things it enforces. I wouldn’t give up the HOA for anything, because, like I said, I think I am benefiting today, and over the long run in property values.
I still find it odd that you used the phrase “keep him honest”. What exactly is he doing that is “dishonest”?
Probably a bad choice of words. My point is that when people move in to a neighborhood like this, they sign an agreement to abide by the covenants that are imposed on the neighborhood. When they choose not to keep their houses and property up to that agreement, then there is at least some recourse for convincing them to keep it up.
Now, all that being said, I have never complained about a neighbor. I find some of the rules a little bit ridiculous, but I do like having the peace of mind that my neighbors have to follow some architectural rules if they decide to alter their home. I also like knowing that none of my neighbors will be able to store all of their vehicles, campers, boats etc all over their property.
Sure, we’ll agree to disagree.
Still I find the whole “I like being able to tell other’s what they can do with their own property” a little offensive regardless of teh side I might be on.
From Oz the whole HOA debate looks very strange – we don’t have any HOAs here (as far as I know). The nearest equivalent would be the ‘body corporate’ that enforces rules applying to a strata title buildings (apartments), or to what they call “villas” here – small 2-3 bed semidetached houses with communcal gardens, pool etc.
Normal free-standing houses on separate titles get by with just the basic rules imposed by the local government eg. max building height, approvals required to put in a swimming pool (basic building codes, not whether or not you can even have a pool!)
I find it odd that a country that loves personal freedoms so much (eg. right to bear arms being interpreted as the right to own a assault rifle!) would also have invented HOAs.