Anyone live in a neighboorhood with a home onwers association?

I live with a HOA and it's a double edged sword ... it both protects you and restricts you. Before you buy into a development with a HOA, read the rules and then decide if that's what you want to have.



If you want to be able to do whatever you want with your own property without having to get permission (eg. grow corn in your front yard :lol) then don't buy there.



If you don't want to worry about some neighbor doing something you think will lower your property value/quality of life (eg. grow corn in their front yard), then you might want to consider not buying into that type of development.
 
BobD said:
I'd never live in an area with one myself. When we were looking at new homes we found one we liked but it had a HOA. We didn't buy it. Years latter friends of our moved in and there is no more HOA. I think that was hurting their sales.
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In my experience, that depends on where you live. My subdivision in Westland, MI has a HOA, and we can't get rid of it under any circumstance. When the property was first developed fifteen years ago, the only way the state and the feds would sign off on developing it was to to tieing responsibility for four storm water retention ponds, th e parts of the storm sewers that run though all our backyards, and three green belts to the deeds of all125 homes. The only way to properly "share" that responsibility is through an HOA. When we came close to allowing the HOA to lapse, and tried sticking the city with the responsibility for the pons and storm sewers, we got a nasty letter from the city, cosigned by the state Department of Environmental Quality and the federal EPA, telling us to get our act together, or all 125 of us were going to be taken to court.
 
RedlineIRL said:
Right now I am looking at homes, and I found a few that I really like. The only downside is that they are in home onwer association neighborhoods.:down From what I have always heard, home owners associations usually suck. I could maybe deal with it if they don't try to force stupid rules on me and what I can do on or to my property. Do you really have to belong to the association? It's not like they can force you to be apart of it and pay their monthly fee, or can they?



Anways, for you all that live in these kinds of neighborhoods, what kind of rules are there in placed that you cannot do to or on your property that most people find ridiculous?
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One thing you want to check for is to find out if there any environmental quality issues, either with the state or the feds, that point to all the home owners in that development sharing responsibility for meetings, like a common areas that are even part wet lands, or a storm water retention program, etc. If there is, that will be a big reason for the HOA.
 
I live in an HOA and it is fine. The neighborhood is only about 10% built out, so the developer controls the board. The rules are all reasonable enough, and though I've received a few notices, I can't complain. No busy bodies here to deal with.



If ever I question the value of my HOA, I only need to drive through the neighborhood down the street without an HOA. At least one yard on every block looks terrible, non running cars in the driveways and streets, idiots park in their yards, giant RVs are parked in driveways blocking the sidewalk, tons of houses need painting... The houses in that neighborhood have lost value since new. Mine is worth what I paid for it seven years ago, in spite of the current market and the fact that new houses are still being built.
 
I lived in an HOA neighborhood for 7 years. It was a complete nightmare. The rules were reasonable, but the people that got elected to the board were always a joke. Everyone seemed to have their own agenda. We had 500 homes in our community. At best, you might get 50 homeowners at an HOA meeting. After a while, it got to where the HOA couldn't actually enforce the rules anyways. Here's what I mean.....A resident would violate a rule. They would get, and ignore the warnings. They would then receive fines they would ignore. They would eventually have a lien put on their property, and have their property put into foreclosure (yes - that was in the closing documents in our HOA, that they could foreclose on a resident for unresolved/ignored violation notices). As the economy soured, the HOA realized they didn't want to foreclose on homeowners, and end up stuck with the homes (and required to maintain them and pay the mortgage on them) after they were foreclosed on the homeowner. Most residents figured this out, and said "screw you" when given a violation.



I sold that house last year (by the grace of God, and didn't lose any money on it). I now have a house in a community that has covenants, and no HOA. The way it works is that there are restrictions on the deed, that require a certain square footage, and certain architectural details (roof slope, etc), and prohibit certain things (recreational vehicles on the property, modulars, etc). Instead of an HOA, if a neighbor violates one of the covenants, you simply contact the township, and they address it with the homeowner in violation. In my area, they actually act very quickly to these concerns, as they are concerned about keeping our area nice, and tax values up, so they get their money. In my opinion, this works better than an "elected" group of hownowners, that may have no idea what they are doing, playing "neighborhood sheriff".
 
Thanks for the comments everyone. After some thinking, I have decided that having to deal with a HOA is just not for me. I just can't see having to pay a monthly fee just becuase of where I live and having to deal with the uncertainty and BS. Plus the fact that they can put a lien against me if I don't abide by their special rules. Forget that. I have found some more places that I have made sure this time are not in HOA neighborhoods:D
 
Where we live, it isn't a HOA, per say. We are governed by a covenance that we had to sign when building the house. There are no fees to pay, just some guide lines, such as no clothes lines, no chain link fences, no metal structures. We did have some questions on certain things, and we contacted the builder who owns the development and he permitted us to do some things that were not allowed in the covenance. As long as you get his permission, there is nothing the neighbors can do....however, if you do something and someone complains and it turns out to be in violation of the covenance, then the builder can take you to court and if it turns out not in your favor, they can make you take down whatever you put up. Some other stupid things are not being allowed to park boats on your property, no cars allowed to be parked in the driveway...all must be in a garage (which I violate terribly..lol), and a few other things. All in all, it's not too bad. The builder is a cool guy and very easy going.
 
Home Owner's Associations have their down and ups.



I live in a neighborhood that has one and let me tell you they sometimes get on your nerves, but if you obide by their rules which really aren't that bad in my neighborhood everything will be fine. There are some people who don't and the HOA will take legal action. For example this one guy owns a electrician business and runs it out of his house and has trailers and other equipment. Well they are suing him because he is not following the rules of no equipment/trailers/rv's/boats on his driveway without a permit from the HOA. All you have to do is call the president and tell him a week in advance. But he parks his trailers and vans in the street and it really does get irratating. We never have issues with them though. Like i said just follow their simple rules and you will be good. But i live in a smaller neighborhood and we all know each other. It could be different in a massive neighborhood.



Just my 2 cents



Zack
 
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