HOA's

[greenteadrinker]

This has come up in a few threads now, and I'm just wondering.....

With all the "communistic/dictatorship" rules and regs; why do people want to move there?
I personally couldn't stand someone telling me I couldn't have a compost pile or native plants instead
of a lawn with all of it's flaws, i.e. chemicals, mowing, etc. Can't line dry clothes, no solar panels
allowed and on and on.
What is the attraction?
And why do people let themselves be ruled that way?
(And please don't get mad if you live in one, I'm just wondering why you do)?????

[jcoffman]

Hmmm Ok. Let me see. Here are some reasons I can think of for why my wife and I choose where we live

GREAT schools for our daughter
Lower crime rates

Thats about it... I wish I didn't have an HOA, but at least the one we chose does a lot. There are community swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball, parks, etc that are all well maintained and accessable. They also keep the area well landscaped with lots of turtle/fish ponds. Its also extemely important to add that the landscaping and ponds are all watered/replenished with well water (its a lakeside community) So no fresh water is used for irrigation.

I know I dont list many reasons for living in one, because I wasn't concerned with whether or not my community was an HOA or not. It was an area that I could afford, in a low crime area, with good schools.

[bokashiguy]

This has come up in a few threads now, and I'm just wondering.....

With all the "communistic/dictatorship" rules and regs; why do people want to move there?
I personally couldn't stand someone telling me I couldn't have a compost pile or native plants instead
of a lawn with all of it's flaws, i.e. chemicals, mowing, etc. Can't line dry clothes, no solar panels
allowed and on and on.
What is the attraction?
And why do people let themselves be ruled that way?
(And please don't get mad if you live in one, I'm just wondering why you do)?????

Good question.
Most policies seem vanity based without much regard for anything else.
I can't understand it either.



~Bokashiguy

[eugene]

With all the "communistic/dictatorship" rules and regs; why do people want to move there?

Because you don't have much choice. If you want to live in a decent neighborhood you have to be in a place that has an HOA. You choices are to stay inn the ghetto or have enough $ to drive the an hour or more from the country to work. If I didn;t move to an HOA I would have had to stay in the city with my 20 mile/30 minute commute each way or move to the country and buy some land and build a house there. I choose to buy an existing house in a suburb with an HOA and less than a mile commute to work.

[greenteadrinker]

Ok, recapping-schools, crime rates, commute time. What else?

[tigerlily78]

In my case, we bought the house from my in-laws... it is a long story and I'll save you the drama. Basically we moved here from out of state in "good faith" and there were many things about the house, the area and the HOA that were not fully disclosed to us.

Others are correct though in saying it is very difficult in some areas (mostly suburban areas I am willing to bet) to find a neighborhood that doesn't have an HOA. I would say more than 90% of the houses in my town are part of an HOA.

The only ones that don't have HOA are older homes on busy through-streets... not in a neighborhood, and usually not someplace you can let your kids ride their bikes. The other option is one of the newer private residences built back into the woods... and the land is not cheap, so the builders generally go all out and build a $500,000+ house.

Before moving here I had never heard of an HOA. Next time we move you can bet I will avoid having one unless I find one that doesn't have such restrictive covenants and isn't run by people with "Lawn OCD".

I think the idea of the HOA has some merits, but they all seem to have the same set of silly rules that urge people to buy buy buy and waste waste waste. Even when they send out notices they are usually worded in such a way that they imply a certain solution... They don't tell you what the basic issue is, but instead tell you what actions they feel are required.

When we first moved here I (and about 80 other people that same month) recieved a notice "Mailbox needs to be replaced". When I called the HOA's company that spies on us and sends out the notices, they couldn't explain to me what was wrong with my mailbox. They could only say someone of their staff had wrote down "needs new mailbox".

Well I didn't go buy a new mailbox. I repainted my current one which was not smashed or dented in any way and resealed the mailbox post. BUT I wonder how many of my neighbors recieving the same notice went out and replaced their mailboxes without second guessing it. It is so aggravating!

It seems that those people really motivated to be involved with the HOA leadership are rigid minded individuals with a very suburbanite disposition. It is all about them and what they like and what they want... it really isn't about what is best for the whole community. They know it all, so who better to lord over everyone else in the neighborhood?

The big gripe with my HOA is that they nitpick over all the little things like weeds in the yard or not edging the lawn enough times a year to make them happy... but when people are affecting the overall quality of life through their actions, they don't want to get involved. As long as the problem isn't happen in their little corner of the neighborhood, they really couldn't care less. They don't send notices to people who are reported for consistently speeding through the neighborhood, music blaring in the middle of the night, dogs barking for hours on end, pets (especially cats) being allowed to roam around loose.

To me it is more important that my neighborhood be safe for my son and a peaceful place we can come home to and relax. Last year a child was hit by a car in our neighborhood (Halloween) and this Spring we had an armed robbery take place!

Now tell me... what does the length of the grass have to do with those problems?

[GreenBob]

It must be a southern thing, not many communities around Pittsburgh have HOAs and if a community is like that, it is usually a rental property so the company that owns the place has to make the repairs. I really have not heard of HOAs in northern areas, so Tigerlily you can come up here if you want to get away from HOAs.

Actually, I wish our municipality would do more code enforcement to clean up eyesores, but most of the bad buildings are abandoned commercial properties that they seem to be afraid to deal with. But they will tell someone who owns a bad house to tear it down. The bad buildings make a bad impression but if it is an abandoned business, it just persists.

I found out that the Walt Disney's orginal plan for Epcot Center what that it would be a planned community that he designed. All people who lived there would have to rent from Walt, they were very restricted as to what they could have, unemployment was not allowed or you were kicked out of Epcot (if you were suddenly unemployed, Walt would make you work at the Magic Kingdom). Slums were not allowed. Sounds like a police state, and it sounds like it was a good idea that Epcot turned into another theme park.

[tigerlily78]

It must be a southern thing, not many communities around Pittsburgh have HOAs and if a community is like that, it is usually a rental property so the company that owns the place has to make the repairs. I really have not heard of HOAs in northern areas, so Tigerlily you can come up here if you want to get away from HOAs

Greenbob,

You may be right, though I think the subdivision and HOA situation is creeping into any area that was previously "underdeveloped" and is now part of the extended urban sprawl of a city. I used to live smack in between Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota in a nice inner-suburb. It was an older established area, not one where developers had recently thrown together 150,000 new houses in the past ten years with new no roads or infrastructure support.

To me the HOA is a way of locking people into the "same old" economic cycle... hire someone to spray and mow your yard, hire a contractor to paint your shutters because you don't own a 20 foot ladder, go get a new mailbox. Now that you wasted a bunch of money on that, you better start working more hours. Stressed out when the weekend finally rolls around? Make yourself feel better by taking the kids to the mall.

It really seems like some master psychological scheme to keep all the mice running on their wheels all the time.

[GreenBob]

[quote="tigerlily78
To me the HOA is a way of locking people into the "same old" economic cycle... hire someone to spray and mow your yard, hire a contractor to paint your shutters because you don't own a 20 foot ladder, go get a new mailbox. Now that you wasted a bunch of money on that, you better start working more hours. Stressed out when the weekend finally rolls around? Make yourself feel better by taking the kids to the mall.

It really seems like some master psychological scheme to keep all the mice running on their wheels all the time.[/quote]

The mice running on their wheels? That sounds like something Walt would have come up with. I wonder, if Epcot turned out the way Walt dreamed up would you have to spend a lot of money on the home and then have to work all those extra hours in the Magic Kingdom selling cotton candy?

It almost sounds like if you had to live in one of those communities, you would do better to live in a rental becuase then the land lord does the maintainence.

[greenteadrinker]

Pink Floyd's movie the "Wall" keeps running through my head as I read these.
"All in all, you're just another brick in the wall".
Sameness.

[lh_newbie]

I see the HOAs in the new areas as well. Technically, even though my neighborhood was built in the 70's, we have an HOA. But it's voluntary and basically says you'll keep your place picked up. It's voluntary (not mandatory), is $50 per YEAR and basically is used to pay for a couple social events each year.

[tigerlily78]

"Keeping up with the Joneses" ... See? We are all in an endless race where the wheel just keeps spinning in place. I hate the Joneses... I hope they fall and break their ankles.


"Despite all my rage... I am still just a rat in a cage."
-Smashing Pumpkins

[SoCalSolar]

Out here in CA - South Orange County specifically - it is virtually all HOAs... no choice in the matter, and they are not voluntary. My neighborhood is pretty tame on the rules. As long as you keep your house / yard maintained, and don't try to paint it in a scheme outside the approved list (sounds bad, but there are like 45 color schemes!) - you're left alone. I have a compost pile - not real big, but not small either. Probably against the rules, but I am also able to situate it sorta out-of-site so "I won't tell, if you don't tell ". One of the main reasons is this entire region of the county is all a "planned community" with parks, pools, common areas, in addition - some managed 'wild' areas as well. Basically the neighborhoods all look well maintained, are very very safe (literally some of the safest in the nation), the best schools in the state, the parks and pools are not only maintained - but upgraded with new amenities now and then, LOTS of trees continue to be planted... The area also has an "architectural commitee" that consists of neighborhood volunteers that approves physical changes - like additions, paint, hardscape, solar panel installs, etc. They typically will only ask for small preferences as the contractors in the county already know what will make it or not. Solar panels in CA cannot be denied, but they are allowed to suggest ways to make them more asthetic to the neighborhood (ie: in my area roof-top matching the roof angle are typically fine, but you usually can't have pole mounted arrays). There is a neighborhood a couple miles away that was built with all the homes having pre-installed solar panels - kinda cool.

On the other hand - up in LA county, my parent's home is in a very nice older area, but there is no HOA - and the retirement community a few blocks away does have one. Their home has wonderful properties across the street - all of them. Left and right on their side of the street are total nightmares!!! Weeds, funky or peeling paint, awkward additions, RVs in the yards, some even flat out run-down. It is essentially the right of those other property owners, as long as they don't break any city ordinances, to keep their property as they see fit... but it does affect the property value of the homes around them, causes stress among the neighbors, etc. ...the retirement community a few blocks away with an HOA actually looks better now than it did 25 years ago as it is well maintained, the trees have grown in nicely, the paint and roofs are kept up, etc. When my mom drives past the vibrant purple house on the way out of her track, she mumbles about how an HOA like mine would not have allowed it.

In any case - they have pros and cons. Luckily mine is alright. No craziness - no harassment. I have not been turned down for anything I have done to my yard or home.

[ed]

I don't think there are any "HOA's" in my state?

On New Hampshire's car plates,
. . . you will read the state's "Official" motto,
. . . "LIVE FREE OR DIE"
and our "Un-Official" motto is
. . . "HELP KEEP NH GREEN - BRING MONEY"

[greenteadrinker]

I have not been turned down for anything I have done to my yard or home.

So gardening naked would be cool?