The Need for HOAs????

The first thing I had to do when we moved into our house was fence one side of the property. I had to get the forms from the HOA Architectural Committee
and the fence guy made a drawing and they got submitted for review by the Arch committee. It had to meet the standards for the community, which it did, wrought iron. Doesn't bother me a bit.
I am SO glad to be living in a gated community and not have those darn 6 foot block walls around my back yard. The dogs DO bark more as they can see more, but, since they are inside dogs it isn't that big of a deal.

I'm going to get a patio cover built soon and will have to go through the same process as I did with the fence but it doesn't bother me.

The good FAR outweighs the bad for me.

I understand the desire to ensure the structures are compatible. Honestly, let's face it, some folks have terrible taste in lots of things. If the HOA's didn't have rules, there would be dozens of different looking fences, all sorts of colours for doors, window frames, roofs, etc. That, to me anyway, looks far more tacky and trashy that GK's trailer parks.

A community where the roofs are the same, the trim on the buildings is the same, gates and fences all match, etc., is much nicer aesthetically. I would compare it to a yard that is mowed and neat to a yard that is cluttered with rusting out vehicles.

I think HOAs get a bad rap cuz people hear of or have experience with ones that have extreme rules. I like the one that covers where I live. It only requires that houses and yards be maintained properly and that any changes to the exterior of the house get prior approval. Mostly what this does is protect the value of my property. If I were trying to sell my home and my next door neighbor's house looked like c**p, it would negatively affect the price I could get for my house.

I would never live in a place with a HOA. Granted, it might make things look nice in some ways, but no way would I have some people with nothing better to do than tell you what color your shutters must be be, that you cannot have cars under a certain year parked in the driveway, and just whatever petty little things they can come up with.
I have a friend that has a vintage 1939 Ford that he drives every day, and they told him it was an eyesore and could not be in the driveway. He is an expert car builder, worked on the ZZ Top cars for their video, and has done several episodes of Monster Garage. It is perfect, and looks like it just rolled off the showroom floor. They tried to make him buy a garage to park it in. Then they said he was not allowed to work on cars in his carport. Every week it was something. He was the first person in the neighborhood, bought the demo house, before the HOA was even put together, so he did not have to abide by it. Turns out, someone wanted to buy his house, because he bought it for a song, and they could double their money. The first thing he did was find an old car body in good condition and plant flowers in it.

HOAs have both good and bad points, but I'm really glad that the Legislature here in Colorado and Federally is starting to crack down on their stupid bylaws. There is no one in this country who could possibly have the authority to tell me not to fly my flag. No way, no how. Thankfully they have changed the law so that HOAs cannot restrict the flying of the US Flag in a reasonable manner. While I have seen some seriously hideous house colors (i.e. bright purple on one, neon green on another), most house colors aren't that bad. I absolutely hate the neighborhoods where you can't tell one house from another because they are exactly the same - same 3 or 4 colors of houses, same windows, same doors, same fences... If I'm spending hundreds of thousands for my home and the land it's on, you aren't going to tell me exactly what I can and cannot do and have on my property.

The last 3 homes that I've purchased had HOA's (including the 10 acre farmette). I didn't read the by-laws for the first home and their restrictions were just silly. For the next 2, I wouldn't bid on the house until I had a copy of the laws and read thru them. I refuse to be stuck in an area that has laws to control what I do.

HOA's can be useful, but only if they do things that maintain the value of the community, and are only enforced if someone becomes a nuisance. In my last house, the laws were enforced once: homes had to be a certain square footage in the area. When someone tried to build a very small house (amongst your typical mid-sized homes), they made them build it to the rules. Had the small house gone in, the value of the neighborhood would have gone down. The rule about 2 dogs/2 cats was laughed at by everyone living there. The woman who wrote the laws had 6 dogs and a barn full of feral cats.

Personally, I think the HOAs (at least the one here) use the money they collect for things that are not necessary. I can see them paying for a service to keep the common areas nice, but a $30,000 sign with the name of the community? Who the heck cares. I grumble every time I write that check - but there's not too many places you can live anymore without getting stuck with one.

What does HOA mean??

lol guess what, i have had a few run in with HOA.
i found a really nice place in a, Trailer Park.
hmm i guess i could post pics, but never mind.
double wide. bulit on covered deck that went around the whole thing. HAd 4 rooms bulit on to it, bulit in bookshelfs. was really nice. so i brought it.

about year after, they said blocked the cable company, then said No dish TV(cause the dish looked bad they said).

the reason was the park mangement wanted a kick back form the cable company. Which of course the cable company just laughed at. Then they banned, motorcycles. which i just laughed out.

lol so the fined me, we had several big fights. They ended up taking me to court. The end result was they had to buy the home from me to get me to leave lol

HOA means home owner's association.

I can appreciate the big things that go along with a HOA (garage and house have to match, lawn's gotta be mowed, etc.), but a friend of my dh's bought a lot in a new neighborhood one time, and decided he would put up a bird house (I think it was a bluebird house) at the edge of the woods in his backyard, to get a jumpstart on attracting the birds before the construction started. He came by his lot the next day, to find several of the neighbors gathered around his bird house, inspecting...he sold the lot asap, lol.

HOA= american version communism.

I will not be told, what, how, when, by a group of people who have nothing better to do then to sick there nose in my window.

My current neighborhood has a very simple HOA. We pay $150 a year to cover minor things like fixing the lights at the entranceway, repairing the tennis court net and swing set in the common area, and buying the chemicals in the lake to kill the fungus that grows each year. We all take turns in mowing the common areas. We do a community lake clean up once a year. Last year I raked out new sand for the beach. Our HOA laws are 2 pages long. I wouldn't have bought here if it was any different.

At the last annual meeting, we all voted on things like buying a new light fixture, not to exceed $50 for the entranceway, and a new tennis court net, not to exceed $200. Then people volunteer to get the work done. We have all of 18 homes in our subdivision. This is the way that HOA's should work.

Amen, brother!

And in my experience and the experiences of the people I know that is how they work. Some HOAs do have rules that any sensible person would find ridiculous but in my experience the people who have problems with their HOAs are the exactly the people the HOAs are meant to deal with. That is, people who don't maintain their property to a minimum standard.

I wouldn't buy in a subdivision that didn't have an HOA. I would also be sure to read the rules before I buy to be sure there is nothing objectionable in them.

That's more like what our condo was like and from my understanding most of the condo orgs here in Canada, at least the ones me or my friends have been involved in.

You may have a good point there. I cannot see why keeping things clean, simple, aesthetically appealing would be a problem. I also wouldn't want the value of my property to go down because someone painted their front door and house trim in purple, puke green or some such colour. I'm sure there are some that go overboard but that may well just be the current board of directors and will change with member change.

And my experience has been that usually it's the folks that don't like rules of any kind that have the most problem with this sort of thing and that's not a negative comment - just a fact of life. For those folks this definitely is NOT the way to go. That's when a nice private house in the country is the way to do it.

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i think there are a lot of 'mini monarchs' who enjoy having the power to tell others what they can & can't do... & that's the type that is most interested in sitting on these boards. normal people simply don't have the time/energy to waste. but my brother's problems are not from regular-type stuff - they got EXTREMELY picky about very minor details. i think they thought if they were obnoxious enough, he & his 'pushy wife' would sell & move.
well, i definitely fit into that category - i hate rules! i live in town, but in an older home/neighborhood - nobody's place looks alike!

If one wants changes then they must take the time to get involved. If one doesn't bother going out to vote, then IMO they have no reason/excuse for badmouthing the person who got elected. I'm not trying to be confrontational here nor am I judging. I just honestly believe that if you want things to change you must be willing to put yourself out there to help make them change, not just sit back and complain about the ones that are out there trying to make something happen. I also think there are 2 sides to every story and maybe your brother and his wife were pushing some buttons - I don't know if that were the case, but it's something to consider. Ask any marriage counsellor and they'll tell you how both parties can blame the other party even though they are both at blame.

I love areas where not all the houses look the same and because I also live in a smaller community outside the big city, none of our houses are alike. I like it but I also liked our townhouse complex when our daughter was younger. I think our community was quite different than what you US folks describe though. We never had to mow our own lawns or do snow removal or roofing or painting at all. That was all taken care of by the condo fees. We also had a community centre with a swimming pool for our community.

That's how condominiums are here (the US) too. When people talk about doing maintenance on their homes themselves, they are talking about free standing houses.

So I'm comparing apples and oranges. Sorry about that. Just my ignorance of what you folks were actually discussing.

Actually, condo associations and HOAs are much alike. It's just that condo associations are responsible for more, like the upkeep of the exterior of the condos. Both types of associations are responsible for upkeep of community areas (pool, tennis courts) and for making sure people don't do anything to make their house an eyesore.

The only reason for HOAs would be to prevent rental "homes" to be build in your neighborhood. In my neighborhood this guy drained a wetland and built 2 "houses" that are smaller then my apartment. These "homes" which he tried to sell for nearly $200,000 and they are only 850 sq ft!! Then he blamed the neighborhood for them not selling! That is really the only reason why you may want one.

Mine has a limit on the amount of all livestock and the bigger animals, which IMO is a good thing! Lots range from an acre and some over. They don't limit dogs or cats. There was an animal rescuer who had a lot on my street (recently moved). Other than that, it is just a bunch of letters, like make sure you trim the grass around this and this or don't leave kid toys in your front yard, and other fun little tidbits

I have no problem with maintaining a nice looking home and yard but I'll be damned if I'm going to allow some butthole to tell me what color shutters I can have or whether or not I can paint my house a certain color or put in a bird feeder or a pond (etc). As far as I'm concerned it's my property and he/she/they need to get a life.

yea that

From my (limited) experience, it seems like the older or smaller HOAs are much more pertinent to what the residents in general want, and the newer ones are more like the military regimes. My father's neighborhood, where they bought a newly built home in 1973, has an HOA that maintains the streets, street signs, street lights and has a picnic once a year for all the residents. I think their fees are something like $125/year. They don't have the stupid bylaws about having to approve house colors, no flying flags, not allowing more than # cars in front of your home, etc. OK, it's not the classiest neighborhood in the world, but it's still pretty nice after 35 years. They bought their home for something like $27,000 (which was a lot in 1973) and it's worth close to $200,000 now. Sure, there's a couple homes that lack in the upkeep department and look a little more run down than others, and there's one whose owners are VW Bug afficionados and always have 2-3 they are working on in various state of repair. But seriously, if that bothers you you deserve the HOA regime that will also cost you $500/month (or more) that will tell you how high your flagpole can be, and what color of shutters are required, and exactly which window company (and style) you can use.

Our townhome HOA is $140/month, but considering they maintain all exterior aspects of the neighborhood (of the buildings, the lawn and landscaping, parking lots, street lights, signage), I don't mind paying that. The only thing I don't really like is their rules on outdoor Christmas lights (they say you can only have them up for 30 days total...which a lot of people ignore), and the pet limit (3 total, 35 pound max - which is also blatently ignored, but I understand why it's there). I can live with everything else. But we sure did pour over the HOA bylaws before deciding to purchase!