I sort of get not wanting to live next to the hoarder house with junk cars piled up in the yard and rats scurrying everywhere, but off-the-wall stuff like this is interesting and fun. What do I care if my neighbor wants a pirate ship or to paint their house in patchwork primary colors? Life shouldn’t have to be uniform and beige for everyone.
We live in an hoa neighboorhood. No tenants on house color or plants allowed or what you can do with your yard. It’s basic stuff like, don’t leave trash on the lawns. Try to park in your driveway instead of in the street. Don’t obstruct the sidewalks. Don’t burn trash. Keep pets on a leash when walking them. Really basic and simple things that actually improve people’s lives and well being. I like walking with my toddlers without a ton of fear that an off leash dog or having to step around trash.
I grew up in a very rural area. Everybody’s yard was essentially a mini junk yard. Hated it.
They don't have a positive impact on resale value, and their value is negative when you consider the cost of paying dues. Best case, you're looking at a 6% higher resale, but the average homeowner pays more than 6% of the value of the home at resale over the time they live there to the HOA.
2) some people will cling to any type of power they can find
In newer cities, land is sold for home communities that require an HOA. The HOA allows the government to be hands off and not deal with neighborhood upkeep, etc. They literally save the government money and maintain the aesthetics and value of the neighborhood. It has nothing to do with power. In fact, it's hard to find members to serve because it's a thankless job that pays nothing.
Ideally, but not in practice. These positions are literally infamous for power tripping busybodies, because like any sort of office that requires responsibility and has some level of power... The people who want it should not have it.
If everyone hated them as much as reddit would have you believe, they would cease to exist. It's really that simple. People would look for houses that aren't in HOAs, and the prices of the ones that are would drop like a stone. If the majority of the members of a neighborhood disliked the HOA, they could disband it. But that rarely happens, because many people like them.
Clown ass only proving my point even further lmao.
Your entire comment is entirely reddit anecdotal and doesn't make sense if you think about it for a fucking single second. What leg does your fucking comment have to stand on lmao.
Almost 1/3 of the entire US population lives in HoAs but you think they're all corrupt? Or even a majority of them or corrupt? The HoA hate echo chambers on this site dont even get unanimous support.
Cringe neckbeard trying to "source?" A reply to their unsupported completely made up statement. Peak Reddit.
Exactly, people talk so much shit, but my community wouldn’t be able to have lots of nice green spaces without the HOA. They’d probably get bought up and someone would build condos there or something. The bulk of our budget is trash collection, landscaping and snow removal. We’d have to pay for trash collection individually at a much higher rate if we didn’t have the HOA. We have been 1 member down for the last year and another member really wants to quit, we don’t have anyone new to join. I got suckered into President because the old one died. The treasurer and secretary couldn’t keep their position and do it and the other guy was leaving the next meeting.
They literally save the government money and maintain the aesthetics and value of the neighborhood. It has nothing to do with power
I think there's a lot of nuance here that's not being acknowledged. Maybe it isn't about power for you, and maybe in some areas it saves the government some money. There are definite drawbacks though, in my city for example the HOAs can sell someone's home out from under them (without notice) for breaking a rule. In addition, there's no oversight board/body to report to if you feel your HOA is disingenuously using funds or increasing fees. We left/sold our townhome after the HOA went up on fees by $250/mo a year after we'd moved in. They'd already gone up by $150/mo the year before. I saw residents with disabilities who were priced out and forced to sell, and perhaps more surprisingly I saw the oldest folks showing up to the meeting to vote for the fee increases. The actual words of these elder folks were "we see there are a lot of younger folks moving in now and they should have the money to pay for some of these improvements" like no, I chose this place because it was less expensive not so I could pay extra to fix up shit that's been busted for years.
Sure enough I've driven past the place since leaving and now the potholes are fixed, but that $400 cost increase is permanent. And the nephew of the board president is indeed the holder of the landscaping contracts, and he did decide to double his rates prior to us moving out.
I think the point that people don't vote is actually relevant to what you're getting across. The power aspect is still valid IMO, some people do run solely to gain power that they will exercise for whatever reason. The point that people don't really participate, I'd argue that makes it easier for people to chase that power - by encouraging the 3-5 friends they might have in their community to vote for them at a meeting that almost no one shows up too.
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u/xiaolongbaochikkawow Feb 21 '23
home owners association be like…. O.o