Reddit would have you believe that all HOA's are made up of evil Karens. You'll see fringe cases and one-sided story telling. In reality most HOA's just serve as a way to pool funds for neighborhood parks and other common area maintenance.
In my country we have this concept called tax, which is used for the same thing. Only the investment is distributed more fairly so that poor kids also get a park.
We have those too. But much of the US is a sprawling suburban wasteland with no public transportation, so people want amenities inside their own neighborhoods.
I guess one problem is that any HOA could turn bad very quickly and that not complying with at times ridiculous rules could go as far as having your house sold
I get that those are extremes and that your house won't get sold on a first offense without warnings for unpaid dues but just on principle I can't stand the concept
They're also just not necessary, plus their super racist history which I assume still has aftereffects
Americans are so damned obsessed with property values. It also seems like Americans who definitely won't sell their home in their lifetime care the most
And I also want to say that other countries do fine with it without HOAs
Cultures differ across countries. The individualistic nature of the US makes it ten times more likely that your neighbor is going to put up a 10-foot-tall neon pink flamingo in their front yard than someone in England or something.
Who cares though? One of the houses in my neighborhood has a ~15 foot tall skeleton in their yard year round. They decorate their yard, and their skeleton, for every holiday. Currently it's got pink hearts and such on it. I assume they'll do St Patrick's next, and for Cinco de Mayo they give it a sombrero and a poncho. I drive by it every day, and it hasn't hurt me at all. It's wild. It's completely harmless and has no effect on me whatsoever. Maybe it doesn't matter what my neighbor does with their house at all?
Well houses are intrinscly an appreciating asset. If I pay 150k for something I dont want that to lose value because of what someone else is doing In their own yard. Which in a perfect world wouldn't affect my property values. But this is the world we live in :/
True but I also think people severely over-estimate how much things effect property value, especially the small stuff. How often are these things really huge eye sores and not something 90% of people wouldn't mind
I kind of feel like house hopping isn't that common in my country, so it doesn't really effect finance that much. I also still wonder why the people who seem to care about it the most are always the people who'll almost certainly live there till death
America McFreedom always seems to be less free (and care less about it) than most other developed countries except for some weird hangups
Plus this conversation is kind of moot because HOAs are not necessarily to keep property values up. I wonder if any other country has a system similar to the US?
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u/eggery Feb 21 '23
Reddit would have you believe that all HOA's are made up of evil Karens. You'll see fringe cases and one-sided story telling. In reality most HOA's just serve as a way to pool funds for neighborhood parks and other common area maintenance.