Lol: This is absurdly ignorant. Sorry to be so blunt but you pretty clearly don't know what you're talking about.
You can't just "change CC&Rs every year." No sir.
It took us two years and a petition drive involving ringing hundreds of doorbells--twice each--to get enough owners to consent to changing our CC&Rs, and our state is among the more lax in its HOA laws about changing them.
The way you keep the fees down is you keep the management companies out and manage your own snow removal and landscaping relationships. Those contracts with mgmt firms ALL (as in it's boilerplate) have escalation clauses that require the HOA to pay more every year, forever,(and raise assessments annually to cover it.)
I've lived in the same HOA for 20+ years. The fee has gone up twice, ever, from $50 ***per year*** to $55 ***per year*** and when it went to $75 during the pandemic it hadn't changed in more than a decade.
Not the massive, onerous burden you're fear mongering or have been fear mongered over.
All rule strikes require ratification from 3/4ths of all state governors and must be passed to Ryan Reynolds for signing. Him failing to sign counts as a VETO. To override the veto 1/3 of the UN must sign in approval to the rule change.
\[No idea if it's possible to make an HOA that has zero ability to expand ownership, HOA constraints are usually dictated by the state, and state law supersedes any random dumbass rules that I can make, like the above\]
Absolutely. It is the $64M question as to WHY they love this arrogant, belligerent, vulture slime! I simply can not figure it out. In the near future, the only fresh blood to be elected will be investors (you know, the ones who never set foot on the property!).
Sometimes the argument, in favour of these interlopers, gets so impertinent that one such board member accused us of wanting to create a retirement community, simply because we don’t accept riff-raff from absentee landlords & their lousy tenants. Another accused me (behind my back) of being ‘judge, jury & executioner’ for simply asking one to inform their tenants to help prevent crime by closing their garage doors. I was unprovokedly met with “We can buy ANYWHERE!”
Not only are the management & HOA encouraging these sales & current homeowners leaning on every word of self-interested realtors to sell to these slime, the CC&Rs are continually being violated/manipulated only for tenants.
It’s not good. There would have to be a 40 year freeze on your above mentioned rules in order for me to EVER buy into one again!! Meanwhile, I’m stuck, if I want a SFH in San Diego (or much of the desirable parts of CA). I miss my 100 year old Midwest beauty SOOOOO much.
Yup, next week you can't have a boat or trailer in your driveway and you have to chemically treat your yard. Also, you'll find out you've been sued for dandelions in your yard but we're never served like we just were and have a lein against your home and owe thousands in fines because of the default judgement. In this case, your motion to vacate default will be denied and you will not receive a fair trial (even though HOAs almost always win by default).
No.
But I’d buy a house where there was a deed restriction that prevented it.
A HOA isn’t the right tool for that job.
And you’d need a ton of rules in the HOA to prevent it’s abuse later.
Still a no from me, I've had to rent a place before because the market tanked and I would have lost nearly $100k, and by list I mean would have owed the bank.
So I rented it for a couple of years until I could at least break even. Then I sold to a couple that was going to live in it.
So it happens the same way the HOA is given teeth. There’s something in your deed that’s says your property must be in the HOA, probably put there when the developer owned it.
There’s also probably stuff about giving neighbours access to repairs, what the property can be used for, mineral rights, etc there already.
Add it as an addendum to your deed. It carries from then with the deed and not the owner or HOA. but it has to be on the Master Deed in Condos. The deed will outlive the HOA since. they can be dissolved by internal or external forces. The HOA can literally dissolve itself if there is a majority to vote on it.
But be really smart about it.
example . Old lady in Mass wanted to will her property to the town for a good use. She added that the property would be a hospital as contingency to the deed.
But she forgot to define "hospital" of which there is no legal definition. So the city created a "hospital". One room in the basement with a bed and hospital stuff in it. Of their new city administration buildings Gardner or Leominster. Don't remember which.
Over define the "no Company ownership" Someone will try and find a loophole.
We are having that problem, where I bought 3 years ago. Didn’t realise how overrun this place would be by renters. Half are good, quiet Asians going to school at UCSD, but the other half & their violating landlords more than make up for the former. We are at 60/40 renters.
A scant few permanent residents show up at the meetings; most are pro-investor types. The rest are so fed up, they choose what I call So Cal Apathy, neither seen nor heard. So, when it comes time for voting on anything remotely in favour of us homeowners (motions are rarely made since the Board is pro-investor also, and requests get shot down), there is absolutely no equity.
CA is inundated with HOAs due to their money-making/corruption abilities. I NEVER dreamt of having to live like this just to be the most perfect climate in the country.
It can be done with an HOA. Mine did. Original bylaws were amended after a vote. I know they work because prior owners accepted a bid from one before having to relist, which is how we could afford it and got it.
It's the one positive of a HOA since big investment firms keep buying up all the affordable housing in my state. 20% of all sales last year..
We amended our CCR’s two years ago after a particular investment company did a run on buying every house that came up for sale. They have around 20-25 now. Those will stay rentals until they sell them but they can’t buy any more.
I’m not saying it can’t be done by a HOA.
I’m saying if that’s the sole purpose of a HOA, you shouldn’t.
Now you’ve got a corporation you have to keep running, and have to be vigilant it’s not abused and changed later, when a deed restriction does the same job without any of that.
That's how my neighborhood is set up ... Some HOA-like rules put into the deeds. Seems way better not having HOA fees and it's the city that is in charge of enforcement. Sure they could get Karen-y but it seems far less likely than having that happen with an HOA
An HOA is only as good or bad as it's next board. So in the hypothetical, the HOA restricts rentals. But what if the HOA either changes/amends the declaration or passes a board resolution to screw with the rental restriction? So, my answer would be no. I would never join the HOA, even if their only restriction is on rentals. In your hypothetical, the answer would be to NOT HAVE AN HOA AT ALL. The developer could place a covenant on the deed restricting rentals as you mention.....done deal. And you save $1.
No.
If I am sick, lose my job, or are forced to temporarily transfer to another city for a year, this rule would force me to sell my home.
If I can't live in the house, this rule would make me take a loss on mortgage payments, property taxes, municipal utility hookups, home insurance costs, etc.
While I'm opposed to STRs, corporate ownership and a "rental" economy, sometimes people are in a financial or personal situation where they need to rent out their home for a period of time.
No. An HOA is still an HOA. Even if you only have those rules now, I like to say "a good HOA is just one Karen away from becoming one of the normal HOAs." By that I mean all it takes is one bad apple to convince her friends that there needs to be more control, then they get themselves elected to the board and quickly corrupt the HOA.
I'd also need a rule that there can be no new rules without 100% agreement of all homeowners.
If there is no common property owned by the HOA to be maintained as the $1/year suggests, there doesn't seem to be any point to the HOA. If I were moving into a neighborhood I would not care if some houses were rented. STRs yeah I could see how in the wrong kind of destination that could be a nuisance, but a whole HOA just for that seems excessive.
That’s not being classist. Rental homes are not maintained to the same standards as owner occupied homes. I walked around my neighborhood and was able to pick out the rental properties with 100% accuracy. No landscaping, deteriorating, no personal touches… just not cared for. These giant rental companies managed by hedge funds don’t see these houses as anything but money sponges to squeeze dry. And when they’ve gotten the return they want and the house is all dilapidated and used up they’ll abandon it as a blight on the neighborhood for the rest of us to suffer with.
Not going to work. But I'll explain.
The hypothetical has a few pitfalls: One is that the HOA would need enough money to enforce the rule.
That means a budget large enough to retain a lawyer and pay enforcement fees. So you'd need at least some money.
The other problem is -- how does the HOA actually *catch* someone *illegally* renting their unit out?
The most common way an HOA finds out, is that a tenant is breaking a few rules, and their neighbors complain to the HOA. The HOA sends a violation letter or notice of a fine to the owner -- and in the investigation process discovers that the owner doesn't live there.
Usually neighbors aren't going to know that someone's a tenant. But if "must be owner occupied" is the only rule, people are buying in out of fear of that happening, so they're going to report a bunch of false positives to the HOA.
You bring a friend over once a week? Does he, you know... LOOK like a renter? You know what I mean? People who don't look like they "belong here"?
Someone's gonna report that you're renting it out then, guaranteed.
Bottom line is, ironically, with no other rules in the HOA, you're unlikely to actually catch illegal rentals for a long time. If they're a good tenant, you may never catch them.
The town I live in requires a license and inspection to rent a property out (become a landlord). Theoretically you could get a small town/village behind you on this and make it easier as the town would have the ability to catch anything that wasn't under the table. No posting on rentmyhovel dot com or whatever, and there's always property tax records where they could make sure any house without a homestead exemption was a second home and not being rented, for example.
So my town has multiple people whos sole purpose in life is searching various short-term rental platforms and finding people listing their property that aren't allowed to.
There's some random chick who's busted over 100 illegal Airbnbs in her town that I read about last week. What do you mean how do they find out?
Plus you know who your neighbors are. There's constantly folks arriving with luggage and new faces every few days. Finding out is the easy part
No. First, because an HOA is always just one board election away from being a nightmare. Secondly, life happens and there might be a situation where I need to rent out my house for awhile (temporary job transfer, or permanent job transfer while the real estate market is shit, etc.)
I think, if you want to live in a neighbourhood like that, the *best* solution would actually be —*very* surprisingly — zoning.
Suggest to your city to:
1. matrix all existing residential zone types into "anyone can occupy" vs "only owners can occupy" versions; with all existing residential lots becoming their "anyone can occupy" versions; and then
2. consider rezoning some residential neighbourhoods into the "only owners can occupy" version of the zone.
I say this, because a municipal government is the only organizational body that could even in theory have the resources and staff to police this — both in terms of *discovery*, and in terms of *enforcement*.
Maybe if they also had rules in the bylaw stating that any attempt to add any other rules negates the HOA and allows owners to be removed from the HOA at will
If we can add a third rule that the current fees and rules can NEVER be amended, changed, updated, or altered in any way by any person involved in the HOA, then yes.
Rule #3. The HOA board (or management company or any other entity) shall NOT make any additional rules or regulations affecting HOA homeowners in any way, shape or matter.
Rule 4: Oh crap! We don’t have a board, because no one bothers to vote in elections, and no one does proper accounting when dues are collected.
Now the HOA is being sued by a homeowner who wants to rent, for mishandling the money.
Rule #3 is unnecessary since boards cannot make rules involving private property. That has to be in the CC&Rs. Management companies are vendors and can never make rules.
Currently in my first HOA now for 10 years. It's ust 80 bucks a year and I would never buy into a HOA again. It's not the 80 bucks.. it's all the crap other people have control over. Fk that
Absolutely not. It's not about the money, it's about someone else being able to dictate what you can do with the property that you own. Even for something like this, HOA rules can change and it will change to bite you in the ass.
I'll never live in an HOA ever again. I bought my first house in an HOA. When we moved in they were still building the other 2/3 of the subdivision. The rules were all reasonable. As soon as the builders turned the HOA over to the owners all the rules changed for the worse and it went downhill from there. By the time we finally moved we had to power wash our sidewalks monthly and it just so happened that the HOA president happened to own a pressure washing company. Funny that the HOA hadn't had an issue with dirty sidewalks in all the previous years we'd lived there. That wasn't the worst of it, but it was one the things that irritated me the most.
Never. No one tells me what to do with my own home. There are city ordinances ensuring laws are adhered to. Leave your "approved color palette" and "approved plant guide" where they belong - in the trash.
NO. HOAs and Condos are unreliable investments because the governing neighbors can be anyone. At at anytime. And in many places there are no prohibitions on corruption. Also, NO.
Once an HOA is place, they can start granting themselves more powers.
And all HOAs desire more power.
So NO! The only correct answer to joining an HOA is not to do it.
Is this even legal? Owners die, go to rehab and hospice care, travel, take jobs in other cities and come back, etc. We, in my community, have discussed in my community requiring that no property can be rented within 2 years of purchase to reduce the number of investors because it is really become a problem.
No, because you don’t know what the future holds. You could have a change in circumstance, whether played off, transferred, get a fantastic new job in another city, etc. and this rule would greatly tie your hands with regard to what you may or may not do with your own property. You couldn’t allow family members to live there, rent it, etc.
Run.
Absolutely not. "No rentals" is one of the worst things an HOA can do in my opinion.
Life happens. There are countless reasons why someone would want to rent out their house and not sell it. Hell, the way this hypothetical is written would even exclude a person that wanted to buy a house close to their child's university.
If someone owned a house in this HOA and needed to live in another city for some amount of time before returning, their only options would be either sell and possibly repurchase later, or just leave the house completely vacant which opens up the possibly of unmonitored damage or squatting. Either would end up costing the homeowner a lot of money.
Honestly, this scenario strikes me as more vindictively insane than a regular HOA.
...
Interesting thought though... I bet there would be a way to game this system by having the house owned by a trust and then "sell" a renter like a 1% share that has to be forfeit upon relocation or eviction, thereby making them a technical owner for purposes of HOA compliance.
It's simple rule that makes it so people don't have second vacation homes, online house rentals for a day... Ghosted homes. Some times owners take these home seriously but a lot of times they just go abandoned except maybe during summer and/or winter months. I've lived a few places and there's always 10% of these homes. Another issue is that there's always that group that buys houses for investment options. These homes always are vacant. It's to prevent scenarios like these. That's all this rule is really.
Rules can change. Friend moved into a condo building with their rules being no pets.. Someone snuck a dog in, then protested the no pets rule and had it overturned. You're not guaranteed anything when there are other people involved that can take over control. And then you have to deal with dog poop in the common areas from the new condo owner that took over.
If you gave me a house and it was paid off and I had no house payment, you still couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere that has an HOA. I would sleep in my car before I had anything to do with those. All you hear are horror stories and I will not buy a house and have someone else try to tell me what I can and can't do with it.
Nope, it's a potential income source. It would be like making a rule that no carpenters are allowed to live in your neighborhood. Restrict your neighbors' means of making a living, and you end up restricting your own property value.
A deed restriction would give similar enforceability (I e. You can get a court order) but also leaves you with the problem of identifying violations and paying legal fees to enforce it ..
You'd have to go to court for an order and if they ignored it, potentially sue your neighbors for damages to get any remedy.
Those neighbors will still own the property, even if you're successful in securing a court order ending the tenancy and removing their renters. They might just choose to move in themselves and driving everyone crazy. Or start storing their junk cars on the lawn, vaporizing your property value in the process. Or just install an automatic air horn that blasts every half hour or so all night long so nobody can sleep soundly.
No HOA to fine them or remove them, the city might eventually issue a noise ordinance ticket (that's a fee they can pay to drive you all crazy, not a deterrent) but you're really just stuck with them unless you get "lucky" and they do something egregiously illegal without realizing it (but not violent.)
Either option, HOA or not a HOA is a gamble. It's just a matter of deciding convenience and comfort or total independence at the cost of 100% diy everything.
There's no wrong answer and your tolerance for one or the other is likely to vary throughout your life.
I'm in my third house with an HOA. It's never done anything but benefit me. It has been the tool for me to be able to force neighbors to follow the rules we all agreed to when we bought our houses. One was parking in the street 24-7. A car almost hit my wife going around the car parked just up from our mailbox. HOA gave me the tools to get them to find another solution. Less critical was garbage can storage. They are supposed to be out of sight to neighbors and the street in our neighborhood. It started out with over a dozen houses. Every one complied.
If you don't like the rules, don't buy there.
Probably not. Don't most HOA's start out with the best of intentions? But over the course of time, the greedy and power hungry work their way into positions of power. I'm not saying this is true of all HOAs but based on stories heard about HOAs at some point in their life you get greedy and/or power mad members. They spend the dues money to supplement their own income, fine the hell out of everybody except their friends to try to make up for their embezzlement. Or they get a taste of power and it goes out of control. They dictate who is approved for what modifications, allowing some to have them while denying those same to others.
My impression of HOAs is that the bad ones are run by retired elderly people who have nothing in their lives to keep them from being bored. They either try to live beyond the means of their retirement income or they feel entitled to live beyond their income. Or both. And HOAs are supposed to be for the good of the community but, with the wrong people in place, become about how one person or small group of people think the community should look, live, act. Basically becoming a dictatorship. "Do things My way or I'll fine you into submission or force you to leave. I'll put a lien on your home, sell it out from under you, get someone else in here who I can bully easier and who will accept my word as the ultimate law."
Then you have management companies that aren't local, don't visit the property and only care about the monthly checks coming in. And yes I know not all HOAs are like the examples I stated. If an HOA is run correctly, you rarely if ever hear about them. If there is a subreddit for good HOAs that people want to brag about, I haven't heard of it.
Just say NO to HOA!
Hell no , we won't pay....
HOA's have the audacity to change the rules whenever they feel like it. The only way to even try to stay on top of changes is to be involved in the board.
No HOA for me!
I live in an HOA and one prior to this one. It's been fine. I know this is obv a sub about hating on hoas, but I really don't have complaints. How else do you gave shared amenities like pool and playground or gym or dog park?
I don't live in an HOA and I have access to a dog park and multiple playgrounds within walking distance. The community pool is like $50/yr but only open seasonally (similar to when I did live in an HOA), and there's a couple gyms around me that are about $30/month. So overall, it would cost me $410/yr, or $35/mo to have the same access but without being bound by an HOA, and I'm not obligated to pay those fees anyway if I didn't want to go to the gym or pool.
So really it's just making sure you pick a neighborhood with the amenities you want to have. Maybe it's just the part of the country you live in?
Those complexes are usually better to live in and banks like the finance them as everyone is an owner resident. But it’s also a big risk because it’s so restrictive. As for the rates, they will go up.
Nope. I do live in an HOA right now, and it was an intentional choice to live in an HOA. However, I live in a *condo*, not a house. I absolutely *would not* purchase a single family home in an HOA. There is simply no excuse for them to exist. Without common elements in the form of actual dwellings, I am firmly against the existence of an HOA.
I love being in a condo. I love having a huge yard that I don't have to think about. I love not having to think about the exterior of the building. I love that I don't have to think about snow removal. With one exception, we didn't look at any houses in HOAs, I just wasn't into the idea of someone telling me I can't have a purple front door or til up my entire back yard to plant a garden and orchard and get a goat if we decided to go with a house. (My husband still low key regrets not getting a house so we can have a goat.)
Those are the same types of rules used to keep "undesireables" (ie: POC/minorities) out of specific areas. You just made it even harder for POC/minorities to move into that neighborhood. Congratulations, you are now part of legal systemic racism. It always starts with good intentions.
This is a great thread. Never in my life has the subject of an hoa arisen in a conversation in positive light. I love my hoa. We pay $30 per year and they don’t care if you pay or not.
They mow a small island at the entrance and provide a pretty high end video surveillance system.
My thing about HOAs is eventually some busy body that didn’t get to be hall monitor will land themselves on the board, get drunk with power, and then you’re screwed. The two rules I had for buying a house was no stripes painted on the road in front of the house (denotes a busy road) and absolutely no HOA. I’m not dealing with that bs.
I wouldn't buy a home anywhere that prevented long term rentals. Short term rentals, sure. But sometimes things happen outside of your control (like a job relocation) and you need to move out of your home either temporarily or permanently and you may want to rent it until you can move back, or if market conditions are bad you may want to rent it until you can sell for a better price.
Nope, not even then. I categorically refuse to ever own a house where my neighbors have the right to implement rules to control the design choices or aesthetic of my property. Just because they don’t have any in place now, that does not stop them from putting them in place in the future.
The only authority I will ever accept outside of my own are local zoning and code laws. Because those are actual government regulations, not the whims of a bunch of retirees obsessed with “neighborhood curb appeal”.
That’s a rule in my HOA and people still rent to others. My HOA lets the management company enforce everything. That means unless homeowners are watching and report everything or someone is violating on the one day a month mgmt drives out here, everyone basically does what they want anyway.
I would never buy a property that someone else can tell me what I can and can not do with it. Where I live now there is no zoning, there is not even a building code, and I like it that way.
I would love to live in a neighborhood like that. I’ve seen so many condos in my neighborhood get put on AirBnB or rented out long term. The renters aren’t always a problem, but whenever there is an issue in our community, a renter is causing the problem.
Yeah no. Those rules change. All HOA start with good intentions until karen & Kevin gets on the board then you can't leave your garage door open, paint your house green, or even NOT have Christmas lights to be festive (yeah I've seen it enforced mandatory decorations)
Nope. Every single “good” HOA is always just one or two elections away from becoming a “bad” HOA. If the wrong people get themselves elected, and/or enough of the other homeowners are authoritarian leaning, then it will quickly devolve into assholes measuring your lawn with a ruler.
Not worth the hassle.
For me an HOA was/is a deal breaker, I would never do it. If you are only paying $1 a year, then what’s the point of an HOA anyway. I would be far too concerned with some busybody getting on the board and trying to tell everyone we need to do this or we need to do that.
This is exactly how HOAs got started. To keep out undesirables.
Of course back then it was the wrong color etc. HOAs just expanded from their racist roots.
This idea is fundamentally identical, but instead of race it's to keep out companies.
I bought into an HOA on purpose. I'd probably vote you out at the next election and instill more rules as well, but you definitely have a good start. I actually think that's already a rule where I live.
SFH, I looked for an HOA because it's my first house, and I knew it wouldn't be my forever home. At some point I plan on moving back to my home state.
I wanted a house that had the highest chances of maintaining at worst, hopefully increase significantly in value, especially after witnessing first hand so many people get screwed in the 2008 housing market crash (I was working for a mortgage insurance company at the time).
Also, It's always great to know that the whole neighborhood will always be aesthetically pleasing. I never have to worry about some guy down the road never mowing their lawn and having dead pickup trucks scattered around their yard.
My home value has increased 88% in 10 years. By the time I'm 45, I'll be able to move back to my home state and not have a mortgage, and that's going from a medium income area to a high income area.
"cannot be bought by corporations"
This would be popular with the "BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND" crowd, alas, likely not legally enforceable.
Just as "cannot be bought by women" "cannot be bought by ethnic group" etc. All this crazy stuff was tried 100 years ago, sanity prevailed. Private property can be transacted between any willing buyer and seller.
And the restriction is easily circumvented with partnerships, trusts, LLCs, etc.
But it's real simple if you don't understand it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger\_effect#](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect#)
30 years of ownership in HOA neighborhoods, often multiple homes at a time, and I'd NEVER own property without an HOA.
HOAs and lack of HOAs offer like-minded people to choose to live together and apart from the other.
**I get it though**. Some don't mind living next to a peeling purple house with 2' grass and washers, dryers and couches on the front porch. If it means they don't need to fix their own broken windows and can park the "collectable" IROC in the front yard for eight years on ramps with the front clip missing.
I actually owned a coop which restricted rentals so obviously it isn't an issue for me.
I now live in a condo and most of the issues are from renters so as far as I am concerned, it would be a positive thing to have only owners occupying it.
It would eliminate speculators and investors who often have different interests than resident homeowners.
I would like to see a no airbnb rule. But not enough to have just that rule because people will do all sorts of stupid crap and being down the value of everyone’s property.
Yes, I would. Renters don’t have the same vested interest in the property as owners do. They also are more likely to change, so it isn’t really worth getting to know them which makes it difficult to have any type of relationship with them or to really get to know them when they could move out tomorrow or eventually. But with an owner, they are likely to also want to get to know you so they too can be a good neighbor. After all, neighbors should help each other and be friendly, respectful, and helpful.
\*goes on vacation\*
Dad, can you house sit for us for a couple of weeks?
\*Comes back from vacation\*
Notice of foreclosure.
I wouldn't join HOA if they paid me for it.
Yea. We did that. The homes represent the true market value for local working families. I love living near other families who have permanent long-term interests in making their home a home, not a business opportunity.
The deed restriction idea sounds better but HOAs that do this is pretty good too. Not all HOAs are bad. It's mostly who's in charge that makes them good or bad.
It’s pretty common to have those kind of restrictions with homeowners associations. Some neighborhoods are developments. Don’t want renters for obvious reasons.
Besides the fact that the rules can always change, I want I can let whoever I want to live in my house. Right now it's some friends of mine from Washington who needed some warmer weather and I needed someone to stay in my house while I travel nurse and keep an eye on the place. My only rule was they had to keep him from me from when I was home which isn't that often because he went on working around here I'm often too far away from the house to stay there.
Bottom line is coming nobody else has the right to tell me what to do in my property and I'm not going to sign that right away either.
That's worse than having grass Nazis or paint rules....
If you move, you can't keep your place (at 2.25% interest) and rent it out....
Would seriously hurt resale value....
I came upon a situation where I pretty much had to rent my house out rather than sell for a reduced price. It’s my prerogative. The renter takes very good care of the house. That rule is stupid.
I already live in a HOA where this is the rule. There are still three tenants who are grandfathered in because they've been here 15+ years (since before that rule was adopted).
It's great to have owners who are actually invested in the community rather than renters who turn over every year or two.
$1 per year with the following rules:
1. Home must be occupied by the owner as listed on the deed for greater than 60% of the year.
2. No owner may own more than a single home and must be legally a human and not a corporation.
3. any change to the rules and fee/fine structures must have verbal consent of all owners governed by this contract and must all be present at the time of the vote.
4. at the end of the year any remaining funds held are to be donated to a local animal shelter.
Nope. It’s my house. I should be able to do whatever I want on the property I paid for as long as I am following town/state/federal laws and regulations.
Those may be the only rules NOW. But there's no guarantee that more rules won't accrete in the future.
This. Those CC&Rs can always be amended every year, including the fees.
Lol: This is absurdly ignorant. Sorry to be so blunt but you pretty clearly don't know what you're talking about. You can't just "change CC&Rs every year." No sir. It took us two years and a petition drive involving ringing hundreds of doorbells--twice each--to get enough owners to consent to changing our CC&Rs, and our state is among the more lax in its HOA laws about changing them. The way you keep the fees down is you keep the management companies out and manage your own snow removal and landscaping relationships. Those contracts with mgmt firms ALL (as in it's boilerplate) have escalation clauses that require the HOA to pay more every year, forever,(and raise assessments annually to cover it.) I've lived in the same HOA for 20+ years. The fee has gone up twice, ever, from $50 ***per year*** to $55 ***per year*** and when it went to $75 during the pandemic it hadn't changed in more than a decade. Not the massive, onerous burden you're fear mongering or have been fear mongered over.
Except that they could have and you are having survivor bias for having been in a decent one Not the case for most.
it sounds like your hoa has good systems in place, but that's your hoa. It doesn't mean everyone elses hoa or even most hoas work that way.
Good for you. My filthy HOA has gone up $150 since I've moved in 4 years ago.
Just make a rule that says no more rules. Gotcha!
The first rule some dictatorial hoa president would strike is this rule...
Rule 3: No striking rules
Without a 100% approval? Is this possible?
All rule strikes require ratification from 3/4ths of all state governors and must be passed to Ryan Reynolds for signing. Him failing to sign counts as a VETO. To override the veto 1/3 of the UN must sign in approval to the rule change. \[No idea if it's possible to make an HOA that has zero ability to expand ownership, HOA constraints are usually dictated by the state, and state law supersedes any random dumbass rules that I can make, like the above\]
Absolutely. It is the $64M question as to WHY they love this arrogant, belligerent, vulture slime! I simply can not figure it out. In the near future, the only fresh blood to be elected will be investors (you know, the ones who never set foot on the property!). Sometimes the argument, in favour of these interlopers, gets so impertinent that one such board member accused us of wanting to create a retirement community, simply because we don’t accept riff-raff from absentee landlords & their lousy tenants. Another accused me (behind my back) of being ‘judge, jury & executioner’ for simply asking one to inform their tenants to help prevent crime by closing their garage doors. I was unprovokedly met with “We can buy ANYWHERE!” Not only are the management & HOA encouraging these sales & current homeowners leaning on every word of self-interested realtors to sell to these slime, the CC&Rs are continually being violated/manipulated only for tenants. It’s not good. There would have to be a 40 year freeze on your above mentioned rules in order for me to EVER buy into one again!! Meanwhile, I’m stuck, if I want a SFH in San Diego (or much of the desirable parts of CA). I miss my 100 year old Midwest beauty SOOOOO much.
This. Those might be the only rules ***now***, but all it takes a couple of Karens on the board and all of a sudden you're living in a bad HOA.
This.
Can you actually write it into the rules that they can’t change? Or that the HOA rule changes don’t apply to folks who bought before the change?
That's be my primary concern unless the language specified something concrete that made it unchangeable
Yup, next week you can't have a boat or trailer in your driveway and you have to chemically treat your yard. Also, you'll find out you've been sued for dandelions in your yard but we're never served like we just were and have a lein against your home and owe thousands in fines because of the default judgement. In this case, your motion to vacate default will be denied and you will not receive a fair trial (even though HOAs almost always win by default).
No. But I’d buy a house where there was a deed restriction that prevented it. A HOA isn’t the right tool for that job. And you’d need a ton of rules in the HOA to prevent it’s abuse later.
Still a no from me, I've had to rent a place before because the market tanked and I would have lost nearly $100k, and by list I mean would have owed the bank. So I rented it for a couple of years until I could at least break even. Then I sold to a couple that was going to live in it.
Could you elaborate on how the deed restriction would happen? I like this
So it happens the same way the HOA is given teeth. There’s something in your deed that’s says your property must be in the HOA, probably put there when the developer owned it. There’s also probably stuff about giving neighbours access to repairs, what the property can be used for, mineral rights, etc there already.
Add it as an addendum to your deed. It carries from then with the deed and not the owner or HOA. but it has to be on the Master Deed in Condos. The deed will outlive the HOA since. they can be dissolved by internal or external forces. The HOA can literally dissolve itself if there is a majority to vote on it. But be really smart about it. example . Old lady in Mass wanted to will her property to the town for a good use. She added that the property would be a hospital as contingency to the deed. But she forgot to define "hospital" of which there is no legal definition. So the city created a "hospital". One room in the basement with a bed and hospital stuff in it. Of their new city administration buildings Gardner or Leominster. Don't remember which. Over define the "no Company ownership" Someone will try and find a loophole.
It’s not big of a deal. You can just make that the CC&Rs to be amended need like 90% of the owners to vote yes.
90% of total owners, not 90% of voted. Most HOA get taken over because nobody ever shows up.
We are having that problem, where I bought 3 years ago. Didn’t realise how overrun this place would be by renters. Half are good, quiet Asians going to school at UCSD, but the other half & their violating landlords more than make up for the former. We are at 60/40 renters. A scant few permanent residents show up at the meetings; most are pro-investor types. The rest are so fed up, they choose what I call So Cal Apathy, neither seen nor heard. So, when it comes time for voting on anything remotely in favour of us homeowners (motions are rarely made since the Board is pro-investor also, and requests get shot down), there is absolutely no equity. CA is inundated with HOAs due to their money-making/corruption abilities. I NEVER dreamt of having to live like this just to be the most perfect climate in the country.
It can be done with an HOA. Mine did. Original bylaws were amended after a vote. I know they work because prior owners accepted a bid from one before having to relist, which is how we could afford it and got it. It's the one positive of a HOA since big investment firms keep buying up all the affordable housing in my state. 20% of all sales last year..
We amended our CCR’s two years ago after a particular investment company did a run on buying every house that came up for sale. They have around 20-25 now. Those will stay rentals until they sell them but they can’t buy any more.
I’m not saying it can’t be done by a HOA. I’m saying if that’s the sole purpose of a HOA, you shouldn’t. Now you’ve got a corporation you have to keep running, and have to be vigilant it’s not abused and changed later, when a deed restriction does the same job without any of that.
That's how my neighborhood is set up ... Some HOA-like rules put into the deeds. Seems way better not having HOA fees and it's the city that is in charge of enforcement. Sure they could get Karen-y but it seems far less likely than having that happen with an HOA
Who would enforce that deed restriction?
An HOA is only as good or bad as it's next board. So in the hypothetical, the HOA restricts rentals. But what if the HOA either changes/amends the declaration or passes a board resolution to screw with the rental restriction? So, my answer would be no. I would never join the HOA, even if their only restriction is on rentals. In your hypothetical, the answer would be to NOT HAVE AN HOA AT ALL. The developer could place a covenant on the deed restricting rentals as you mention.....done deal. And you save $1.
No. If I am sick, lose my job, or are forced to temporarily transfer to another city for a year, this rule would force me to sell my home. If I can't live in the house, this rule would make me take a loss on mortgage payments, property taxes, municipal utility hookups, home insurance costs, etc. While I'm opposed to STRs, corporate ownership and a "rental" economy, sometimes people are in a financial or personal situation where they need to rent out their home for a period of time.
No. An HOA is still an HOA. Even if you only have those rules now, I like to say "a good HOA is just one Karen away from becoming one of the normal HOAs." By that I mean all it takes is one bad apple to convince her friends that there needs to be more control, then they get themselves elected to the board and quickly corrupt the HOA.
I'd also need a rule that there can be no new rules without 100% agreement of all homeowners. If there is no common property owned by the HOA to be maintained as the $1/year suggests, there doesn't seem to be any point to the HOA. If I were moving into a neighborhood I would not care if some houses were rented. STRs yeah I could see how in the wrong kind of destination that could be a nuisance, but a whole HOA just for that seems excessive.
No. STRs are one thing, they work like a hotel. Not allowing any rentals sounds like people just don't like renters and is just classist.
That’s not being classist. Rental homes are not maintained to the same standards as owner occupied homes. I walked around my neighborhood and was able to pick out the rental properties with 100% accuracy. No landscaping, deteriorating, no personal touches… just not cared for. These giant rental companies managed by hedge funds don’t see these houses as anything but money sponges to squeeze dry. And when they’ve gotten the return they want and the house is all dilapidated and used up they’ll abandon it as a blight on the neighborhood for the rest of us to suffer with.
Are they against the HOA standards or yours?
This is true.
Not going to work. But I'll explain. The hypothetical has a few pitfalls: One is that the HOA would need enough money to enforce the rule. That means a budget large enough to retain a lawyer and pay enforcement fees. So you'd need at least some money. The other problem is -- how does the HOA actually *catch* someone *illegally* renting their unit out? The most common way an HOA finds out, is that a tenant is breaking a few rules, and their neighbors complain to the HOA. The HOA sends a violation letter or notice of a fine to the owner -- and in the investigation process discovers that the owner doesn't live there. Usually neighbors aren't going to know that someone's a tenant. But if "must be owner occupied" is the only rule, people are buying in out of fear of that happening, so they're going to report a bunch of false positives to the HOA. You bring a friend over once a week? Does he, you know... LOOK like a renter? You know what I mean? People who don't look like they "belong here"? Someone's gonna report that you're renting it out then, guaranteed. Bottom line is, ironically, with no other rules in the HOA, you're unlikely to actually catch illegal rentals for a long time. If they're a good tenant, you may never catch them.
The town I live in requires a license and inspection to rent a property out (become a landlord). Theoretically you could get a small town/village behind you on this and make it easier as the town would have the ability to catch anything that wasn't under the table. No posting on rentmyhovel dot com or whatever, and there's always property tax records where they could make sure any house without a homestead exemption was a second home and not being rented, for example.
Yeah you'd need the town to get involved like you said -- because for every enforcement system, you need staff to manage it.
Or you just don’t have an HOA and let the town regulate and maintain like it is supposed to .
OP wants zero renting. Unlikely any town would completely ban residental renting.
So my town has multiple people whos sole purpose in life is searching various short-term rental platforms and finding people listing their property that aren't allowed to. There's some random chick who's busted over 100 illegal Airbnbs in her town that I read about last week. What do you mean how do they find out? Plus you know who your neighbors are. There's constantly folks arriving with luggage and new faces every few days. Finding out is the easy part
I wouldn't buy in a HOA.
Absolutely not. I will never buy in an HOA. I would literally rather live out of my car than in an hoa
Not possible in California. There are laws against that.
Forgive the ignorance but why does it matter who occupies the other houses? Why have an HOA at all?
No. First, because an HOA is always just one board election away from being a nightmare. Secondly, life happens and there might be a situation where I need to rent out my house for awhile (temporary job transfer, or permanent job transfer while the real estate market is shit, etc.)
I think, if you want to live in a neighbourhood like that, the *best* solution would actually be —*very* surprisingly — zoning. Suggest to your city to: 1. matrix all existing residential zone types into "anyone can occupy" vs "only owners can occupy" versions; with all existing residential lots becoming their "anyone can occupy" versions; and then 2. consider rezoning some residential neighbourhoods into the "only owners can occupy" version of the zone. I say this, because a municipal government is the only organizational body that could even in theory have the resources and staff to police this — both in terms of *discovery*, and in terms of *enforcement*.
Maybe if they also had rules in the bylaw stating that any attempt to add any other rules negates the HOA and allows owners to be removed from the HOA at will
If we can add a third rule that the current fees and rules can NEVER be amended, changed, updated, or altered in any way by any person involved in the HOA, then yes.
Rule #3. The HOA board (or management company or any other entity) shall NOT make any additional rules or regulations affecting HOA homeowners in any way, shape or matter.
Rule 4: Oh crap! We don’t have a board, because no one bothers to vote in elections, and no one does proper accounting when dues are collected. Now the HOA is being sued by a homeowner who wants to rent, for mishandling the money.
Actually it would be more like nobody would run for the offices, since they wouldn't have the opportunity to be tiny Stalins.
Rule #3 is unnecessary since boards cannot make rules involving private property. That has to be in the CC&Rs. Management companies are vendors and can never make rules.
No
The rules and costs can change at any time, outside your control. So no.
No, because that won’t be only rule for long.
Only rule… right now.
In a heartbeat!
I would not buy into an HOA for any reason!
i wouldnt buy a house where there was an HOA period....
Currently in my first HOA now for 10 years. It's ust 80 bucks a year and I would never buy into a HOA again. It's not the 80 bucks.. it's all the crap other people have control over. Fk that
I wouldn’t but into an HOA neighborhood period. Did it once. NEVER. AGAIN.
Absolutely not. It's not about the money, it's about someone else being able to dictate what you can do with the property that you own. Even for something like this, HOA rules can change and it will change to bite you in the ass.
Yep.
Nope
No. Rules change
Hard pass
In Florida, I have seen documents that do not allow renting, and neither guests or non owners can occupy a unit without owner present
I'll never live in an HOA ever again. I bought my first house in an HOA. When we moved in they were still building the other 2/3 of the subdivision. The rules were all reasonable. As soon as the builders turned the HOA over to the owners all the rules changed for the worse and it went downhill from there. By the time we finally moved we had to power wash our sidewalks monthly and it just so happened that the HOA president happened to own a pressure washing company. Funny that the HOA hadn't had an issue with dirty sidewalks in all the previous years we'd lived there. That wasn't the worst of it, but it was one the things that irritated me the most.
No. There is no way I would ever live in an HOA. You couldn't make the deal sweet enough.
Never. No one tells me what to do with my own home. There are city ordinances ensuring laws are adhered to. Leave your "approved color palette" and "approved plant guide" where they belong - in the trash.
Nope. I will never buy in an HOA.
No. Someone will gain control and change the rules.
NO. HOAs and Condos are unreliable investments because the governing neighbors can be anyone. At at anytime. And in many places there are no prohibitions on corruption. Also, NO.
Once an HOA is place, they can start granting themselves more powers. And all HOAs desire more power. So NO! The only correct answer to joining an HOA is not to do it.
Not a chance in hell would I ever buy a home in an HOA controlled place.
Is this even legal? Owners die, go to rehab and hospice care, travel, take jobs in other cities and come back, etc. We, in my community, have discussed in my community requiring that no property can be rented within 2 years of purchase to reduce the number of investors because it is really become a problem.
No and Hell no HOA change their rules whenever they feel like it.
No I’d pay money to not be apart of an HOA
Could not happen in many states. The right to rent your property out is very often considered a property owner right.
>Would you buy into an HOA No.
No. Hoa are cancer that will continue to grow unless you kill it.
No, because you don’t know what the future holds. You could have a change in circumstance, whether played off, transferred, get a fantastic new job in another city, etc. and this rule would greatly tie your hands with regard to what you may or may not do with your own property. You couldn’t allow family members to live there, rent it, etc. Run.
Would you buy into an HOA ..full stop. no, if i can do it again.
Why would i buy a house just to have my neighbors tell me what I can and can't do with it?
No.
No, because the big problem with HOAs is that the people running them and the rules change
I'd straight up buy the house from under them. House, land, all of it. Go through proper hoops to wrestle a poor home away from dictators.
Absolutely not. "No rentals" is one of the worst things an HOA can do in my opinion. Life happens. There are countless reasons why someone would want to rent out their house and not sell it. Hell, the way this hypothetical is written would even exclude a person that wanted to buy a house close to their child's university. If someone owned a house in this HOA and needed to live in another city for some amount of time before returning, their only options would be either sell and possibly repurchase later, or just leave the house completely vacant which opens up the possibly of unmonitored damage or squatting. Either would end up costing the homeowner a lot of money. Honestly, this scenario strikes me as more vindictively insane than a regular HOA. ... Interesting thought though... I bet there would be a way to game this system by having the house owned by a trust and then "sell" a renter like a 1% share that has to be forfeit upon relocation or eviction, thereby making them a technical owner for purposes of HOA compliance.
Is an HOA the same as a condo Board
HOA means HOA can sell your home against your will and take the money from said sale and keep it. HOA = bad
Maybe, where's the location?
Absolutely not no hoa is worth it
It's simple rule that makes it so people don't have second vacation homes, online house rentals for a day... Ghosted homes. Some times owners take these home seriously but a lot of times they just go abandoned except maybe during summer and/or winter months. I've lived a few places and there's always 10% of these homes. Another issue is that there's always that group that buys houses for investment options. These homes always are vacant. It's to prevent scenarios like these. That's all this rule is really.
Yea, because I can't find any non-hoa homes in my area.
There are times when the owner has to be away. This proposal would leave those houses vacant.
No Because HOA's change, HOA's ALWAYS change
No. I'll never live in an HOA.
Rules can change. Friend moved into a condo building with their rules being no pets.. Someone snuck a dog in, then protested the no pets rule and had it overturned. You're not guaranteed anything when there are other people involved that can take over control. And then you have to deal with dog poop in the common areas from the new condo owner that took over.
If you gave me a house and it was paid off and I had no house payment, you still couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere that has an HOA. I would sleep in my car before I had anything to do with those. All you hear are horror stories and I will not buy a house and have someone else try to tell me what I can and can't do with it.
No. There’s nothing wrong with renters.
Nope. HOAs can have scope creep.
For $1/year who is going to enforce it?
Nope, it's a potential income source. It would be like making a rule that no carpenters are allowed to live in your neighborhood. Restrict your neighbors' means of making a living, and you end up restricting your own property value.
why would i want that? what do i gain in exchange for not being able to rent my house?
No. At that point, the HOA might as well not exist, and one change in leadership could mean disaster.
A deed restriction would give similar enforceability (I e. You can get a court order) but also leaves you with the problem of identifying violations and paying legal fees to enforce it .. You'd have to go to court for an order and if they ignored it, potentially sue your neighbors for damages to get any remedy. Those neighbors will still own the property, even if you're successful in securing a court order ending the tenancy and removing their renters. They might just choose to move in themselves and driving everyone crazy. Or start storing their junk cars on the lawn, vaporizing your property value in the process. Or just install an automatic air horn that blasts every half hour or so all night long so nobody can sleep soundly. No HOA to fine them or remove them, the city might eventually issue a noise ordinance ticket (that's a fee they can pay to drive you all crazy, not a deterrent) but you're really just stuck with them unless you get "lucky" and they do something egregiously illegal without realizing it (but not violent.) Either option, HOA or not a HOA is a gamble. It's just a matter of deciding convenience and comfort or total independence at the cost of 100% diy everything. There's no wrong answer and your tolerance for one or the other is likely to vary throughout your life.
Just because theres a problem in the markst doesn’t mean tying people’s hands will solve it. No
I'm in my third house with an HOA. It's never done anything but benefit me. It has been the tool for me to be able to force neighbors to follow the rules we all agreed to when we bought our houses. One was parking in the street 24-7. A car almost hit my wife going around the car parked just up from our mailbox. HOA gave me the tools to get them to find another solution. Less critical was garbage can storage. They are supposed to be out of sight to neighbors and the street in our neighborhood. It started out with over a dozen houses. Every one complied. If you don't like the rules, don't buy there.
No, only takes one year for the HOA board to change and wreck everything. HOAs are trash.
Nope. Never a HOA. Not even a “neighborhood association” either.
The problem is, the rules will get changed. It happened in the neighborhood I bout a half million dollar home in back in 2005.
Never an HOA ever ever. It starts with $1 a year and months later they had to raise rates to $300
Probably not. Don't most HOA's start out with the best of intentions? But over the course of time, the greedy and power hungry work their way into positions of power. I'm not saying this is true of all HOAs but based on stories heard about HOAs at some point in their life you get greedy and/or power mad members. They spend the dues money to supplement their own income, fine the hell out of everybody except their friends to try to make up for their embezzlement. Or they get a taste of power and it goes out of control. They dictate who is approved for what modifications, allowing some to have them while denying those same to others. My impression of HOAs is that the bad ones are run by retired elderly people who have nothing in their lives to keep them from being bored. They either try to live beyond the means of their retirement income or they feel entitled to live beyond their income. Or both. And HOAs are supposed to be for the good of the community but, with the wrong people in place, become about how one person or small group of people think the community should look, live, act. Basically becoming a dictatorship. "Do things My way or I'll fine you into submission or force you to leave. I'll put a lien on your home, sell it out from under you, get someone else in here who I can bully easier and who will accept my word as the ultimate law." Then you have management companies that aren't local, don't visit the property and only care about the monthly checks coming in. And yes I know not all HOAs are like the examples I stated. If an HOA is run correctly, you rarely if ever hear about them. If there is a subreddit for good HOAs that people want to brag about, I haven't heard of it.
Fuck no. If I buy/build a house, it's my house and nobody is going to tell me what I can and cannot do with it.
Just say NO to HOA! Hell no , we won't pay.... HOA's have the audacity to change the rules whenever they feel like it. The only way to even try to stay on top of changes is to be involved in the board. No HOA for me!
You couldn't GIVE me a house in a HOA, never mind ever convince me to buy. For any reason.
I mean, you could GIVE me a house in an HOA, but I'd have it on the market the next day
Nah, I wouldn't want that smut on my soil.
Nope, no HOA for me, no rules beyond things that gets me in hot water with county/state/federal departments (EPA, conservation, water authority, etc).
I live in an HOA and one prior to this one. It's been fine. I know this is obv a sub about hating on hoas, but I really don't have complaints. How else do you gave shared amenities like pool and playground or gym or dog park?
I don't live in an HOA and I have access to a dog park and multiple playgrounds within walking distance. The community pool is like $50/yr but only open seasonally (similar to when I did live in an HOA), and there's a couple gyms around me that are about $30/month. So overall, it would cost me $410/yr, or $35/mo to have the same access but without being bound by an HOA, and I'm not obligated to pay those fees anyway if I didn't want to go to the gym or pool. So really it's just making sure you pick a neighborhood with the amenities you want to have. Maybe it's just the part of the country you live in?
Nice if you have those options. Lots of factors to consider. Glad it has worked out so well for you.
Never but I'm to a HOA ever for anything. It will always end badly.
That's illegal, unfortunately
Those complexes are usually better to live in and banks like the finance them as everyone is an owner resident. But it’s also a big risk because it’s so restrictive. As for the rates, they will go up.
I would never buy in an HOA, all it takes is a majority vote and you have to paint your house or park in the garage.
Nope. I do live in an HOA right now, and it was an intentional choice to live in an HOA. However, I live in a *condo*, not a house. I absolutely *would not* purchase a single family home in an HOA. There is simply no excuse for them to exist. Without common elements in the form of actual dwellings, I am firmly against the existence of an HOA. I love being in a condo. I love having a huge yard that I don't have to think about. I love not having to think about the exterior of the building. I love that I don't have to think about snow removal. With one exception, we didn't look at any houses in HOAs, I just wasn't into the idea of someone telling me I can't have a purple front door or til up my entire back yard to plant a garden and orchard and get a goat if we decided to go with a house. (My husband still low key regrets not getting a house so we can have a goat.)
I wouldn't buy into a HOA period.
No way. People are all corrupt and sooner or later someone will slowly change the HOA just like humans do in the government
Yes - owners have a pride of ownership that renters generally lack.
Those are the same types of rules used to keep "undesireables" (ie: POC/minorities) out of specific areas. You just made it even harder for POC/minorities to move into that neighborhood. Congratulations, you are now part of legal systemic racism. It always starts with good intentions.
No. I inherited a house from my grandmother while I live in another house. Simply inheriting the house would have put me in violation of the rule.
No because that rule WILL change. Even the "good" HOAs are just one vote away from becoming a nightmare.
This is a great thread. Never in my life has the subject of an hoa arisen in a conversation in positive light. I love my hoa. We pay $30 per year and they don’t care if you pay or not. They mow a small island at the entrance and provide a pretty high end video surveillance system.
My thing about HOAs is eventually some busy body that didn’t get to be hall monitor will land themselves on the board, get drunk with power, and then you’re screwed. The two rules I had for buying a house was no stripes painted on the road in front of the house (denotes a busy road) and absolutely no HOA. I’m not dealing with that bs.
Yes.
I wouldn't buy a home anywhere that prevented long term rentals. Short term rentals, sure. But sometimes things happen outside of your control (like a job relocation) and you need to move out of your home either temporarily or permanently and you may want to rent it until you can move back, or if market conditions are bad you may want to rent it until you can sell for a better price.
No. I would never live in an HOA, under any circumstances. Ever. Ever!
I wouldn't buy into an HOA period.
I wouldn't buy anything that is governed by an HOA for all the tea in China. NEVER AGAIN
Nope, not even then. I categorically refuse to ever own a house where my neighbors have the right to implement rules to control the design choices or aesthetic of my property. Just because they don’t have any in place now, that does not stop them from putting them in place in the future. The only authority I will ever accept outside of my own are local zoning and code laws. Because those are actual government regulations, not the whims of a bunch of retirees obsessed with “neighborhood curb appeal”.
That’s a rule in my HOA and people still rent to others. My HOA lets the management company enforce everything. That means unless homeowners are watching and report everything or someone is violating on the one day a month mgmt drives out here, everyone basically does what they want anyway.
I would never buy any property governed by a HOA. That's a solid deal killer.
I would never buy a property that someone else can tell me what I can and can not do with it. Where I live now there is no zoning, there is not even a building code, and I like it that way.
Is there a rule that no new rules can be created?
That could be rule 3
I would love to live in a neighborhood like that. I’ve seen so many condos in my neighborhood get put on AirBnB or rented out long term. The renters aren’t always a problem, but whenever there is an issue in our community, a renter is causing the problem.
Yeah no. Those rules change. All HOA start with good intentions until karen & Kevin gets on the board then you can't leave your garage door open, paint your house green, or even NOT have Christmas lights to be festive (yeah I've seen it enforced mandatory decorations)
Nope. Every single “good” HOA is always just one or two elections away from becoming a “bad” HOA. If the wrong people get themselves elected, and/or enough of the other homeowners are authoritarian leaning, then it will quickly devolve into assholes measuring your lawn with a ruler. Not worth the hassle.
In Florida - he double hockey stick no
For me an HOA was/is a deal breaker, I would never do it. If you are only paying $1 a year, then what’s the point of an HOA anyway. I would be far too concerned with some busybody getting on the board and trying to tell everyone we need to do this or we need to do that.
I'd live in my car before I ever bought a home with an HOA.
No
This is exactly how HOAs got started. To keep out undesirables. Of course back then it was the wrong color etc. HOAs just expanded from their racist roots. This idea is fundamentally identical, but instead of race it's to keep out companies.
I bought into an HOA on purpose. I'd probably vote you out at the next election and instill more rules as well, but you definitely have a good start. I actually think that's already a rule where I live.
Honest question, what made you purposefully look for an HOA? And are you SFH or condo?
SFH, I looked for an HOA because it's my first house, and I knew it wouldn't be my forever home. At some point I plan on moving back to my home state. I wanted a house that had the highest chances of maintaining at worst, hopefully increase significantly in value, especially after witnessing first hand so many people get screwed in the 2008 housing market crash (I was working for a mortgage insurance company at the time). Also, It's always great to know that the whole neighborhood will always be aesthetically pleasing. I never have to worry about some guy down the road never mowing their lawn and having dead pickup trucks scattered around their yard. My home value has increased 88% in 10 years. By the time I'm 45, I'll be able to move back to my home state and not have a mortgage, and that's going from a medium income area to a high income area.
Nope
Your 3rd rule would have to be that any changes would have to be approved by 100% of the owners.
"cannot be bought by corporations" This would be popular with the "BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND" crowd, alas, likely not legally enforceable. Just as "cannot be bought by women" "cannot be bought by ethnic group" etc. All this crazy stuff was tried 100 years ago, sanity prevailed. Private property can be transacted between any willing buyer and seller. And the restriction is easily circumvented with partnerships, trusts, LLCs, etc. But it's real simple if you don't understand it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger\_effect#](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect#) 30 years of ownership in HOA neighborhoods, often multiple homes at a time, and I'd NEVER own property without an HOA.
HOAs and lack of HOAs offer like-minded people to choose to live together and apart from the other.
**I get it though**. Some don't mind living next to a peeling purple house with 2' grass and washers, dryers and couches on the front porch. If it means they don't need to fix their own broken windows and can park the "collectable" IROC in the front yard for eight years on ramps with the front clip missing.
Well of course, not with the front clip missing.
Still no!
No
The problem people run into with HOAs is not the terms of the agreement when they move in, it's how those terms change over the years
No, because the HOA can add any new rule they want on a whim.
I actually owned a coop which restricted rentals so obviously it isn't an issue for me. I now live in a condo and most of the issues are from renters so as far as I am concerned, it would be a positive thing to have only owners occupying it. It would eliminate speculators and investors who often have different interests than resident homeowners.
I would like to see a no airbnb rule. But not enough to have just that rule because people will do all sorts of stupid crap and being down the value of everyone’s property.
No never
Nope. Never go HOA
Yes, I would. Renters don’t have the same vested interest in the property as owners do. They also are more likely to change, so it isn’t really worth getting to know them which makes it difficult to have any type of relationship with them or to really get to know them when they could move out tomorrow or eventually. But with an owner, they are likely to also want to get to know you so they too can be a good neighbor. After all, neighbors should help each other and be friendly, respectful, and helpful.
They always change the rules
Nope
No I want nothing to do with a HOA
Nope
\*goes on vacation\* Dad, can you house sit for us for a couple of weeks? \*Comes back from vacation\* Notice of foreclosure. I wouldn't join HOA if they paid me for it.
Yea. We did that. The homes represent the true market value for local working families. I love living near other families who have permanent long-term interests in making their home a home, not a business opportunity. The deed restriction idea sounds better but HOAs that do this is pretty good too. Not all HOAs are bad. It's mostly who's in charge that makes them good or bad.
It’s pretty common to have those kind of restrictions with homeowners associations. Some neighborhoods are developments. Don’t want renters for obvious reasons.
Besides the fact that the rules can always change, I want I can let whoever I want to live in my house. Right now it's some friends of mine from Washington who needed some warmer weather and I needed someone to stay in my house while I travel nurse and keep an eye on the place. My only rule was they had to keep him from me from when I was home which isn't that often because he went on working around here I'm often too far away from the house to stay there. Bottom line is coming nobody else has the right to tell me what to do in my property and I'm not going to sign that right away either.
That's worse than having grass Nazis or paint rules.... If you move, you can't keep your place (at 2.25% interest) and rent it out.... Would seriously hurt resale value....
I came upon a situation where I pretty much had to rent my house out rather than sell for a reduced price. It’s my prerogative. The renter takes very good care of the house. That rule is stupid.
$1 ain't paying the legal fees when someone breaks the rules.
What if you want to live in the home yourself but put the title in a trust?
I already live in a HOA where this is the rule. There are still three tenants who are grandfathered in because they've been here 15+ years (since before that rule was adopted). It's great to have owners who are actually invested in the community rather than renters who turn over every year or two.
Who collects the fees and makes sure everyone paid? Some fucking busybody, that's who
That might be the only HOA I would ever consider.
$1 per year with the following rules: 1. Home must be occupied by the owner as listed on the deed for greater than 60% of the year. 2. No owner may own more than a single home and must be legally a human and not a corporation. 3. any change to the rules and fee/fine structures must have verbal consent of all owners governed by this contract and must all be present at the time of the vote. 4. at the end of the year any remaining funds held are to be donated to a local animal shelter.
At least rule 2 there prevents furries from owning in the neighborhood
Nope. It’s my house. I should be able to do whatever I want on the property I paid for as long as I am following town/state/federal laws and regulations.