HOA property management

My experience was similar. My previous house was in a managed HOA. The pool and all common landscaping stayed clean, and they kept in contact with the county constable so that we got a daily patrol. I got a few letters of violation, most of it was unwarranted "I can see your trashcan" shit, and I'm pretty sure I know which neighbor phoned it in. Management company had the habit of just issuing the violation without verification, they never sent their own employees to the neighborhood. Usually a quick phone call straightened up that nonsense. Eventually, a friendly "who the fuck pissed in your cheerios" chat with the neighbor when I caught them at the pool made the violation letters mysteriously stop.

Really the only thing that pissed me off about being under a managed HOA was driving clear across Houston to pay the annual dues. A nice letter to the board saying they would get higher compliance if they entered this century and enabled online payments magically fixed that problem too.

So no real horror stories from me, really. It was a pleasant neighborhood and the management company mostly did their job, although they were incredibly lazy about some things. A statistic I heard during my last year of ownership was that only 43% of houses were current on their dues. 25% of houses owed greater than 5 years worth of dues. That made me feel like a sucker for paying mine on time.



Now I live in a neighborhood with no HOA. It's the best move I ever did.

 

I moved into a nice neighborhood and then the locals took over the HOA and the neighborhood went to shit. They enforced nothing. Sheds went up all over the place, fences began to deteriorate, before you know it property values went down. I may be biased but I lived in both good HOA and bad HOA. Like I said you get what you pay for. I found out the people that thought some of the rules are chicken shit are the ones that brought down the neighborhood if you let them. If it is run correctly you have monthly meetings where you can express your concerns/feelings..

 

We've gone from $38 pr mo to $52 over twenty years. The neighborhood looks good. Suburban Phoenix.

 

My "mismanagement" is constantly raising their fees with no clear explanation why. They want more & do less. They seem to always have "emergency meetings" to raise their dues that only a select few attend. They have nice fancy new trucks to drive around in doing absolutely nothing, though.

 

FWIW I've never heard of anyone looking for a house telling me they wanted a place with a HOA.

 

Kinda seems like damn near anything, right? Some shit’s going well, some not so much.

 

My experience was the hired companies tend to make expenses overrun to pad their bill. Plus they use their preferred contractors for an extra kickback. Only plus side is everything tends to be more professional and they have a lawyer ready for any major issues. The board also doesn't have to deal with 3am calls about the boiler.

 

That’s pretty interesting about the percentage of owners behind on the dues. If the board is really doing their job, all those people end up with liens eventually and that becomes a real problem when you want to sell.

I think that, generally, it’s being run just fine right now. Thus my WTF response to paying for management.

$38/month is almost exactly what we pay now. An extra $200/year or whatever it would be isn’t really the issue. I see outside management potentially making things very painful.

You must live in a large HOA if there are local management employees touring around in company trucks. That’s the kind of thing I absolutely don’t want.

The HOA already has an attorney on retainer. And doesn’t own a boiler

There’s not much to tend to after hours. Probably the most painful thing is teens getting into the pool area from time to time after hours and mucking about with the furniture. There’s a little book cubby for kids outside the clubhouse and a couple times some idiots have yanked the books out and thrown them into the pool.

There’s some real stuff to deal with too, of course. Annexation of new land, coordination with the city and with local police on certain issues, contracts for maintenance, making sure there’s enough money in the kitty for the unexpected. Drainage issues during storms. People letting vegetation grow into drainage swales.

 

I live in a long established neighborhood. As in my house was built in 1927. There are a few new buildings but most have been extensively remodeled property sells for well over 2 mil. Most of the owners have been here for decades.

A few years ago a younger family moved in. No they couldn’t buy the home, they inherited.

Now we have a neighborhood watch and they attended the meetings. But it was long before they started to complain about things like motorhomes or boats parked on private property. Perfectly legal.

Then there’s the house down the block that’s purple. It’s called the grape house. They claimed it was lowering property values. It was purple for years before they arrived. And on and on.

They started to push to form an HOA Some sheeple started to follow. It finally came down to many just going along to get along. But several of us refused.

They made threats. Told us if the others wanted one we “had” to join. Threatened legal action. That’s when old man Erskine had enough. Don’t piss off a retired judge. They drivers behind the movement must have felt like all the gods in heaven descended upon them.

The rabble moved out a couple of years later.

 

It’s interesting that you tell this story, because a friend of mine lives in a non-HOA community but wants to start one. I can’t imagine a worse situation than trying to get a bunch of people to agree to a set of covenants and by-laws after the fact, most of whom have no legal background. The way most HOAs start, sprouting from the action of a declarant/developer who owns all the property at that moment in time, is the only reasonable and same way it can happen. Imagine the bickering about permitted fence height between the family that has a 4-ft fence and the one that has a 6-ft fence.

 

Some folks just want to direct the lives of others. I can’t see any advantage of an HOA in and area if free standing homes. Condos or townhomes with necessary common areas/structures where upkeep is needed require some sort of an agreement. But things like restricting Christmas lights is over stepping. And no one should be able to tell a landowner how to use his land as long as it is within the law.

Like those companies that have popped up claiming to get you out if time shares I suspect legal firms will eventually be specializing in busting HOA’s. We can but hope.

 

Everyone in this HOA chose to join it when they bought their home or lot. No one forced it on them. Also, it’s necessary here due to a number of common areas and amenities.

There are a lot of people who like knowing there are enforceable rules in place to keep properties in the neighborhood from completely going to crap.

However, HOAs that nitpick and are run by directors who enjoy power and rule enforcement for its own sake can go very badly very quickly.

 

So we already pay tribute in the means of property taxes & school taxes to local government. Why the hell in God's green earth would anyone cede further control of "their" property to a gaggle of Karens is beyond me.

 

Mainly to finance and manage community amenities...a pool, a dock, boat ramps in some places, clubhouse, tennis courts, so on and so forth.

At least in my area, all of the nicer developments are HOAs. They seem to work reasonably well for what they’re intended to do: provide community amenities, and keep the neighborhood looking nice for everyone.

If you live on a large piece of property and the neighbors aren’t in sight, a HOA is completely useless to you.

I can only speak for mine, but the rules we have are pretty minimal and are all things I would do anyway. The Karening is non-existent. The only violation enforcement I’ve heard about involved residents getting petty with each other, the directors don’t go around looking for issues.

 

Question: How many Karens are required to make a gaggle????

 

Sounds like you need to run for the board of directors.

Also, just my $0.02 of very unhelpful commentary here: this is why I will never purchase a home in an HOA neighborhood.

 

Ha — what they need to do is have some committees to handle whatever work is becoming too much for them.

HOAs are not for everyone, I get it. There’s a community nearby, one of the oldest and richest in the area, that’s well known for having a very strict HOA. Many people won’t consider buying a home there for that reason. It’s all in what the actual covenants and by-laws are and how reasonable the board is in enforcing them.

 

Here in Arizona - my wife is on the neighborhood board - there is an available book of "rules" that explains what the state laws are concerning HOA's. It surprised me how much of their power is pure bluff! If such a thing exists in your state - get ahold of a copy and read up.

For instance, lending institutions have powerful legal assistance on tap and if they hold title to a foreclosed property - they typically tell the HOA to "go blow".

 

At one time I was the president of a condo board, similar to a HOA. Our biggest problem was getting members to participate.
So many criticized but refused th help. It was such a hassle that I sold a place I liked rather than put up with it.

 

You have HOA sheeple and regular independent folks. Neither does well in the other’s type of community. The problems arise when one of them tries to convert an area to their beliefs, usually by force or threats (Germany in the late 30’s).

If one moves into an HOA shut up and deal or move. Same goes for those moving into a free and independent area.

Note: I found a note on my Jeep this morning complaining that I shouldn’t park in front of a neighbors house because that is “their” parking space.