What gives HOA's their authority?

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IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
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I was going to type out something massively mean here, but instead I just have a question for people who like HOAs: What caused your brain to misfire? Hard drugs? CO2 poisoning? The beatings your step dad gave you for spilling his beer?

HOAs are bad, and you will never convince me otherwise.

As far as what caused us to like HOAs, I don't think anyone "likes" HOAs. It is frankly sad that there are so many lazy assholes out there who refuse to keep their properties up and think it is their "right" to let their grass be a foot or two deep with weeds which could be mistaken for small trees. Like many other things, a few lazy jerks ruin it for everyone else.

If I decide I no longer give a crap about my yard, the beauty is that I can move 15-20 minutes away into the middle of nowhere and let my lawn overtake whatever home I buy.

I'm getting the impression that most of the people in this thread that hate HOA's are the exact kind of people that cause HOA's to exist in the first place.

I think you're probably right.
 
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Skel

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2001
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I'm getting the impression that most of the people in this thread that hate HOA's are the exact kind of people that cause HOA's to exist in the first place. I just moved from a non-HOA development to an HOA development. They're only 20 minutes apart and neither are remotely in the sticks, although the non-HOA location would generally be considered a more centralized location. The houses are larger and newer in the HOA neighborhood (~600sqft larger, 30 years newer). House prices are about the same in both neighborhoods. Both neighborhoods are serviced by the same utility companies.

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For $240k, which would you pick? I could cherry pick a lot worse examples if you want. Yes, the HOA is going to make me maintain my yard, restrict what I can put in my yard, restrict what I can do to my house, and won't let me leave disabled vehicles in the driveway. Frankly the yard restrictions (desert landscaping only, effectively) should be law in any desert area, IMO. People waste god knows how much water because they want to have a yard completely ill-suited to the climate they live in.

In exchange I don't have to drive through the ghetto to get to my house and I don't have neighbors blocking the whole street in because they have 9 cars with a 2 car driveway. Nor neighbors that have turned their house into a multi-family self storage locker.

Most of the people that I've talked to that hate HOAs have either been on the receiving end of a asshole HOA member, or have heard nothing but horror stories about them. I haven't really talked to anyone that really wants to let their property go to crap. I do have a couple of friends that live in the middle of nowhere and don't have an HOA, but that was mostly so they could blast their music and not get complaints.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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You can still have a nice house/neighbourhood without a HOA. The difference is that with a HOA you need to do everything on their terms whether or not you can even afford it or have time for it. Without a HOA you can do it how you want and when you want, instead of abiding by all the rules to make your house as cookie cutter as possible. You have more freedom.
 

IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
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You can still have a nice house/neighbourhood without a HOA. The difference is that with a HOA you need to do everything on their terms whether or not you can even afford it or have time for it. Without a HOA you can do it how you want and when you want, instead of abiding by all the rules to make your house as cookie cutter as possible. You have more freedom.

Isn't that exactly what we've been saying the entire time? If you don't like an HOA, buy elsewhere?
 
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XavierMace

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2013
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I thought he wasn’t far from Toronto?

"Not that far" is a very subjective term which seems to be directly proportional to how small of a town you live in. If memory serves I want to say he lives in Timmins, which Google says has a population of 40k and is 7 hours from Toronto and has a population density of 40 whole entire people per square mile.

You can still have a nice house/neighbourhood without a HOA. The difference is that with a HOA you need to do everything on their terms whether or not you can even afford it or have time for it. Without a HOA you can do it how you want and when you want, instead of abiding by all the rules to make your house as cookie cutter as possible. You have more freedom.

Yes, you have more freedom without an HOA. Those freedoms include the freedom to have shitty neighbors and not be able to do anything about it. An HOA is less about "cookie cutter" and more about keeping the neighborhood in the same condition as when it was built. Unfortunately that's hard to do without being specific. Say you don't want people painting their houses in neon colors. You can either give them a list of colors they can't use or give them a list of colors they can use. It's easier and simpler to give them a list of colors they can use to prevent future arguments over pink vs light red. Or say you don't want people having swimming pools so nasty they breed mosquito's and you can smell them next door.

Yes, some HOA's go overboard. But when you've lived between a house that looks like a junk yard including a truck in the driveway that literally has not been used in 25 years and a house that's had 8 different owners since you've live there, all of which have started projects and none of them finished any of them.... Suddenly having some rules and restrictions doesn't seem that bad. If you genuinely don't care that your neighbors house looks like a junk yard, more power to you, I guess. But as somebody who got asked "what's with that persons house" by every guest he had over, it grows old.

I would also say that if you can't afford to maintain your house enough to keep the HOA off your back, baring some sort of life disaster, you've probably made other bad life choices that put you in that situation. You can get a push mower for basically free off Craigslist. Beyond that it costs nothing to mow your lawn. Ditto for a pair of hedge clippers. That alone will generally keep you off the HOA's radar.
 
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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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Keep in mind he lives in the middle of no where so that may be skewing his perspective a bit.

Not really, it's no huge city like Toronto but still a city with houses, and neighbourhoods and stuff with highway access. Middle of nowhere would be like Attawapiskat or Peawanuk. You can only fly there.



We thankfully don't have HOAs here that I know of, though the city can be a bit strict with stupid rules, but still not as bad as a HOA. Like I had to pretty much build my shed in the middle of the yard due to the rules about distance from property line or house.. but at least I could actually build one, and build it how I want.

The issue with saying "don't buy in a HOA" is that in some cities you might not have a choice. Thankfully here we're safe from them, but in some cities it may not be the case. I guess if you're in a position to move you can but that's easier said than done. I do eventually want to move to a property where I have even more freedom. Like it would be awesome to build a ridiculously huge garage or workshop for example and here you can't. The limit is 108sqft, anything bigger and you need a permit.
 
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destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
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The issue with saying "don't buy in a HOA" is that in some cities you might not have a choice. Thankfully here we're safe from them, but in some cities it may not be the case. I guess if you're in a position to move you can but that's easier said than done. I do eventually want to move to a property where I have even more freedom. Like it would be awesome to build a ridiculously huge garage or workshop for example and here you can't. The limit is 108sqft, anything bigger and you need a permit.

It sounds like you are trying to extrapolate and say there must be some cities where you can't find land not managed by an HOA.
I'd say good luck finding such a place because I sure haven't heard of such.


Oh and about permits: you know you can get a permit, right? Almost everywhere has some kind of permit requirements for bigger projects. That's not some system to say you can't have one, it just means you have to go get a permit that basically requires you to conduct the business properly and safely.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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Oh and about permits: you know you can get a permit, right? Almost everywhere has some kind of permit requirements for bigger projects. That's not some system to say you can't have one, it just means you have to go get a permit that basically requires you to conduct the business properly and safely.

And they cost a percentage of the cost of the project, and then your taxes go up on top of it, so it makes the project cost prohibitive. Also opens a can of worms since they'll want to inspect everything and turn the whole thing into a burocratic nightmare. Will end up costing 3x what you originally wanted to spend. So best to find ways around it. Decks are another example, you don't need a permit if it's lower than like 2 feet off the ground. So if you want to build one higher you're better off putting in a bunch of backfill to bring it up to where you want. For mine it will be practically right on the ground so I won't have to worry. I also won't attach it to the house, I can't recall the specifics but I recall someone saying that it's best not to. Something to do with the fact that it's not considered part of the house. That's the thing with all these rules and stuff, there's often loopholes you can find, which is good.
 

destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
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And they cost a percentage of the cost of the project, and then your taxes go up on top of it, so it makes the project cost prohibitive. Also opens a can of worms since they'll want to inspect everything and turn the whole thing into a burocratic nightmare. Will end up costing 3x what you originally wanted to spend. So best to find ways around it. Decks are another example, you don't need a permit if it's lower than like 2 feet off the ground. So if you want to build one higher you're better off putting in a bunch of backfill to bring it up to where you want. For mine it will be practically right on the ground so I won't have to worry. I also won't attach it to the house, I can't recall the specifics but I recall someone saying that it's best not to. Something to do with the fact that it's not considered part of the house. That's the thing with all these rules and stuff, there's often loopholes you can find, which is good.

You make safety sound like a bad thing.

There's no way around permits and the costs that end up associated with such projects. For a damn good reason too.
 

XavierMace

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2013
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Not really, it's no huge city like Toronto but still a city with houses, and neighbourhoods and stuff with highway access. Middle of nowhere would be like Attawapiskat or Peawanuk. You can only fly there.

Having highway access doesn't make it a city. Most of the suburbs here have a higher population than your town. Tortilla Flats has highway access here. It has a population of 6. Yes, 6. The other factor (at least based off the data I can find) is your little or negative population growth. I know I mentioned this in another thread where we argued about this. The closest matching city to where you live in would be Prescott. Similar population, culture, etc. 20 times the population density as Timmins.

You make safety sound like a bad thing.

There's no way around permits and the costs that end up associated with such projects. For a damn good reason too.

I take it you haven't read any of his project threads. He's not big on doing things the right way, because that's hard.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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Has nothing to do with hardness, but cost. My shed is 2x stronger than any of those kits you can buy. Just because it's not following some arbitrary rule set and I didn't spend an arm and a leg on permits and inspections etc does not automatically make it unsafe. I've seen plenty of house fires or disasters where everything is to code. Murphy does not care one bit if something is following code or not. When shit happens, it happens. A lot of people cant understand that concept. Most people who build stuff will want to build it safe because they're the ones using it. If anything I tend to overbuild stuff. When I put in the shelves I'll be using lag bolts into the studs. It's probably not going to be to code because of some weird rule, but it will be strong enough for me to climb on them.
 

destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
28,799
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Has nothing to do with hardness, but cost. My shed is 2x stronger than any of those kits you can buy. Just because it's not following some arbitrary rule set and I didn't spend an arm and a leg on permits and inspections etc does not automatically make it unsafe. I've seen plenty of house fires or disasters where everything is to code. Murphy does not care one bit if something is following code or not. When shit happens, it happens. A lot of people cant understand that concept. Most people who build stuff will want to build it safe because they're the ones using it. If anything I tend to overbuild stuff. When I put in the shelves I'll be using lag bolts into the studs. It's probably not going to be to code because of some weird rule, but it will be strong enough for me to climb on them.

If something happens that causes damage or injury and there was something that doesn't pass code, good luck getting insurance to cover it.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,417
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If something happens that causes damage or injury and there was something that doesn't pass code, good luck getting insurance to cover it.

You're not wrong unfortunately, so much litigation crap these days and no matter what, insurance will try to find a way to not cover something so if they find some weird obscure code violation that has nothing to do with the thing that went wrong they might still not cover it. But ideally you want to make sure you never run into an issue in first place and hope it never happens. Some people like me enjoy buildings things so I do. You still have to live. Can't always live your life in fear, and think about all the "what ifs" because that is basically living in constant anxiety.

Speaking of building stuff i doubt any of the stuff this guy builds is to code or has permits, but it's probably safe and pretty awesome. https://www.youtube.com/user/colinfurze
 
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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,235
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More like the result of people who are super nosy and can't mind their own business. People should not be caring about what their neighbours are doing in their yard. I hate that governments always seem to cater to those type of petty complainers too. It's why HOAs, and ridiculous bylaws exist. Because some nosy asshole complained about something and then they make a blanket rule instead of telling the person to mind their own damn business. If someone wants to collect old cars or old toilets and grow plants in them, or not mow their lawn, that should be their right. Others should also have the right to point and laugh at how bad it looks, but they should not have the right to force them to change it.
Except in the real world, no body else wants to look at that shit and it kills home values. Not to mention the Broken Window Theory, which is definitely true in neighborhoods. The value of a good HOA is very apparent where I live, there are neighborhoods with functional HOAs and some with none that were built at the same time to the same standards. The HOA houses are now worth 20-30% more just down the street. I don't want to look at my neighbors 4' tall grass, that attracts snakes and rodents. If you want to live in a pitted out shithole, there are plenty of places to live in town without driving down the property value of people that actually care about their homes and property values.

You are also acting like every HOA is the same as the most strict Townhouse HOA you've ever heard of. Most neighborhood HOAs that have houses on normal lots and don't provide lawn maintenance are much less strict.
 
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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,235
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This is very much not true. The first thing a home buyer sees is the neighborhood the home is located in. You better believe every one of those buyers is making a judgement if they want to live in that neighborhood as the drive to the home. If there are a ton of broken down cars, Air Force flags waving, a trailer parked in the side of it, and whatnot a buyer is going to keep going.. unless they want to live in that type of place.
This. I have skipped looking at many homes after driving through the neighborhood. A well kept neighborhood is one of the most important things for me.
 
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13Gigatons

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2005
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I'm getting the impression that most of the people in this thread that hate HOA's are the exact kind of people that cause HOA's to exist in the first place. I just moved from a non-HOA development to an HOA development. They're only 20 minutes apart and neither are remotely in the sticks, although the non-HOA location would generally be considered a more centralized location. The houses are larger and newer in the HOA neighborhood (~600sqft larger, 30 years newer). House prices are about the same in both neighborhoods. Both neighborhoods are serviced by the same utility companies.

20180702125057-df319c54-me.png


20180702125052-10516bc9-me.png


For $240k, which would you pick? I could cherry pick a lot worse examples if you want. Yes, the HOA is going to make me maintain my yard, restrict what I can put in my yard, restrict what I can do to my house, and won't let me leave disabled vehicles in the driveway. Frankly the yard restrictions (desert landscaping only, effectively) should be law in any desert area, IMO. People waste god knows how much water because they want to have a yard completely ill-suited to the climate they live in.

In exchange I don't have to drive through the ghetto to get to my house and I don't have neighbors blocking the whole street in because they have 9 cars with a 2 car driveway. Nor neighbors that have turned their house into a multi-family self storage locker.

Most suburbs are well kept up here. I just don't see these bad neighborhoods that are being cherry picked. To be clear people who live in HOA area's tend to be richer and have to be to pay the fees and fines. Dictatorships are great until the dictator comes after you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association
 
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Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
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I'm getting the impression that most of the people in this thread that hate HOA's are the exact kind of people that cause HOA's to exist in the first place. I just moved from a non-HOA development to an HOA development. They're only 20 minutes apart and neither are remotely in the sticks, although the non-HOA location would generally be considered a more centralized location. The houses are larger and newer in the HOA neighborhood (~600sqft larger, 30 years newer). House prices are about the same in both neighborhoods. Both neighborhoods are serviced by the same utility companies.

20180702125057-df319c54-me.png


20180702125052-10516bc9-me.png


For $240k, which would you pick? I could cherry pick a lot worse examples if you want. Yes, the HOA is going to make me maintain my yard, restrict what I can put in my yard, restrict what I can do to my house, and won't let me leave disabled vehicles in the driveway. Frankly the yard restrictions (desert landscaping only, effectively) should be law in any desert area, IMO. People waste god knows how much water because they want to have a yard completely ill-suited to the climate they live in.

In exchange I don't have to drive through the ghetto to get to my house and I don't have neighbors blocking the whole street in because they have 9 cars with a 2 car driveway. Nor neighbors that have turned their house into a multi-family self storage locker.

I'll take the top neighborhood. They look less likely to care if I want to watch to a movie at -10dB or save money by working on my car in my driveway, or buy a locking mailbox, or a new bbq pit, or put in a deck, or leave my lawn chairs in my yard.

The bottom one probably looks like that because everybody is afraid of the Stepford wives running the HOA that drink 5 bottles of wine by 2pm, cheat on their husbands, measure plants to the MM and send nastygrams using the HOAs letterhead to the people they don't like.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
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I'll take the top neighborhood. They look less likely to care if I want to watch to a movie at -10dB or save money by working on my car in my driveway, or buy a locking mailbox, or a new bbq pit, or put in a deck, or leave my lawn chairs in my yard.

The bottom one probably looks like that because everybody is afraid of the Stepford wives running the HOA that drink 5 bottles of wine by 2pm, cheat on their husbands, measure plants to the MM and send nastygrams using the HOAs letterhead to the people they don't like.

That's kind of my thought too. While a nice clean looking road/infrastructure is nice I would not want it at the expense of freedom. In fact when it's TOO nice it almost feels institutional. People arn't really living there, they're slaving away at making sure they are following all the rules. It almost has a military like aspect to it. I want to actually enjoy life in my house/property without anyone telling me how to live.



I'm just leaving this random pic of my yard here to give pro HOA people a heart attack:



I wonder how many violations that would be in a HOA. :p
 

IndyColtsFan

Lifer
Sep 22, 2007
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That's kind of my thought too. While a nice clean looking road/infrastructure is nice I would not want it at the expense of freedom. In fact when it's TOO nice it almost feels institutional. People arn't really living there, they're slaving away at making sure they are following all the rules. It almost has a military like aspect to it. I want to actually enjoy life in my house/property without anyone telling me how to live.



I'm just leaving this random pic of my yard here to give pro HOA people a heart attack:



I wonder how many violations that would be in a HOA. :p

You’re just so incredibly naive and clueless. Seriously.
 
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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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You’re just so incredibly naive and clueless. Seriously.
???

I don't know how disagreeing with a concept makes someone naive. I don't think you know what that word means.

But I think I'm going to bail too. I did not realize there were so many pro HOA people around here. I thought Americans were all about freedom.
 
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