Money Matters
simplyelise
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
HOA's - worth it?
Never owned a home and not in the market, but I watch a ridiculous amount of home buying shows. We don't have much of an HOA market around my area, but if we did, I can't imagine wanting to commit to a home in an HOA.
Can anyone tell me why it's worth it? All I think about with an HOA is the extra cost and a lot of extra regulations about what you're allowed to do. I know they can include gyms and pools, etc., but is that really worth the cost?
Anyone out there want to rave about the benefits of their HOA? Would you do it again? Is it just an inevitability where you live?
Re: HOA's - worth it?
I think it just depends on the individual and what their needs/wants are.
We don't' own a house yet, but our condo has HOA/condo fees...we didn't mind them when we first started out which is why we bought a condo first, but it tends to get annoying with certain rules...When I own my OWN house, I don't want anyone having a say in anything but H and I.
I'm not sure how houses work in the HOA aspect, but I assume if your wanting to only worry about your walls-in and no outside maintenance, then an HOA is the way to go.
In my opinion, the only good thing is if you have an active and on top of it HOA. Otherwise, you're obligated to pay money to a group that does very little. This happened to us at our first home. We were the ones calling to remind the maintenance people to repair the lights, and mow the common areas, not the HOA peeps. It was annoying and we didn't even have a pool or park. Also, HOAs are only good if you have people on them who have the guts to enforce the "rules." We lived in a neighborhood where people were supposed to have their Christmas decor down by Jan. 10. Did they? Nope - not until March in some cases. Mind you, this was KY and not snowing or too cold at the time. So, there really weren't any excuses.
The only way I would ever do an HOA again is if it was a very established neighborhood with older homes. In other words, not new construction sporting an HOA as a selling point for the prospective buyers.
That said, non-condo HOAs aren't really a thing in my area since most neighborhoods are old and established. I can see the advantages in situations like hoffse described.
Hubby and I do live in an area with Hoa! we have access to a pool ( lazy river) kids dig it, gym, dock to go fishing, playgroud, tennis court, and a basketball court. we pay 130 a month and there is no cap on that. ( i really hate that). The neighborhhood is beautiful and the hoa is very expensive, they can get a little out of hand soemetimes with parking on the highway, and powerwashing your house. Other wise its not too bad.
In the past several years people had started tearing down the 1950s cape cods and replacing them with much larger homes, and the city recently passed an ordinance limiting that and requiring all additions and new construction meet scrict guidelines. I do wish they would do something though about my neighbor a few houses down who has her garden trimmed in wine bottles! Classy stuff.
There are definitely pluses and minuses. And HOAs can also vary A LOT in what they do/don't offer.
A plus is they usually force owners to maintain their properties. For condos, the HOA is usually responsible for the parking lots, the roofs, the siding. Sometimes even they include your property insurance, though not personal property or interior damage.
They have gone out of style now. But when I used to live in So. Cal. 20 years ago and the housing market was permanently on fire, MELLO-ROOS (sp?) was the name of the game. MELLO-ROOS are basically HOAs on steroids. I think they generally occur when a developer builds a housing community SO large...that it has many roads, parks, pools, and all kinds of stuff in it. Sometimes even a school. Homeowners would have to pay a hefty MELLO-ROOS fee at closing...usually 5 figures...on top of a substantial monthly fee. But you'd see real estate ads all the time that would advertise NO MELLO-ROOS...because if a house didn't have that fee attached with it, usually older homes, it was a big advantage.
I think you have to look at what is included. My sister lives in one and she can do basically whatever she wants landscaping wise. Now if she wanted to rip out her whole front lawn and just leave it dirt or cover it with rocks, there might be issues. Her HOA takes care of paying for the development sign and the landscaping of the island at the entrance to the development. They do have rules about long term trailer, RV and boat storage, but that's about it.
Now a person that I use to dog sit for, she had an HOA fee but it had no impact on the property. But it covered the cost & maintence of the mail boxes (they didn't have individual boxes, they had cluster boxes at the entrance of the developemnt, it also covered the cost of the lanscaping at the entrance. But the bigger part is that it covered the cost of maintaing some tennis courts, a park, picnic shelter and pool that the residences had access too. With where they lived, city pools aren't an option so either you have your own pool or nothing. So this development went in and they have a nice pool. Nothing too big, but it's fun.
So I think you really have to look at the HOA and what the rules are and what ammenties are included with the HOA.
OP, you mentioned home buying shows. I just remembered I watched a Property Virgins episode a number of years ago where the people were thinking about a new build construction home, but it was in a housing community that had an HOA.
I forget where in the process this happened, but at one point they needed to sign a 450 page HOA contract to move forward with the purchase...including initialing EACH page. Torturous.