I've gotten nothing but benefits from living in neighborhoods with HOAs. Basic stuff like funding for landscapers to keep up the shared grassy areas along the streets, to plowing the access roads in winter time. But the main benefit has always been that it provides a legal mechanism to force everyone to maintain their yards and property. No need to drop passive-aggressive notes in a mailbox about people parking their cars on their lawns.
10/10 highly recommend
edit: apparently you guys don't like HOAs haha. Well I love them. Keeps the neighborhood from looking like a dump.
I'm happy somebody has. Except for you, I have never heard anything but nightmares from the people I know who suffer under HOAs.
My building has an HOA, and the worst I can say about is that's it's pretty boring.
> They should leave if it is really that stressful and onerous.
Easier said than done. A few people I know found that it was difficult to sell their home because the existence of an HOA scares off buyers.
I didn't write those standards, so why would I agree with them? Should I be homeless now?
Wildflowers? Generally good.
Tall grass that allows rats to thrive and spread into adjacent yards? Bad.
Most people don't want to have to go to court to battle pedantic neighbors who confuse the two.
Key word there. HOA rules exist for the sole purpose of defining a common, enforceable, agreed upon definition of "within reason".
This I will take a nuanced position on. If your kids are playing in the backyard, and it doesn't impact me at all ... perfect please enjoy life.
But I can often hear people outside, especially children screeching and yelling, over my television with all of my doors and windows shut and the air conditioner on full blast.
In those scenarios, the laughter IS adversely affecting the ability of other people to enjoy their own property.
I do feel for people who move in next to schools or public pools/playgrounds but considering how much time kids spend indoors these days I'd guess that people today have it much easier than people did in the past.
I'd much rather have to occasionally be reminded that kids are somewhere playing and having a good time than deal with a lot of the other noises that can disrupt a person's day like loud cars/motorcycles, drunk people fighting, landscapers or sirens.
I'll often upvote comments with opinions that are counter to my own, especially if they are presented in a clear, coherent, or novel way that causes me to think a bit.
It helps prevent brigading and ensures that users have a moment to adjust to the community and its general expectations before being able to participate in community moderation.
If a user cannot reach that low bar after a while, they probably aren't a particularly active or positive member of the community.
Indeed, God forbid people would like to park their cars on their property!
(And I am not a fan of HOAs personally, so I do in fact live elsewhere, but my neighbors house is also an eyesore)
So frickin noisy!!!!
You like paying extra for stuff that is normally included in your property taxes? I'm dumbfounded.
HOA is another layer of local government, I think it's great that moving is a chance to choose the government (or anarchy) that you prefer.
I've seen both - folks who are good stewards of the community's money and add to its energy, and folks who can't manage money and exhaust the community's energy on trivialities.
The single highest priority in life. Completely reasonable to give up everything else to get that.
I lived in a four unit condo buildings before and the HOA was fine, because all residents were on the board.
I now live in a more typical suburban HOA development and the HOA is very unobtrusive and only comes down on the actual problem properties (overgrown, uninhabited houses) and doesn’t do much other than handle common area upkeep. Dues are only $150 per year.
This is so good, it can be used as a textbook definition of a strawman.
