HOAs just like unions and governments are as good as the people that involve themselves in them and the less people represented in the democracy the more power you have in it so if you're not happy then get involved.
In my experience the people that “involve” themselves are raging clowns with superiority complexes.
And they have control because they don't have opposition from people who aren't like them... Welcome to politics, it's the same thing at all levels. Get involved or shut up. You don't vote? Then you agree with whatever the people who do decided.
Or just don't agree, and get a house that's not part of an HOA. With individual houses at least, you can realistically opt out of a system where the 51% of Karens accept management company bribes.
Wrong. Most areas with an HOA require membership to purchase the home.
Oh, look at that, most good areas have HOAs.
You didn't understand what they said... You're free to purchase a house somewhere where there's no HOA if you disagree with HOAs and don't want to get involved in them. That's how you have the freedom to opt out.
In the US these homes are increasingly rare. Pretty much any neighborhood built since the 70s comes with HOA bullshit attached
74% of the housing market doesn't have an HOA in the USA, worst case put pressure on the higher level of government to get them regulated, it's a US issue, you don't see that anywhere else.
I understand their point, it's just a bad one. So much of where we live depends on job, educational, financial, and familial circumstances that it's just outright ludicrous to pretend HOAs are the only factor to consider for a home purchase. Or even an important one.
Especially when so much of what makes them frustrating to deal with is created by bad HOA members, not even necessarily the contract itself. You will not know it's a problem until it becomes one, in all likelihood.
Yes, you are technically free to not buy into a HOA neighborhood, like you're also free to deliberately send your kid to a shitty school as you live in a van.
Three quarters of US citizens live somewhere without an HOA, doesn't seem so hard not to have to deal with one and if you do, as I already mentioned, just get involved and improve things and if that doesn't fix it then get involved at a higher level. HOAs are a US issue only, get them regulated.
So you believe the working class is america is under represented because less working class members vote than the rich voters? "Welcome to politics, it's the same thing at all levels" That just isn't how it works is it?
Home owners associations are more accessible to those with more money and more time. Seems familiar doesn't it.
Well, yes. Less working class people vote (as a percentage) than rich people.
Also the rich people help run ads telling the working class who to vote for. And that works often enough to be effective.
"Well, yes. Less working class people vote (as a percentage) than rich people."
So your answer was no.
So now lets get into the President. Vice President, Treasurer, Member at Large, and Secretary postions.
They have the ability (as the board) to vote on a matter without the "populous" being present or having a vote.
An HOA can be okay, but can take advantage of situations really quickly. Not to mention hold grudges over things for years.
No, I believe that if there's only 20 owners that are involved and you jump in you're 1 out of 21 voices instead of 1 out of millions of voices so your opinion has more weight to it.
Exactly. You don't hear about good HOAs because the people who live in them have no reason to discuss it.
True in theory, and while I realize that this is purely anecdotal, in my experience as a contractor, HOAs are invariably a giant pain in the ass to deal with.
What you want as a contractor is a professional property management company that's used to dealing with construction contractors and is familiar with industry standards and basic reality.
Fortunately I don't work in residential construction anymore.
I kinda agree with you. In theory, they definitely are. But at the same time, in practice, the already bad reputation of HOAs seems to attract the worst kind of people. It's a political position and suffers just like any other political position. The kinds of people who'd be best at it often don't want to do it because it's toxic.
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While in USA Karens are relatively yong, in post-Soviet countries they are...
A group of them called Grannys Near Entrance or Grannyguards
The younger babushkas (60-70) run flat associations (HOAs for blocks of flats) in my country. Very strict about what you can put on your door, mailbox etc.
But if they see you pissing in a corner, the entire street knows before you zip your pants
Unless you ever park it in an unapproved place. They hold grudges for very long.
They use trusty old lady bikes and would have no use for yours unless they have grandkids. More likely, they will just “readjust” the brakes.
That reminds me, I used to think getting that haircut would make me look all cool and badass.
I really don't know what I was thinking.
We don't have them in Australia that I'm aware of, but they do sound atrocious. What happened to that land of the free?
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What happened to that land of the free?
TL;DR: racism and segregation.
https://www.homestratosphere.com/homeowners-associations-ugly-history/
My HOA only has rules for weeds and not blocking sidewalks with cars. I thought I was going to hate it, but honestly it keeps things nice. In my last neighborhood so many assholes would have boats and RVs literally parked on the sidewalk.
There are typically city ordinances that cover blocking the sidewalk / abandoning vehicles.
Unenforced City ordinances in my experience. That being said I've never had a HOA so I can't speak to their efficacy.
I'd imagine it's hand in hand with NIMBY's which can just fuck right the hell off.
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Not blocking sidewalks with cars? It's just illegal here.
And weeds kinda too, but only Sosnovsky Hogweed is enforced.
My dad lived in a great one. Had a community pool, event center, tennis court, and a well maintained park/playground.
The only time my parents heard from the HOA was when they put a bench in the front yard, but that was just a letter saying, "Hey, the bench is cool, but please let us know beforehand next time."
They're basically just groups that are supposed to help prevent one person tanking everyone's property value by letting their home go to shit.
The problem is that typically the only people who get involved in them are retired busy bodies who want to assert what little power they have. Good ones too exist, though.
Yeah. The idea of what is bad for properties values is extremely subjective and some people take it to such extremes as to not let there ever be something they don't like.
Eg, houses can only be painted a very select few shades. Lawns have to be trimmed short and even a short vacation could get you a fine. Cars can't be parked on driveways overnight. You must have at least 3 flower beds of a minimum size. Trash bins can only be brought out in the morning and not the night before. Etc etc. Anything you can imagine a cranky neighborhood complaining about, some HOA probably has a rule for.
There's lots of common sense rules you could have. It's easy to picture a stereotypical crack den that you wouldn't want in your neighbourhood. But there's also a lot of people whose idea of a good neighborhood is cookie cutter white suburbia with no personality. If you try to have anything else, they'll fine you. If you try and fight the fines, you risk losing your house cause you can bet they'll try to make you pay any legal fees and they can probably get a lien on your house.
If a law isn't enforced, then it's not illegal. Most cities don't have the budget to hire enough people to enforce the municipal code, which is where HOAs step in.
...groups that are supposed to help prevent one person tanking everyone’s property value by...
By being black. Or otherwise a minority.
No, a redneck with a car on cinder blocks in their front yard will tank property values way more than a black person living in the neighborhood.
We do have them in the Czech Republic but only in blocks of flats, not neighborhoods.
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I'm not from CR, but I think you thought about wrong type of HOA. Closest thing to american HOAs in Europe I think Gardening Association or something like this. Google translate says it's Zahradní Komunita, yandex says Zahradní Kamarádství.
I speak English perfectly, no need for terrible translators (Yandex literally wrote “Garden Friendship” – the correct one is zahrádkářský spolek, DeepL is pretty close).
I think we used to have these “gardeners’ clubs”, the writer Bohumil Hrabal (look up some Menzel films based on his books) referenced his, called Zahrádkáři Kersku (Gardeners of Kersko) in Slavnosti sněženek. However, it was voluntary and more of a cooperation club where members shared produce, seeds and experience, rather than having to follow aesthetic rules (besides peer pressure). I don't think we have those anymore, the culture is way more individualistic; also, Kersko is a village of recreational homes. We don't really have suburbs: single family homes have fences around their gardens and nobody cares what you have behind one.
On the other hand, most blocks of flats have a bytové družstvo (Flat Collective) with mandatory membership. These are quite strict, usually run by old women that have lived there for decades and they operate like HOAs: they dictate where you can park your car or bike and what you can hang on your door, you must go through them to change a doorbell nameplate, they facilitate repairs of shared equipment, collect fees if you rent the flat to someome else etc.
They’re basically stratas and body corporations in Australia, except the laws basically make them not as powerful as HOAs
They are far from ubiquitous here. You'll typically find HOAs in new housing developments.
Most (single family) homes in the US leave the owner beholden only to governments. Some places are "unincorporated" and don't even have a municipal government at all.
HOAs exist to serve a specific subset of the population who want to own a single family home but lack the ability or willingness to do major maintenance.
My best friend just bought an HOA home against my advice, but he's terrified of doing anything with tools despite my offers to teach him. Of the dozen or so friends and family members I know who bought a home in the past decade he is the only one who was not actively repulsed by the idea of buying a home with an HOA.
What? This is completely wrong. HOAs do not maintain your home for you, that's wild that you think that's the reason for HOAs. I live in an HOA and they don't do anything besides make sure everyone's house is presentable (like no missing fence pickets) and upkeep the HOA center + pool.
It’s for the opposite of what that person said. It’s for the people who also want their neighbors to maintain their property. Whether that’s through hiring contractors or doing it themselves.
many towns pretty much require builders to make them so they don't have to pay for the local infrastructure like roads and fire hydrants and they can require flood management and such.
I own a home in an unincorporated area that also has an HOA, but ours is only for 3 things:
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Yearly fire inspections (California)
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Negotiating with the local trash company for service cost
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Negotiating with the local propane company for lower cost
My super anti-government neighbors are still working to dissolve it, but it doesn't even have any rules that aren't "see county laws and fire code", they just don't like the $50/year fee
I'm aware my experience isn't the norm, though
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Some places are “unincorporated” and don’t even have a municipal government at all.
The way you phrased that sort of implies municipal-government things just don't get done in unincorporated places, but that's not the case. Instead, it's just that the county government handles everything directly. And of course, everywhere in the US is part of a county. (Except Louisiana, I guess, where they're called "parishes" instead. And maybe Native American reservations too, IDK?)
HOAs exist to serve a specific subset of the population who want to own a single family home but lack the ability or willingness to do major maintenance.
There are two major purposes of HOAs:
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To handle maintenance of shared or collectively-owned property, such as exteriors and common areas of condominium buildings, neighborhood swimming pools, private streets, etc.
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As the last tactic of segregation: once de-jure segregation was abolished (1917), property owners switched to using racist CC&Rs (deed restrictions) to keep out minorities. The first HOAs (at least for single-family house neighborhoods with little or no shared property) were created to enforce those restrictions. Even after those were ruled unenforceable (1948), HOAs remained popular as a means of creating ostensibly non-racist rules and then selectively enforcing them to harass non-white residents.
And I hate to break it to some of the folks in this thread who think their HOA is innocuous and is just there to make sure everybody's single-family house is presentable: if it isn't reason #1, then it is reason #2. You were just too innocent to realize it.
There's actually a #3 that has become common in the last ~20 years: provide the developer with a continuing revenue stream via HOA fees.
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Local governments encouraging them in order to shirk their responsibilities (e.g. they don't have to maintain the street if it's private), as @HubertManne mentioned, is also recently a thing.
Still, those reasons are both very new, and thus don't apply to the vast majority of HOAs.
The word "homeowner" contains the word "meow" in it; now you can't read "homeowner" in any other way.
I read somewhere else another suggestion for a name which was brilliant: Klanned Karenhood
I'm not in any way familiar with HOA's but... in my mind they should be filled with at least a proprotion of bored boomers.
Karen's can be boomers, but can they be male?
American crime writer, Karin Slaughter, threw a cute little Easter Egg into one of her books. One of the busybody residents in an upscale neighborhood is named Alison Hendrickson.
Wow now we finally reached ‘karen’ replacing ‘nerd’ insults. I think at some point if you’re just complaining that someone else you don’t like keeps picking up the slack, unused reigns from the ground; the problem lies more with all the other people refusing to pick them up.
Want to fix this? Vote Basically. Or run it yourself so a ‘karen’ doesn’t just take whatever. Problem isn’t the system if you think it’s supposed to just magically cater to you without any of your interest or input.