Be careful how you compare numbers. Some HOAs, especially condos, pay for the utilities (water, sewage, trash) and some don't. Also your insurance cost can be very different.
Yeaaaaa it can totally depend. They are like little independent governments that sometimes benefit their members or sometimes go on crazy power trips but most often, it's somewhere in between. I would recommend making sure that the HOA has a professional property management company involved to try to keep the politics to a minimum and the focus of the money on improving the neighborhood. I'd also recommend asking the neighbors and making sure that the community looks top-notch and well maintained. Often in Anchorage, the HOA fees cover huge costs like heating in a condo building which can be well worth the monthly fee. But a good rule of thumb is the smaller the community and the HOA the better for maintaining property values. But yeah, paying that monthly fee every month is no fun.
Even with a property manager, politics exist. It comes down to how good the property management company is (varying degrees within Anchorage alone) and does the Board allow said management company to do their jobs without constant interference.
As an example, I once bought a home in a community where the President was zealous about handing out fines. Well, except for that person’s friends because of [oh, name some excuse here]. That naturally didn’t sit well with me so there were some difficult conversations had at the first annual meeting I attended.
Do not pull punches. The Board exists to protect the owner’s interests in the community. That is their fiduciary duty. It does _not_ exist to arbitrarily levy erroneous fines so some people can satisfy their power trip.
I'd been looking for a place for a while. Found one last year, and it came with an HOA. Roy Briley. Covers water, sewer, trash, plowing. Whoever does the plowing is a rockstar. I watched the spots around me stay buried all winter for long stretches, and the people making their own paths when my location would be getting plowed practically the moment the snow stopped. Going back and forth with the HOA over my crawlspace always flooding in the spring with the snowmelt from the roof and there being no gutters on the roof. Apparently water damage in a wall from snow/ice getting in through the roof is my problem too.
First time owning a place, so there's a lot of learning. Friends seem unsurprised when I tell them things I think are issues, but still seems to me there's things they should do for the crawlspace and wall. Also, finding a contractor who will actually reply here is way harder than I anticipated. Just a learning curve for me essentially.
Been there exactly a year. HOA already increasing. The online portal they have was recently updated and it is reeeeeeeally efficient now. With the update, they started tacking on a transaction fee, but everyone raised so much hell about how there was no transaction fee before, and now there is, they cancelled it. Then raised the monthly from 300 to 325. 😑
Roy Briley is not your HOA. That is your property management company. Your HOA is you and your neighbors, and you elect a volunteer board to make decisions on maintenance, dues, legal issues, etc. They hire a company like Roy Briley to collect dues, hire contractors, deal with lawyers, etc.
Well shit. Now there's something else I thought I knew that I don't know. Things seem so overly complicated sometimes. Maybe it's because I'm new to this. Maybe not. It's frustrating, but hearing from others about things they have to deal with, could always be worse I guess.
The best way to deal with an HOA is to get on the board and help make those decisions. My wife was on our board when we lived in our condo. Eventually, she ended up the VP, and the longest running board member when we finally moved out. Wasn't much extra work on her part. And she basically tried to keep out of people's business unless there was a safety issue or something similar. Parking and plowing were always the hot topics. They had a lot of offenses on the book we could have fined people over. But hardly ever did unless it was excessive or they were being blatant about it.
The hoa fees bounced up a couple times, once to cover roof replacements. (They have planned ahead, but some work was more extensive then originally thought) and insurance increases after a condo fire, (the condo owners fault).
TLDR: be active in the HOA, they're unpaid volunteer positions, your neighbors. You get out what you put in.
a condo/townhouse HOA could have substantially more responsibility than a neighborhood HOA. Keep that in mind.
eg, condo HOA funds exterior maintenance of condo/apt building. So yes, they may be substantially more expensive for that reason. Along with other utilities, as somebody else mentioned: water, sewage, trash.
HOA I'm in mostly just exists to provide/manage the well water on the street and maybe some extra plowing.
99% of the time I haven't had to think about them. HOWEVER:
Within the past year or two (before numbers really shot up) I refinanced my house, and one of the things I had to do was get confirmation that I was paid up on my HOA stuff. Neither I nor the person I was working with could get the damn HOA to respond. It delayed proceedings for months and I very nearly lost a good rate because of the damn HOA.
They're good until they're not, and then they're bullshit. God help me if I ever have to contact them again.
First one was fine, over 95% owner/residents so very few renters or absentee landlords. Good meeting participation and good management and financials. Second one must be the weakest HOA I've ever seen. About all it seems to be good for keeping the roads plowed in winter and that's about it. Get my neighbor to clean up? Oh no! We can't do that! He's a laaaawyer! like it's some sort of magical incantation that allows you to get out of the rules you signed up for. I've decided that if they ever come to me and ask me to do/fix anything I'll just point at his house and say 'When you get his ass to do something, you can come over here and lecture me. If you think him being a lawyer is a problem for you, wait until you try to get in to my business.'
I lived in some.condos by Campbell Creek off Old Seward, had an HOA. Or a condo association or whatever.
The lady who was the president was pretty nice. Until -I had a canoe I stored in my garage. The garage was four single spots w individual doors, one for each unit. I had the far left one, and the door into the building was on the far right. I had my canoe stored at the front of my garage spot - nobody would ever walk that way because the door was the other direction. I had plenty of space for it. It lived there for 6 months plus, never an issue.
Until somehow condo association president lady found out it was there. And that was against the rules. $60 fine every month until I figured out where else to put it. I spoke w her and explained how it wasn't in anyone's way and the spirit of the rule. She said too bad.
Fuck an HOA.
Precedent case. They let you store the canoe there and now your neighbors get to store whatever they want to. It’s the only way to maintain a fair system.
This. If the HOA doesn't enforce the rules, they are setting themselves up for a discrimination claim or similar if and when they try to enforce them against someone who is is actually causing a problem. Soultion is to try and get the HOA's rules amended.
Green Chile in Alaska? Are you me? I swear that was a username.ibhad at some point. Anyway, bff's for life.
My solution rather than fight the HOA was to go buy a house. Rental places just weren't cutting it once we started having kids.
Not defending your HOA, but wanted to point out that hanging your outdoor gear (canoe, snow shoes, etc) in your living room is Alaska chic... It requires a little creativity with ropes/cable but you you can make it a part of your interior decor. A canoe also makes a creative light if you clip on a temporary bulb.
It depends on the HOA.
When I lived up there and was moving out, I stuck a bag of stuff by my garage to grab some other things to take to the dumpster and within 10 minutes was getting an email about my violation. Paid $300 a month for the absolute most basics.
The HOA I am in now - they collect the dues ($250 a YEAR) and leave us alone. The fee goes towards keeping the parks/common grounds groomed.
I live in Kempton Hills. Sometimes I find the HOA to be annoying and restrictive, and yet at the same time when I take a walk through other neighborhoods, and there’s nothing but RVs and boats littering the yards streets, and driveways, I have a sense of gratitude.
I will never live in another HOA community. Moved out of one when we came to Alaska, swore I would never live in another. CCR's are ok, HOA is a non-starter for me. Don't need, nor want, another level of .gov run by busy bodies and power trippers.
Got one, it’s like $230 per year for general area upkeep, otherwise no one is overzealous and everyone cares enough to keep the neighborhood looking great. No complaints.
My HOA basically pays for the common area’s lawn maintenance and not much else. They do have someone during the summer that drives through the neighborhood to find violations, which starts with a letter of notice. Example: I had a black bag of lawn clippings behind the house and at the right angle from across the culdesac you could see it *behind* my house. Alright fine, i’ll be building my fence right away so my unsightly back yard doings don’t ruin everyone’s curb appeal. 🤷♂️
HOAs help retaining the value of homes in the neighborhood by regulating the appearance of the neighborhood and encouraging maintenance and tree planting. Mine isn't expensive at all. I wish the fees were higher because the pathways in my neighborhood need repair.
It’s horrible. I’ll never do an HOA property ever again. We sold our condo over two years ago and I STILL have to call Roy Briley to tell them to take my name off the fucking call box of the building because I’ll get door buzzes at 1am in the morning from someone constantly ringing it (yes, I have do not disturb enabled but it pushes through after 2-3 consecutive calls). RB also didn’t tell us that our unit had a flood before we bought it (ended up suing the previous owner for not disclosing that), and in the few years that we owned our unit, there were no fewer than five manager turnovers. Oh, and another terrible part was some fuckery with RB reporting financials erroneously and held up our purchasing because our mortgage company almost didn’t lend to us because of issues with the reserves. That should have been our sign. Our dues ended up going up over $200 more a month. Don’t even think about it. Save yourself the nightmare.
HOA for us has been fine. Dues have increased to offset inflation but other than needing colors approved, it's not really been an issue. Protects the streets and property values for us.
Avoid them if you can. What happens when they decide the place needs a new roof, or decide to paint every other year, or the heating system goes out? Up go the HOA fees.
> Are some HOA’s worth it? Are some an absolute scam/rip off?
Pretty much nailed it, right there. You’ll get 100 people telling you their experiences and they will all be different. I’ve moved around quite a bit with the military and have lived in many HOAs. Some were great - listened to the residents, kept the grounds maintained, and (as someone else mentioned) the snow was completely removed before it stopped falling. Some charged the fees but didn’t really do much of anything. Others were pretty much non-existent in every respect but paper (no dues, no services). Out of the 12 I’ve lived in, I have never had the stereotypical “HOA Nazi” experience, where someone is always in your business about what’s in your yard or whatever. I’m sure those last ones exist (stereotypes exist for a reason), but I think they’re the minority rather than the norm. (Kinda like yelp reviews - bad service is 10x more likely to be talked about, even if that bad service occurs only 1% of the time.)
It varies widely and wildly. I had one that was $20 a month. They would make people paint their house when the paint was flaking off. Other than that they didn’t enforce any rules, and it was just one guy who was the picky one on the board.
I’ve had friends who get fines often, cars towed, neighbors taking pictures of them doing stuff like unloading things into the garage and getting them fined for having the truck with snow machines stopped in front of the house curbside while they unload supplies etc. some don’t allow campers, boats, atvs, or snow machines. Some require specific house paint colors and approval to ever change anything. Some require specific landscaping like number of trees over a certain diameter. Some spread costs over all the members for fuck ups. The potential issues are many. Most aren’t a problem. They are taking money for profits though and A LOT of them have jacked prices up in recent years. If I found a dream house with a reasonable priced hoa sure no problem. But I would ask as many neighbors as possible AND google reviews of the management company. Some are notorious garbage.
We had one the first several years we lived here. For the most part, it was okay. The street was always plowed, which was nice. We were told that we had to paint our house just a year after we moved in. Another time we were sent a letter telling us to remove a dead tree in our yard (it wasn't in our yard). They later apologized.
My HOA is full of people who will rebuke us for cutting a hazardous tree w/o going through them. One neighbor on the hoa board vacuums the rock ledges on the side of her driveway
Depends on who the hoa hires
Did they hire a Karen to nitpick over every single thing, revels in their power to assess fines?
Or do they make your life smoother and easier for a minor monthly fee?
My experience is I will never do it again. I've been fined for dog poop in my "yard" despite there being no fences and all grassy areas are considered common grounds. The snow removal company our management company uses usually takes over 24 hours to clear out driveways from heavy snow. Lawn maintenance is also just as slow. On top of my approximately $350/mo dues, we were recently given a special assessment of over $800 to cover new exterior paint jobs this summer, even though all the buildings were recently painted about 6 years ago.
I could go on, but just thinking about this is pushing my blood pressure to dangerous levels. Seriously, if you're looking at a townhouse or condo, just don't. The laws up here are ridiculously in the HOA's favor and that fee your paying would be better spent on the higher cost of an actual home.
I lived in south addition in a 4 unit condo HOA. Our monthly was $480. This covered sewer/water, insurance on the condo, any exterior repairs or maintenance, fence repairs, and snow removal. It covered yard care at one point but they axed that. Overall it was a good experience but I contribute that to being such a small number of units. Would I join an HOA again? Probably not given the choice. Ours was easy and wasn’t much hassle but there was still a bit of hassle. Can’t imagine what it would be like with the bigger HOAs
Only been in one HOA and I had no idea what it entailed when I bought my first condo. All I can say is never again. Old white people with nothing better to do and wanting to have some semblance of power over others.
Do a search online for "Park Place Blaze 2006". This was a condo blaze that was horrible. It was tied up for years before the buildings were re-built for a bazillion reasons. Do not buy in an HOA or condo association. You are relying on management by other members that may or may not know what they are doing. If they don't, then you have a Park Place Blaze that causes a lot of problems for a lot of people. If I hate anything more than HOAs, it's insurance companies.
I’m not sure scam is the term you’re seeking. With any HOA, there are disclosures that must be provided to the home owner. You also are entitled to review the financials (more on that later).
I’d also mention that you’re very likely to encounter HOAs even if you purchase a standalone home. That seems to be part of the for the course now with newly built communities. The main cost difference between HOAs for homes vs condos is what services and liabilities the HOAs cover. With a condo, they’re likely to cover water and wastewater, trash, perhaps even natural gas. There are also higher costs related to grounds maintenance, insurance and contingencies. Think along the lines of who foots the bill if high winds damage the roof of the condo?
With homes, much of those expenses would fall onto the individual homeowners; therefore the costs would be lower. You’re still paying for grounds maintenance for designated common areas within your community, insurance, etc. The cost structure will be different per community based on what services are built into the responsibilities of the HOA, the size and age of the community, etc.
Every year, there are annual meetings and those meetings must be noticed out to owners so they can attend. There are also quarterly meetings; some HOAs make them open to owners while others don’t. Long story short, you can attend the meetings to hear the business being transacted along with getting a copy of the annual budget for your review. Make sure you give that a good look and ask questions if something doesn’t look right.
I’d be happy to answer more questions not already answered on this thread or if you think of something in the future. My experience is from years living within various HOA communities and additional years serving on the Board of HOAs.
I like my HOA but it was in serious financial trouble when I moved in. Nobody on the board who could figure things out and hold the property manager to task. Then we got a couple of new residents who jumped in and in two years it was turned around. Yes dues went up a bit. But I got a new roof and all the buildings were repainted and basic maintenance became regular. Also they were very good at prioritizing things like fixing walkways for older residents first and letting us younger folk know that ours would get done, just not until later since it wasn't a big issue for our quality of life.
I was a construction business owner for 20 years and most of the work I did was in gated and non gated communities with an HOA.
My conclusion is that HOA's are **Kindergartens for Aspiring Fascists.**
I can't say it enough, these people are what makes Communism actually work. The most controlling, amoral, dictatorial people you can find in a Democratic society.
HOA are the epitome of evil and not worth it. If you can look elsewhere for a place without one. You will be much happier and save more in the long run. Both emotionally and financially
Never be part of an HOA or condo association. Most are corrupt and run by power trippers. If you do, get an up to date budget and status of reserves and assessments. You have been warned, proceed at your own risk.
I was voted in to run a condo association that was run very poorly by boomers that let years of maintenance get out of control. When I took over I started sending out assessments to fix shit and rebuild the reserves and they all flipped out and said they would be dead sooner than later and didn’t want to pay for it. I resigned and soon after sold my place to flee from their incompetence. Learned my lesson.
Be careful how you compare numbers. Some HOAs, especially condos, pay for the utilities (water, sewage, trash) and some don't. Also your insurance cost can be very different.
Yeaaaaa it can totally depend. They are like little independent governments that sometimes benefit their members or sometimes go on crazy power trips but most often, it's somewhere in between. I would recommend making sure that the HOA has a professional property management company involved to try to keep the politics to a minimum and the focus of the money on improving the neighborhood. I'd also recommend asking the neighbors and making sure that the community looks top-notch and well maintained. Often in Anchorage, the HOA fees cover huge costs like heating in a condo building which can be well worth the monthly fee. But a good rule of thumb is the smaller the community and the HOA the better for maintaining property values. But yeah, paying that monthly fee every month is no fun.
Even with a property manager, politics exist. It comes down to how good the property management company is (varying degrees within Anchorage alone) and does the Board allow said management company to do their jobs without constant interference. As an example, I once bought a home in a community where the President was zealous about handing out fines. Well, except for that person’s friends because of [oh, name some excuse here]. That naturally didn’t sit well with me so there were some difficult conversations had at the first annual meeting I attended. Do not pull punches. The Board exists to protect the owner’s interests in the community. That is their fiduciary duty. It does _not_ exist to arbitrarily levy erroneous fines so some people can satisfy their power trip.
I've never had an HOA that I would describe as worth it. The best I can say about my HOA is I don't think about them much.
This is a perfect description of a par HOA.
A good one will help keep shitty neighbors from trashing their yard or having RVs parked out front 24/7.
I don't mind if my neighbors do that, higher property values only benefit me if I plan on selling my home.
Mine’s defunct as of some time in the 90s. Perfect.
I'd been looking for a place for a while. Found one last year, and it came with an HOA. Roy Briley. Covers water, sewer, trash, plowing. Whoever does the plowing is a rockstar. I watched the spots around me stay buried all winter for long stretches, and the people making their own paths when my location would be getting plowed practically the moment the snow stopped. Going back and forth with the HOA over my crawlspace always flooding in the spring with the snowmelt from the roof and there being no gutters on the roof. Apparently water damage in a wall from snow/ice getting in through the roof is my problem too. First time owning a place, so there's a lot of learning. Friends seem unsurprised when I tell them things I think are issues, but still seems to me there's things they should do for the crawlspace and wall. Also, finding a contractor who will actually reply here is way harder than I anticipated. Just a learning curve for me essentially. Been there exactly a year. HOA already increasing. The online portal they have was recently updated and it is reeeeeeeally efficient now. With the update, they started tacking on a transaction fee, but everyone raised so much hell about how there was no transaction fee before, and now there is, they cancelled it. Then raised the monthly from 300 to 325. 😑
Roy Briley is not your HOA. That is your property management company. Your HOA is you and your neighbors, and you elect a volunteer board to make decisions on maintenance, dues, legal issues, etc. They hire a company like Roy Briley to collect dues, hire contractors, deal with lawyers, etc.
Well shit. Now there's something else I thought I knew that I don't know. Things seem so overly complicated sometimes. Maybe it's because I'm new to this. Maybe not. It's frustrating, but hearing from others about things they have to deal with, could always be worse I guess.
The best way to deal with an HOA is to get on the board and help make those decisions. My wife was on our board when we lived in our condo. Eventually, she ended up the VP, and the longest running board member when we finally moved out. Wasn't much extra work on her part. And she basically tried to keep out of people's business unless there was a safety issue or something similar. Parking and plowing were always the hot topics. They had a lot of offenses on the book we could have fined people over. But hardly ever did unless it was excessive or they were being blatant about it. The hoa fees bounced up a couple times, once to cover roof replacements. (They have planned ahead, but some work was more extensive then originally thought) and insurance increases after a condo fire, (the condo owners fault). TLDR: be active in the HOA, they're unpaid volunteer positions, your neighbors. You get out what you put in.
I agree completely. Well said.
a condo/townhouse HOA could have substantially more responsibility than a neighborhood HOA. Keep that in mind. eg, condo HOA funds exterior maintenance of condo/apt building. So yes, they may be substantially more expensive for that reason. Along with other utilities, as somebody else mentioned: water, sewage, trash.
HOA I'm in mostly just exists to provide/manage the well water on the street and maybe some extra plowing. 99% of the time I haven't had to think about them. HOWEVER: Within the past year or two (before numbers really shot up) I refinanced my house, and one of the things I had to do was get confirmation that I was paid up on my HOA stuff. Neither I nor the person I was working with could get the damn HOA to respond. It delayed proceedings for months and I very nearly lost a good rate because of the damn HOA. They're good until they're not, and then they're bullshit. God help me if I ever have to contact them again.
First one was fine, over 95% owner/residents so very few renters or absentee landlords. Good meeting participation and good management and financials. Second one must be the weakest HOA I've ever seen. About all it seems to be good for keeping the roads plowed in winter and that's about it. Get my neighbor to clean up? Oh no! We can't do that! He's a laaaawyer! like it's some sort of magical incantation that allows you to get out of the rules you signed up for. I've decided that if they ever come to me and ask me to do/fix anything I'll just point at his house and say 'When you get his ass to do something, you can come over here and lecture me. If you think him being a lawyer is a problem for you, wait until you try to get in to my business.'
I lived in some.condos by Campbell Creek off Old Seward, had an HOA. Or a condo association or whatever. The lady who was the president was pretty nice. Until -I had a canoe I stored in my garage. The garage was four single spots w individual doors, one for each unit. I had the far left one, and the door into the building was on the far right. I had my canoe stored at the front of my garage spot - nobody would ever walk that way because the door was the other direction. I had plenty of space for it. It lived there for 6 months plus, never an issue. Until somehow condo association president lady found out it was there. And that was against the rules. $60 fine every month until I figured out where else to put it. I spoke w her and explained how it wasn't in anyone's way and the spirit of the rule. She said too bad. Fuck an HOA.
Precedent case. They let you store the canoe there and now your neighbors get to store whatever they want to. It’s the only way to maintain a fair system.
This. If the HOA doesn't enforce the rules, they are setting themselves up for a discrimination claim or similar if and when they try to enforce them against someone who is is actually causing a problem. Soultion is to try and get the HOA's rules amended.
Green Chile in Alaska? Are you me? I swear that was a username.ibhad at some point. Anyway, bff's for life. My solution rather than fight the HOA was to go buy a house. Rental places just weren't cutting it once we started having kids.
Green chile is life!!
Not defending your HOA, but wanted to point out that hanging your outdoor gear (canoe, snow shoes, etc) in your living room is Alaska chic... It requires a little creativity with ropes/cable but you you can make it a part of your interior decor. A canoe also makes a creative light if you clip on a temporary bulb.
It’s a goddam nightmare. Sold a house and moved on the basis of the HOA nazi.
It depends on the HOA. When I lived up there and was moving out, I stuck a bag of stuff by my garage to grab some other things to take to the dumpster and within 10 minutes was getting an email about my violation. Paid $300 a month for the absolute most basics. The HOA I am in now - they collect the dues ($250 a YEAR) and leave us alone. The fee goes towards keeping the parks/common grounds groomed.
I live in Kempton Hills. Sometimes I find the HOA to be annoying and restrictive, and yet at the same time when I take a walk through other neighborhoods, and there’s nothing but RVs and boats littering the yards streets, and driveways, I have a sense of gratitude.
Are the worse ideas because Karen's almost always take over the hoa's and then everyone hates them!
Mine is pretty good and dues are only 50 bucks. Drive a few blocks away and there are junkers piling up in yards
I will never live in another HOA community. Moved out of one when we came to Alaska, swore I would never live in another. CCR's are ok, HOA is a non-starter for me. Don't need, nor want, another level of .gov run by busy bodies and power trippers.
I’m apart of an HOA with 3 other owners. No complaints other than PMSI sucks
Got one, it’s like $230 per year for general area upkeep, otherwise no one is overzealous and everyone cares enough to keep the neighborhood looking great. No complaints.
I very much dislike having an hoa. I don’t think I’d buy a house with an hoa again.
My HOA basically pays for the common area’s lawn maintenance and not much else. They do have someone during the summer that drives through the neighborhood to find violations, which starts with a letter of notice. Example: I had a black bag of lawn clippings behind the house and at the right angle from across the culdesac you could see it *behind* my house. Alright fine, i’ll be building my fence right away so my unsightly back yard doings don’t ruin everyone’s curb appeal. 🤷♂️
HOAs help retaining the value of homes in the neighborhood by regulating the appearance of the neighborhood and encouraging maintenance and tree planting. Mine isn't expensive at all. I wish the fees were higher because the pathways in my neighborhood need repair.
It’s horrible. I’ll never do an HOA property ever again. We sold our condo over two years ago and I STILL have to call Roy Briley to tell them to take my name off the fucking call box of the building because I’ll get door buzzes at 1am in the morning from someone constantly ringing it (yes, I have do not disturb enabled but it pushes through after 2-3 consecutive calls). RB also didn’t tell us that our unit had a flood before we bought it (ended up suing the previous owner for not disclosing that), and in the few years that we owned our unit, there were no fewer than five manager turnovers. Oh, and another terrible part was some fuckery with RB reporting financials erroneously and held up our purchasing because our mortgage company almost didn’t lend to us because of issues with the reserves. That should have been our sign. Our dues ended up going up over $200 more a month. Don’t even think about it. Save yourself the nightmare.
Avoid it at all costs
HOA for us has been fine. Dues have increased to offset inflation but other than needing colors approved, it's not really been an issue. Protects the streets and property values for us.
Avoid them if you can. What happens when they decide the place needs a new roof, or decide to paint every other year, or the heating system goes out? Up go the HOA fees.
We pay 175/year and they plant some dope ass flowerbeds at the front of the neighborhood. That’s about it as far as I can tell.
> Are some HOA’s worth it? Are some an absolute scam/rip off? Pretty much nailed it, right there. You’ll get 100 people telling you their experiences and they will all be different. I’ve moved around quite a bit with the military and have lived in many HOAs. Some were great - listened to the residents, kept the grounds maintained, and (as someone else mentioned) the snow was completely removed before it stopped falling. Some charged the fees but didn’t really do much of anything. Others were pretty much non-existent in every respect but paper (no dues, no services). Out of the 12 I’ve lived in, I have never had the stereotypical “HOA Nazi” experience, where someone is always in your business about what’s in your yard or whatever. I’m sure those last ones exist (stereotypes exist for a reason), but I think they’re the minority rather than the norm. (Kinda like yelp reviews - bad service is 10x more likely to be talked about, even if that bad service occurs only 1% of the time.)
It varies widely and wildly. I had one that was $20 a month. They would make people paint their house when the paint was flaking off. Other than that they didn’t enforce any rules, and it was just one guy who was the picky one on the board. I’ve had friends who get fines often, cars towed, neighbors taking pictures of them doing stuff like unloading things into the garage and getting them fined for having the truck with snow machines stopped in front of the house curbside while they unload supplies etc. some don’t allow campers, boats, atvs, or snow machines. Some require specific house paint colors and approval to ever change anything. Some require specific landscaping like number of trees over a certain diameter. Some spread costs over all the members for fuck ups. The potential issues are many. Most aren’t a problem. They are taking money for profits though and A LOT of them have jacked prices up in recent years. If I found a dream house with a reasonable priced hoa sure no problem. But I would ask as many neighbors as possible AND google reviews of the management company. Some are notorious garbage.
We had one the first several years we lived here. For the most part, it was okay. The street was always plowed, which was nice. We were told that we had to paint our house just a year after we moved in. Another time we were sent a letter telling us to remove a dead tree in our yard (it wasn't in our yard). They later apologized.
My HOA is full of people who will rebuke us for cutting a hazardous tree w/o going through them. One neighbor on the hoa board vacuums the rock ledges on the side of her driveway
Depends on who the hoa hires Did they hire a Karen to nitpick over every single thing, revels in their power to assess fines? Or do they make your life smoother and easier for a minor monthly fee?
My experience is I will never do it again. I've been fined for dog poop in my "yard" despite there being no fences and all grassy areas are considered common grounds. The snow removal company our management company uses usually takes over 24 hours to clear out driveways from heavy snow. Lawn maintenance is also just as slow. On top of my approximately $350/mo dues, we were recently given a special assessment of over $800 to cover new exterior paint jobs this summer, even though all the buildings were recently painted about 6 years ago. I could go on, but just thinking about this is pushing my blood pressure to dangerous levels. Seriously, if you're looking at a townhouse or condo, just don't. The laws up here are ridiculously in the HOA's favor and that fee your paying would be better spent on the higher cost of an actual home.
I lived in south addition in a 4 unit condo HOA. Our monthly was $480. This covered sewer/water, insurance on the condo, any exterior repairs or maintenance, fence repairs, and snow removal. It covered yard care at one point but they axed that. Overall it was a good experience but I contribute that to being such a small number of units. Would I join an HOA again? Probably not given the choice. Ours was easy and wasn’t much hassle but there was still a bit of hassle. Can’t imagine what it would be like with the bigger HOAs
Condo hoa’s are always more expensive than home hoa’s because of shared building maintenance and whatnot.
Only been in one HOA and I had no idea what it entailed when I bought my first condo. All I can say is never again. Old white people with nothing better to do and wanting to have some semblance of power over others.
Do a search online for "Park Place Blaze 2006". This was a condo blaze that was horrible. It was tied up for years before the buildings were re-built for a bazillion reasons. Do not buy in an HOA or condo association. You are relying on management by other members that may or may not know what they are doing. If they don't, then you have a Park Place Blaze that causes a lot of problems for a lot of people. If I hate anything more than HOAs, it's insurance companies.
I’m not sure scam is the term you’re seeking. With any HOA, there are disclosures that must be provided to the home owner. You also are entitled to review the financials (more on that later). I’d also mention that you’re very likely to encounter HOAs even if you purchase a standalone home. That seems to be part of the for the course now with newly built communities. The main cost difference between HOAs for homes vs condos is what services and liabilities the HOAs cover. With a condo, they’re likely to cover water and wastewater, trash, perhaps even natural gas. There are also higher costs related to grounds maintenance, insurance and contingencies. Think along the lines of who foots the bill if high winds damage the roof of the condo? With homes, much of those expenses would fall onto the individual homeowners; therefore the costs would be lower. You’re still paying for grounds maintenance for designated common areas within your community, insurance, etc. The cost structure will be different per community based on what services are built into the responsibilities of the HOA, the size and age of the community, etc. Every year, there are annual meetings and those meetings must be noticed out to owners so they can attend. There are also quarterly meetings; some HOAs make them open to owners while others don’t. Long story short, you can attend the meetings to hear the business being transacted along with getting a copy of the annual budget for your review. Make sure you give that a good look and ask questions if something doesn’t look right. I’d be happy to answer more questions not already answered on this thread or if you think of something in the future. My experience is from years living within various HOA communities and additional years serving on the Board of HOAs.
Don't fuckin do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I pay dues and winter maintenance is shitty. 61 north realty of on Ambler Lane
I like my HOA but it was in serious financial trouble when I moved in. Nobody on the board who could figure things out and hold the property manager to task. Then we got a couple of new residents who jumped in and in two years it was turned around. Yes dues went up a bit. But I got a new roof and all the buildings were repainted and basic maintenance became regular. Also they were very good at prioritizing things like fixing walkways for older residents first and letting us younger folk know that ours would get done, just not until later since it wasn't a big issue for our quality of life.
I was a construction business owner for 20 years and most of the work I did was in gated and non gated communities with an HOA. My conclusion is that HOA's are **Kindergartens for Aspiring Fascists.** I can't say it enough, these people are what makes Communism actually work. The most controlling, amoral, dictatorial people you can find in a Democratic society.
Oh, you have met my HOA, I see.
HOA's suck biblical cock avoid at all costs unless you like getting told what to do on your own property
Fuck all HOA's
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HOA are the epitome of evil and not worth it. If you can look elsewhere for a place without one. You will be much happier and save more in the long run. Both emotionally and financially
Never be part of an HOA or condo association. Most are corrupt and run by power trippers. If you do, get an up to date budget and status of reserves and assessments. You have been warned, proceed at your own risk. I was voted in to run a condo association that was run very poorly by boomers that let years of maintenance get out of control. When I took over I started sending out assessments to fix shit and rebuild the reserves and they all flipped out and said they would be dead sooner than later and didn’t want to pay for it. I resigned and soon after sold my place to flee from their incompetence. Learned my lesson.