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How do you like your HOA?

Despise them. Can't even have a trailer in my driveway. I've got a big driveway!
 
I remember a few years ago in Vantana Lakes, a community with HOA Nazi's to the max.
I live down the block from the community.
During a HOA meeting, an owner in the community walked in armed with a rifle and pistols while the board was sitting at their table in front of the room and opened fire on them, Killing 2 of them and wounded 2.
While these actions are clearly not cool, you have to wonder if they didn't bring it on themselves with their constant BS and pettiness.
I know some of those that live in the community and have been told many times their HOA board members think their Gods, constantly spy on people that live in the community, visitors and continually go out of their way to find things to issue fines on the owners of the community.
You can only push people so far and in this case, they pushed the wrong person to far and paid the price for it.

I remember reading about that when I was researching HOAs. And, yes, the dude totally lost it. But on the other hand, how many of your FB friends make posts like "we should start a federal holiday called 'kill stupid people day'"? There is a lot of talk around the water cooler about stupid people/jerks/insert-your-pet-peeve-here "being shot."

Not saying I condone it, but the overall climate with regard to personal pet peeves among the population is that "those people should be shot." So, like you said, it's almost no wonder.

Like the HOA equivilant of ROAD RAGE!!!! :mad: :eek: :mad:

Despise them. Can't even have a trailer in my driveway. I've got a big driveway!

I'm glad I started this thread. It's nice to know that I'm nowhere near alone in how I feel about HOAs, and I see some silver lining for the future that maybe they will relax or just go away all together... someday... hopefully... maybe.
 
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Living in Chicago, HOA is everywhere. Every time we started looking at a property that had this, I ultimately just could not deal with the idea of paying a group of idiots to govern my actions.

So I'm buying the entire building and I will govern it my damn self. ;-)
 
I've never bought a place that requires HOA. It's just ghey IMHO.

When my brother and sister went to the same college years ago, my folks were nice enough to buy the best Condo in that area (Cal Poly SLO) for around $100k + HOA.

The board of directors decided that they needed to erect a set of 2 story stairs (made outta concrete and metal instead of wood to match the condo). Guess how much the bill was? North of $400k.

Straight up scam and some side $$$$ being pocketed.

That is when my folks decided to sell the condo right after my siblings graduated.

Good thing the real estate market was pre-2008 crash in California and they sold the 2 bedroom condos in a college town for $400k.
 

Everytime I see a commercial or a documentary or other show about wounded/paralyzed/amputee vets, I get all choked up inside and think about how that could just as easily have been me. And I count myself blessed beyond belief that it wasn't me. But it could have been; and my heart goes out to those service members who did the same things I did and didn't make it out in one piece. In some way, I can relate to them, but I know that I can't truly relate because I didn't go through it. I know I was "waiting for it to happen" everyday I was overseas. And there were many times where it almost did happen...

I totally understand enforcing trash clean up and lawn grooming, etc... but no HOA should presume to include in it's CCRs any restriction of Americans' reasonable 1st ammendment rights.
 
My offer on a very nice (but a bit older) house NOT in an HOA was accepted yesterday. I had to go over my target shopping price, but if I get it, the difference essentially works out to about the cost I would have been paying for the HOA fees.

What I've learned on my hunt is that there are a FEW HOAs in Arizona (Maricopa Co) which actually have a large variety of home styles/architecture. I really can't stand all the cookie-cutter HOAs. So, there are some that I might not hate as much on the basis of (somewhat) unique homes. I've also learned that anything built after 1996 WILL be in an HOA here in AZ. It's apparently "the law" that new developments establish an HOA to take care of road maintenance and other things like garbage or water contracts, etc.

So, once I narrowed my search to the longer-established areas in the Phoenix Metro area, I was able to easily find houses that were not in HOAs (even though some were still tract houses). I was able to get a really nice house (it looks very ordinary on the outside) that has easy access to the freeway (which save me time/gas during my 50-mile commute to work), but is far enough away that I don't have to listen to it all day/night.

Also, the neighborhood seems to be mostly (if not completely) occupied by home owners, as opposed to renters. On some of my drives through HOAs, it was easy to tell which neighborhoods were full of rentals. Even though the rules are followed, it is only by the bare minimum of the letter. The neighborhood I offered in is well-established and pride of ownership is strong all around.

So, I'm just going to do some final research and hopefully close the deal.
 
My first house had an HOA, I still own it, but now rent it out. I can't stand them, I could go on and on about the stupid stuff they do, but it's probably common for a lot of HOA's...bunch of morons who do whatever they feel despite bylaws etc, clearly think too much of themselves. I moved to a historic district that does not have any HOA and I am much happier!
 
I'm very glad about the location. It's far enough west that I can jump on 101 quickly, and it's not so far north that I'm out of my normal social zone.

nsxter, I think I may have stopped by your house one day when PHOEN$X was there working on his brakes.

If everything goes well, I'll be moved in later this summer. Inspections and appraisal are this week.
 
I'm at 107th Ave, Just North of Deer Valley.
 
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