HOA vs NonHOA and Your Preference

Believe it or not my preference is in a HOA as long as I am volunteering and involved in it. When I left my HOA and moved to my non-HOA home, I was less involved. It was a nightmare to deal with and can understand why many are frustrated with theirs. Like I have always said I have been on BOTH sides of a HOA... being a regular member and being President. I found being a board member and not an office position was the best option.

My non-HOA home has it's downsides. It is waaay more expensive to live in. My neighbor is a HUGE jerk and we do have a few homes that keep junk all over their front/backyards. It doesn't really effect my home value but does effect my ability to sell my property.

If I do move into another HOA, I will do the research. I will get the paperwork and ask more questions. Take a bit more time and look around. I still will not know fully what I am getting myself into, but I have had learned a few lessons to apply.

Being a property manager, and not living in an HOA gives me insight into both worlds...

There are definite pros/cons to each. Which are too lengthy to list completely here.

However, the cons of an HOA are too substantial to dismiss, IMO.

Essentially, HOAs are miniature cities. Every component of an HOA can easily be taken care of by a bigger governmental authority. HOAs were created to make money in the guise of saving the environment (see, clean water act), as well as creating an avenue for fitting as many homes as possible in the smallest area possible.

Your HOA fee goes to any and every expense your association has. That includes paying for other members who are not paying their share. So the more people who do not pay, and become noncollectable, the more you have to pay, and the worse-off the association is. There are legal-fees for collection as well, and while many of these fees are paid directly by the delinquent owner(s), until the association gets the collected funds, it is fronting the costs to the attorney. Then you have the owners who never pay, and you have the expenses of the attorney which cannot be allocated to individual accounts (think, reports, copies, board meetings to explain accounts, general research, etc) and the more you have, the more it costs.

Of course these issues exist outside HOAs as well. We all pay taxes to fund them. Although, in an HOA, you have to pay taxes as well on top of your HOA fee (think, double taxation).

Junk piled in your neighbors yard? The city/county/state/country you live in has a law against it. No need for an HOA.
Unfriendly neighbor? Nothing you can do about it really, inside or outside an HOA.
Roads deteriorating? No need for an HOA reserve fund, this is what taxes pay for.

At the end of the day, there really isnt a reason for an HOA. We got along just fine without them 50 years ago. Yet its a multi-billion dollar industry. Since I make my living off helping boards run HOAs, it should tell you something when a property manager says HOAs shouldnt exist. Do get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do, but its a nonsensical industry.

Per Sharon's request, a re-post from another thread:

Sharon,

3 neighborhoods for my wife and I. All new homes, first one no HOA but starter homes. Best experience here, pretty much all well kept. We were all young though and at that age everyone is pretty much very flexible.

Second and third homes were in HOA communities. Power trips in both of them. Treasurer convicted of embezzling in the second community, and the one we are in now the developers have retained control after 15 plus years. It is a very fragmented neighborhood and we have had to watch the developers closely, all the time. IMO they are nothing short of bullies and we have finally drawn a line in the sand. LE is involved. Worst decision of our lives to have moved here.

I have lived in 4 homes in my life.

#1 was a property in Brooklyn owned by my parents. No HOA.

#2 and #3 were both in the same neighborhood (#2 was a year long rental). Covenants but no HOA.

#4 is my current property. Covenants but no HOA.

Things get complicated after that.\

#3 had covenants but no real HOA. Sure there was a HOA but they were technically the HOA for another subdivision. They then decided to rewrite the covenants for every surrounding subdivision and force homeowners into mandatory assessments regardless of membership. They also quadrupled the covenants in their rewrite, essentially granting them power to do whatever whenever they wanted. A court case ruled they lacked any authority to act for over twenty years. To make things even more complicated, per Florida law the covenants and restricted expired yet the "HOA" still insisted they existed.

#4 had a very similar situation to #3 (the same lawyers were involved). The only thing that made this situation was that the HOA had authority at one time but an ambitious board and lawyers played forced homeowners into lifetime membership and then pushed stricter rules and increased enforcement when again, per Florida statutes the covenants and restrictions expired stripping them of any and all power. They of course decided to ignore the law and proceed.

Based on my experiences and observations HOAs are best when they provide the bare necessities. When HOAs attempt to govern the subjective states of the neighborhood things would get messy. Take care of the essentials and leave everyone alone and for the most part things will be okay but a real problem occurs whe down the line someone wants to change the rules and change the entire scheme of the development. My neighborhoods were voluntary and free but some people got it in their minds to change that and it upset the balance, pitting neighbor against neighbor.