Street repaving issues

Badly paved streets do NOT effect home values. It effect the ATTRACTIVENESS of potential buyers. Potential buyers may not want to buy a home there because the road is bumpy. They also may not by the home because they hate the wallpaper. I know I rejected a house because it didn't have a dishwasher. It is all subjective when it comes to selling or buying a house.

Home values are based on real numbers. Those are 1. LOCATION. 2. How much similar houses have sold for or have been foreclosed on in the last 6 months in a few mile radius. 3. The square footage. 4. The number of bedroom and baths.

I would say there is no such resource that would tell you why a person did or did not buy a home. That's between the Realtor and the home buyer. They don't have to disclose why they passed up the home for another one.

Ted

Do you know when the road will have to be repaved and at what cost? Are you putting away reserves to do so?

Knowing HOA's as I do, and were I looking at one and saw the roads needed paving, I would want to see the money was there or I would avoid the place knowing an assessment is likely.

Does such decrease value? I disagree with Mel in that if anything decreases the amount of interested buyers then it means I have to lower my price to make it attractive. Thus it does decrease my value. Same as ugly wall paper or crap looking neighborhood might could but a $100K or more road paving job with no money to do so most certainly will.

I know of one association that voted in a large assessment ($25K per unit on $400K units). Over 85% voted yes as they understood it was needed. Two new owners sued the prior owners. One claimed as the prior owner was a real estate agent who did a lot of business in the association, the agent/seller must have known what was coming. This suit was dropped. The other suit claimed prior owner (seller) had been on the BOD (prior to the assessment) so he must have known such a thing was being discussed. In this case, the prior owner was advised to and opted to settle out of court.

Thanks

Thank you all for your replies. We do have some reserve funds that have been sitting for years with the anticipation that it would be used for the street. Basically, our street is our main expense and main concern. Outside of mowing, tree trimming, snow removal and such we have no other expenses. We have been discussing this for years. We have received 3 bids. We used to have chip and seal years ago and some of the old timers on the street feel we should go back to that. YIKES. We have asphalt at present, but it is 18 years old and we have been advised that depending on the winters it may or may not last another 2-3 years. It is in "decent" repair, relatively speaking, (a lot of alligator cracks and depressions) but rather than wait until the base gets damaged and the prices rise (estimated 4% increase annually)we are looking into it as soon as possible. We are going to be getting together a presentation and I was hoping to add the element of how not having our street functioning well and looking good could possibly decrease our property values. In a nutshell.