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I think that most if not all HOAs should be disbanded as soon as the last lot sells...
They are in place simply to protect the developer .... When he is done they should go ...

Never lived in a HOA. We did however, live next to a retired couple who worked in their yard everyday and had a fulltime gardener. He mentioned a couple times that I needed to work on my yard. My yard was mowed and edged but had no landscaping or flower beds. They quit talking to us and would often give us the evil eye from across the street. Anyways, we moved to the country. We got free range chickens in our HOA now and they don't mind the over grown bushes or lack of flowers.

Birds of a feather.... Congrats on the "job" and hope all goes well.

92f-fan wrote:I think that most if not all HOAs should be disbanded as soon as the last lot sells...
They are in place simply to protect the developer .... When he is done they should go ...

I've stated in every post that I hope to not live in one again, but I do see their purpose for homeowners.

In ours, for $350 / year, they provide a lot of the services that cities used to provide, but more tailored to a smaller subset of the people.

- Community pool (but a much smaller population uses it than a city pool. Most of the time, it's semi-private). . . at our dues rate, it'd take generations to cover the cost of installing a new pool in my backyard
- Stocked fishing pond with fountain
- Maintained walking / jogging trails and pathways
- Parks (multiple)
- Basketball court
- Higher-level code enforcement (you couldn't otherwise have a "nice" neighborhood in a really large city like Fort Worth)

Lastly, the trend seems to be to put the largest house possible on a given lot. This puts neighbors a lot closer to one another than they would have been 50 years ago. We have nice lots for an HOA, but 50 years ago there would've been a 1,500 square foot home in the middle of it instead of the square footage we have. So, in effect, the extra rules come from stacking so many people in so close. (This applies to even the highest end subdivisions.) You can't make a decision with the exterior of your property without impacting your neighbor and vice versa. There seems to be a continuum. . . live in an apartment complex literally stacked on top of people and there are a lot of rules, fewer in the HOA, and on down the line to the unincorporated rural areas.

Any homeowner should perform due diligence to understand the expectations and restrictions on any piece of property before they buy it. Even within the HOA world, there is a drastic difference in the strictness, cost, amenities, and other variables from neighborhood to neighborhood.

I love the country; I wouldn't mind a neighbor that lets their dog bark all night, parks on their front lawn, or lets their house fall into disrepair if I had 500 acres. I probably wouldn't know. I hope I get the chance to find out some day.

FishInTx wrote:Never lived in a HOA. We did however, live next to a retired couple who worked in their yard everyday and had a fulltime gardener. He mentioned a couple times that I needed to work on my yard. My yard was mowed and edged but had no landscaping or flower beds. They quit talking to us and would often give us the evil eye from across the street. Anyways, we moved to the country. We got free range chickens in our HOA now and they don't mind the over grown bushes or lack of flowers.

Birds of a feather.... Congrats on the "job" and hope all goes well.

I would have told him if he was looking for pro-bono work, then I would be happy to let him work in my yard.