Your opinion of Home owners Associations

Finally looking at buying a house. Not really looking to have other people getting into my business though.

It can be a mixed bag. For the most part they will leave you alone, and a lot of the stuff has to get REALLY bad before they say something. They also have their perks, such as making sure your neighbors handle their shit (or have it handled for them), organizing stuff for you, and so on.

With that said, they can have some weird rules and be absolute fascists when it comes to them. If you're the kind of person that wants to do what they want to do, even if they won't do it, then you probably want to find a place without a HOA.

Found this article if you want to see a list of pros and cons. I've been looking for homes as well and I am avoiding HOA's, but it's more of an "it's not you, it's me" kind of situation.

The house would have to have a really good price or some other really excellent perks before I would even consider living somewhere where there's a HOA.

I do not understand how you can get to a new house and do not talk to the house around you. Which enter in your business.

I always thought an HOA would be a nice setting for a who done it murder mystery.

Makes sense for a condo, where the structure itself already offers less freedom and flexibility, but seems like more trouble than it's worth for a house, unless you're a really busy/lazy person who wants to let other people do all the work and make the decisions.

lived in ( and was the president of for 3 years ) for 15 years living in a townhouse.

it was a necessity to provide the uniformity of service, amenities, etc.. required for living on shared property. homeowners owned the "walls in" of their homes but exterior and land was common ( or limited common ) property so someone had to pay to maintain it.

i'd be hesitant to do it again for a stand along home unless i was really getting something for it like communal landscaping, snow removal, clubhouse/pool, that kind of thing. the ones you hear about where you have to get approval to paint your door green or are fined for your hedges being 3" too high sound insane.

I think the power structure of the board attracts a lot of terrible people and i saw it in our boards as well. i lived in a large community ( 500+ homes ) so we actually had 4 separate boards and some of the folks were complete asshats to the point that individual boards were suing each other. meetings devolved into shouting matches, i think police may have even been called once. we did out best to keep out of the drama and keep ours heads down focused on homeowners and just running the community.

power is a funny thing for some people. even when it's something as stupid as a piddly little hoa, people will let it go to their heads.

I'm ok w/ them. Generally, there are no issues. It wouldn't stop me from moving/buying a house, but I'd want to look into any past issues they have had.

But so far, so good.

Avoid like the plague.