DH and are considering a relocation and this will finally push us to buy our first home, we have been in an apartment since we got married. We were interested in a new construction home and the majority of them appear to be in communities that operate like a gated community even if there isnt an actual gate.
Aside from the obvious HOA fees, what are your pros or cons for buying a home in a community. I worry there would be too many restrictions
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Biggest Pro is sense of community, property values and less traffic.
Cons - HOA and rules.
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@T.H.O.U.: Thanks! I feel the same way. I wonder if any people who live in communities can chime in as to why they stay and if they would make that decision again
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Look at the HOA restrictions. Some are very lax (and just do enough to maintain property values) and others really are tight and want to control everything.
The one I grew up with had a rule about parking on the street overnight. It was somewhat annoying to have to move guests cars in overnight (they would patrol around 3am) but it also was nice that people weren't habitually just parking in the street.
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@T.H.O.U.: Thanks thats a good tip. DH and I will pay more attention to the details of the HOA restrictions
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In this phase of our life, absolutely. We live in one and would choose it again in a heartbeat. Having nearly everything handled by our HOA (trash, snow, lawn, common elements, consistent exterior appearance for value) takes so much pressure off DH and I. No more arguing about who is going to mow the lawn. It's done on Wednesdays, without fail. It helps our investment retain its value. Yes the rules are a PITA sometimes, but if you care that much about the rules, make an effort to get involved with the board and influence them.
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We live in a townhouse community. I'm not sure if that's what you are talking about?
There are a lot of rules but so far nothing we disagree with, in fact a lot of them we do agree people shouldn't do.
One weird one that I never thought of was we can't dry underwear laundry on our balconies... which we never did anyways but I guess it's nice to not see people's underwear out in the open. *shrugs*
We have a yahoo group for the community. No one uses it to hang out but we do use it to ask questions about our townhouse... A lot of people asks home improvement questions all the time.
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Never. I don't like the vibe of gating off the actual community of the city/region so that neighbors can't access the neighborhood I live in. I want my kids to grow up seeing the vibrant diversity of the community as it actually exists. Warts and all.
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I would consider it. I like that it keeps people from parking a rusted out car on the front lawn, operating a business out of their garage, etc.
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Ours isn't a gated community, but it's part of a condo association and we're on a private road. Our HOA fees are $110/month, but it doesn't include much. Mostly maintaining the road and lights, some common areas, snow plowing, and trash pick-up.
It does have some restrictions, but so far they haven't really impacted us. Since it's a private road, it has very little traffic, which is nice when I'm taking the kids for a walk - I don't worry about them getting run over or anything! And I've gotten to know a few of our neighbors really well, which is nice.
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We live in a gateless, HOA community and our dues are low and the rules enforcement is low by the HOA. Instead, our HOA makes the city enforce their rules, so there's more teeth behind the infractions like removing garbage bins completely from view except on trash day. Typically all of us just roll them up in front of garages, but not after we got letters.
Pros- is more consistent look and feel of the neighborhood for example, the HOA maintains a lot that was never built, seasonal planting at the entrance of our subdivision and holiday lights
Cons- if you have an active HOA you will have to get things approved like changing your home's paint color, modifications to your home like garage conversions and additions, trees and landscape, and even restrictions on parking like no commercial vehicles in the driveway ie small business owners may advertise on the trucks must park in the garage
Our new home's HOA appears to be much more active than our current, so when we landscape our new home we will spend a ton of time pouring through the approved trees and shrub list.
If I had a choice I would live in a gated, HOA community. Not having a gate means constant (well at least monthly) solicitations by people and that gets old really quick.
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I would not choose to live in one. I don't really like the idea of the neighborhood telling me what I can and cannot do to my house or yard. I painted my front door last year and in an HOA, I would have had to have the board clear the color I used.
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We rented in a gated community and I loved it. Our main consideration was safety ( it was actually gated with a guard) but we also liked not having to take care of the exterior and having common areas we could use. That said, our didn't have any crazy rules so I think that makes a huge difference.
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DH and I unexpectedly ended up moving into the opposite situation.
Well, when we saw the house and I noticed a neighbor had a peacock painted on their garage door, we knew there was no HOA. but we didn't realize how far that extended until we saw there were no trashcans and about four different companies visit our cul de sac in a week because everyone sets up their own trash clean up.
I think a lot depends on the people though. Our community was established in the 70s and has always had a community association that's still active. You pay $15 a year to "belong." People are really friendly and look out for one another. They discuss the county rules of street parking and noise ordinances, but there's no HOA "head" to have to enforce that sort of thing.
If you find places you really like, I'd ask about how the HOA operates. In my old neighborhood, no one really talked to each other unless there was a problem. I didn't really like that approach. I'm a fan of the old school welcome wagon type atmosphere we've landed in now in an older neighborhood.
Also, even though trash was a mess to figure out, lawncare was awesome. The same company does like 5 houses in our cul de sac so it's easier for them to mow us than not (so they don't have to worry about property lines). They only charge like $20 a mow. So just because their isn't an HOA doesn't always mean things will be a bigger headache to deal with.
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We live in a hood with HOA and would buy into one again unless it was our forever home.
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We live in a gated community. I like that it is quite and we have community wide events. I also like that security is always patrolling and we can contact them if we have an issue. Pretty much all of the neighborhoods in my area have HOA regardless of the price, but it varies between gated and non-gated.
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Thanks everyone, i appreciate all the opinions, it's really helpful to hear about all your different experiences
@Raindrop: the communities we are looking at are not townhouses but just regular houses within a gated area. But i assume it's very similar to a town house community
@MrsKerch: thanks for your input. You made a lot of good points.
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@Mrsbells: Also keep an eye out because even if its not gated, you often will have some type of HOA in a neighborhood.
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@T.H.O.U.: oh Ok good point
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We just relocated and our rental is in an uber gated, HOA community. I can't say I would ever buy in one, but the perks are really nice of renting in one! We can't park on the street overnight, garbage cans must be kept in garages and garage doors must be kept closed unless you're using them. Those are just a few of the rules. It's also 24-hr guarded with a gate, so it's an adjustment still for us to remember to call up for a pizza delivery or family member who is coming by. However, I am loving the maintenance free lifestyle so far and feel like it will give us so much time back to spend with each other versus maintaining landscaping, etc. Definitelt read thru any rules/restrictions of the community you're considering buying in.
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Only if its a guard gated community. Otherwise, I don't see the point. I knew most of the code's to all the gated communities when I was kid. But I wouldn't not buy a house just because of an unguarded gate if I did love the home.
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Definitely not. It was on my dealbreaker list when looking for a house. I don't want to be told what color to pain my house or where I can and can't park. I have other issues with HOA communities but they were pretty much covered by the previous posters.
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I would consider it because I imagine it would be a fun environment for my kids to grow up in. I grew up down a dead end dirt road in the country so I would have loved a neighborhood.
But HOA fees for my own house that I maintain would be a major detractor. I would really have to love the amenities that the HOA covers to be ok with it. Also we like to be able to walk to places, not just around a neighborhood so the location of the community would obviously be a major factor too. -
I guess I would love to hear more feedback about people that want "freedom". Are you also ok with giving your neighbors "freedom" if they want to leave a rusty car in the street? Or do some crappy addition that ruins the value of the house? Or let their "relatives" live in an RV in the front yard?
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@T.H.O.U.: I like that my neighbors don't complain if my yard doesn't get mowed for two weeks or I choose to paint my door blue. As for my particular neighborhood, you can't park an RV in the driveway because they aren't big enough and as long as their relatives aren't bothering me, I don't care if they live there. I'm more concerned with the guys down the street who sometimes have loud parties, but in general, it's pretty respectful. I don't live in the sticks or in a bad part of town, so there aren't any rusty cars sitting in driveways here. We haven't had any additions done in the 4 years I've lived here, so I don't know how that would make me feel, but I don't want the neighbors to tell me what I can or can't do. If the city has a problem, fine, but if the neighbors hate my fence or something, tough.
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I don't think a gated community is for me. I have an aunt who lives in one and there are so many rules - only 3 colors (all shades of beige) for the houses, only 3 colors for front doors, all residents must have at least 3 palm trees in their front yard and so on. My mom also lives in a condo and people are crazy about the rules. I love that I have my own home and can do what I like and if my dogs bark or my lawn isn't mowed I am not going to be scolded or fined, even if my neighbors yard looks like a dump (which it does at the moment - they never seem to finish any projects they start...)
I do live in a place where the town does a very good job of maintaining the streets, plowing snow, collecting garbage, and generally keeping things up. That would be something I would take into consideration for any future home purchases.
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@avivoca: I get that, but go to an extreme, how would you feel if your neighbor NEVER cut their grass? And weeds started growing into your yard.
What if it wasn't just a pretty blue front door, but someone wanted to paint their entire house purple and put on a hot pink tin roof?
How does that reflect on your house when you go to sell?
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@CakeLady: Yeah, the city doesn't maintain our neighborhood streets, but there's a nice sense of community when your neighbor who has a plow for his 4-wheeler plows the entire neighborhood just so no one is stuck, not because we pay him to do it.
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I love living in a gated community. The HOA fees are high, but we get a lot of services for it so it feels mostly worth it. Yes, there are rules which can be inconvenient at times but for the most part we hardly notice.
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We live in an HoA community (not gated). I like having some oversight. I don't want to look at my neighbors trash, and I don't want have an unsightly yard down the street that detracts from my property value. Plus our HoA does things like plan block parties and maintain a listserv for us to communicate with each other. It's only $550 a year. If I was paying hundreds a month and didn't have a lot of amenities, then I would probably be annoyed. I'm actually trying to join our HoA board.
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@T.H.O.U.: There's actually a house in the neighborhood with purple trim. It still doesn't bother me. My neighbor's grass did get pretty tall there for awhile, but she was out of town for awhile spending time with her mother before she passed away, so no one complained. It's also not a planned community, it is an older neighborhood. My house is the newest and it was built in 1971.
Maybe I lucked into a good neighborhood with good neighbors, but I still would not choose to live in a neighborhood with an HOA.
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Thanks everyone, you all bring up so really good points. I must say I am a bit torn between the "freedom" of living outside an HOA community versus living inside it. But it really helps hearing a variety of experiences from you ladies.
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So we owned a coop apartment for years and i was really turned off to the whole idea so when we were house hunting in the burbs I really didn't consider anything in a hoa. I feel like especially with a single family home you want the freedom to put up a fence, park your car on the street, etc. and I am personally willing to put up with the potential for messy neighbors to have that freedom. I think when we are empty nesters we might not care as much, and the overall beauty of an hoa or gated community might appeal to us more, but you hear about lawsuits over swing sets and it is really scary. My neighbor lives in an hoa near me and told me how he can't even cut down a tree or put up landscape lighting without permission!
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Yeah, it really depends on the terms of the HOA and what you get for the money. We lived in a non-gated community at one point when I was a kid and we had to pay a lot of money (like hundreds every month) for community landscaping and tennis courts that we never used, and had to choose paint colors off the HOA's approved list. That, and we had maintain our yard to their standards.
On the other hand, I have some coworkers who live in legit gated communities and they really like them because it keeps the property values high, there's less of an issue with crazy drivers and kids playing in the street, and they have overnight parking restrictions and what not so no noisy parties. They haven't had issues doing things to their house (one has a giant aviary, for instance, but just had to run the plans through the HOA so that they knew it was "secure" or whatever), but they're not the kind of people who would paint their house pink either.
When we bought last year we could have either purchased in a non-gated new community with an HOA that had low-ish dues to do community landscaping (walking paths, lights, gazebo, parks, etc.) or move to an established neighborhood a block over with no HOA and neighbors who generally really take good care of their properties. Aside from one house on our block that seems a little rundown and a few interesting paint choices here and there, everyone seems to be super on top of their stuff, even the renters, so we bought in the non-HOA neighborhood and we like it quite a bit. One thing is we get to know our neighbors better because we have to deal with our issues ourselves instead of "tattling" to the HOA. Our neighbor behind us had some dogs that were barking like crazy and we've been able to work things out really nicely with them, we know our neighbors on either side by going over landscaping and fencing decisions, and we look out for each other's houses when we travel, things like that.
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@Modern Daisy: yep funny you should mention the swing set, that reminded me of an episode from the show Desperate Housewives. I always thought the community isses on the show were exaggerated but from what I see online they might be accurate depending on the community. DH and I will have to weigh the pros and cons
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Nope if i am buying a house, i am not letting anyone tell me what to do with it. Some hoa rules are sooooo crazy to me.
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@gingerbebe: Thanks for sharing your experience. It adds some perspective for me
@stargal: haha, thanks
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@avivoca: @T.H.O.U.: growing up I lived in a HOA-less community and it wasn't bad at all. Everyone had home ownership pride and when homes were improved even if it wasn't in keeping with the original architecture of the neighborhood it usually raised property values. I remember one of our neighbors, an evening news anchor, "blew up her house." It started off as a brick and stone ranch up a steep hill. By the time she was finished it was salmon pink 3 story home that completely made the front yard hill a bunch of stairs & landings with landscape beds to break up all the building material. It was a sight! The city enforced ordinances like in the Fall if you raked your leaves too early before trash day, which meant they were laying around on the street you would get fined.
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I grew up in a non-gated community that still had some "covenants" and for the most part it was easy to follow along. Our neighbors decided to set up a picnic table in their front yard and pretty consistently use it to chop up animals and fish for cooking purposes. It was kind of gross at times to see them butchering stuff in the front yard. It saved my parents an awkward conversation so I think they were happy to have the HOA in place.
My parents live in a gated community now and its nice because they don't have to worry as much about packages getting stolen or that the neighbor across the street is going to suddenly acquire 16 cars that they want to set up a repair shop.
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@Mrsbells: yeah I mean I'm sure it all depends on the hoa.. And even though I was turned off by them I would have still considered it for our "dream home". But in general I don't see a point in going through all the trouble to set one up if there aren't a lot of rules so I tend to assume the worst.
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