For every hoa horror story you may hear, I can tell you about the giant peeing baby fountain in a neighbors front yard, or the baby blue house, or the raiders sheets as curtains for four years, the year round christmas lights, the 9 cars out front, the corn instead of lawn, the urban chickens, the smell of curry in the air 24 hours a day, the monster trucks, boats and dunebuggies on the lawn, the yard appliances, the perimeter fence at a tract house, the weekly garage sales, the unmowed lawns, the trash cans permanently at the curb, the constant rv storage and I’m sure a few other things that you can avoid for the bargain price of $30-$90 a month (what my various hoa’s have been over the years at different houses). We all live together now, we accept each other, but we gotta have a few basic rules. Just pay it, I’ve found it to be some of the best money I’ve ever spent. When I was young I avoided hoa’s cause I was cheap, now it’s a requirement.
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You say all that like it’s a bad thing?
As someone who’s trying to talk her husband into urban chickens, and has flowering groundcover instead of lawn in the front, I don’t want someone telling me how to landscape or what (LEGAL) pets I can have. (no worries to my UC brethren, I won’t get a rooster.) I have neighbors with RV’s and boats in their side yards. I’m fine with that. We have big enough lots to accomodate it. They can’t legally park boats/rv’s/cars on the street for more than 3 days – so that’s not an issue.
As far as the trash cans – you are legally limited to 24 hours before/after trash pick up… so again, that’s covered without an HOA.
For me, HOA’s that provide swimming, tennis, etc… that’s giving a value. But an HOA that imposes rules and doesn’t give me benefit other than making the neighborhood cookie cutter… I’ll leave that for those that prefer a more Stepford neighborhood.
I’m not sure how racist neighborhood restrictions equate to HOAs… La Jolla was famous for not allowing Jews to purchase. Obviously, that got eliminated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jolla#Antisemitism
