Homeowners Assoc. Sells Woman's House Over $420 Fee

Damn. I am buying a townhome in May and this news scares the hell out of me!

 

Wow...in NW Houston Champions area, custom home prices have appreciated dramatically in the last few years. Old and new prices have skyrocketed.

 

I agree with Pole, I don't like them but they are somewhat of a necessary evil for new cookie cutter neighborhoods in the burbs. Once a neighborhood is estavlished it would be nice if they went away, but I doubt that ever happens

 

#1 Only a frigging idiot would lose a house to a HOA. It ain't that hard...hell sell your dam house and pay off the $420

#2 You know what the deed restrictions are before you buy the house. If it's not a standard you want to live up to, don't buy the house.

Of course individual hardships happen but no HOA is going to press the issue if you communicate with the people, they are your neighbors.


(I have written deed restrictions fo a couple of developments)

But let's say you bought a nice house, you spend some money on it and the tax value is up to, say, $300,000, You have to change jobs and move so you need to sell quickly. Well your new neighbor just painted his house purple to match his 1968 Charger that's out in the driveway on blocks, he hasn't mowed yet this year, has a grage sell every weekend, and his wife cuts hair with her salon sign out in front. Good luck getting your $300,000.

Deed restrictions are inteded to preserve property value. That takes some risk out of owning in a particular subdivision and that makes that subdivision more marketable.

 

Karma is a b****.

I just got home to a letter from my HOA. I've got to move my boat out of the driveway as it is a deed restriction, and it's too big for my garage. Looks like I've got to find storage. Oh well.....that's a hundred bucks or so a month I didn't really need.

 

You see! It's madness! Maaaaaaaaadness I tells ya!

 

oh, it's not??? that's EXACTLY what home values in the area I live in have done. for 40 years...nothing but appreciation.

 

in general...i agree with this. seriously...deed restrictions were explained before i ever got to closing...in my case they weren't a big deal. i was told what the HOA fees would be per year. I signed the dotted line. And I knew they could foreclose if I didn't pay them.

the problem is in the abuse of HOAs. that's it. they're abused. and perhaps their power needs to be tempered because man seems to find a way to abuse any power offered to him.

 

For the same reasons that Dubious said, you don't want Joe Neighbor putting up a pink fence and painting his house puke green. I've driven through neighborhoods with strong HOA enforcement and driven through neighborhoods with very weak or no HOA enforcement. There's a lot of differences to be seen. If I'm driving around looking for a house, I'd rather buy one in an area that looks maintained than one where every other house has lawns that haven't been mowed for 2 months, gutters falling off, etc.

 

It isn't?

im about to sell my home and ill be making a nice $30K profit that has accumulated since I bought it 3 1/2 years ago

there are a TON of communities out where I live that appreciate anywhere from 3-5% per year

 

What's wrong with pink and puke green? Some of the houses in Hyde Park (Austin) have that very same color scheme! And that HOA is one tough cookie too.

 

and have done so for decades.

 

I haven't had any problem with my HOA so far, only been here half a year. However, they should definately contact the owner in person before they resort to forclosing on their home.

 

Do y'all live in Houston?!?

Let's do this. Find a home in your community in the $1-200,000 range. Find its value. Then we'll come back on this in a couple of years.

The problem with suburbia is that it is constantly producing new homes. Used homes have to be sold at a discount to get people to buy them.

If you live in a suburb, and are about to make $30k profit after 3 years, thank your lucky stars. It isn't the norm.

 

The average home value goes up about 5% a year according to historical data (if I remembered that correctly). But in the Dallas burbs people have been making a killing the past decade in areas such as Plano, Richardson, Frisco, etc. Several people saw their homes appreciate in value over $25,000 - $50,000 in a 5-8 year period. Now, whether or not you'll get a buyer to buy at your appraised value is another story, but tons of people here have done so. Several California real estate investors were buying up homes in the Dallas area due to the cheap costs in comparison to California. They'd either flip them upon appreciation or use them as rental properties. The housing boom has slowed down a bit due to the increase in interest rates, but to dismiss that yes, people were banking over the past 5-10 years in "the suburbs", is silly. It was happening.

In the Frisco area, homes that used to sell for $175,000, you can't get for under $200,000 now. It's been a new home market and will continue to be one for a while, but in the meantime, people that don't want to move out to the still developing "outer" burbs are gladly paying a premium for existing construction in the "nearer burbs".

 

But that's the point :

You have a common theme possibly in that area - that color scheme probably fits with that scheme. It may fit within the guidelines of what the HOA says is "ok". If I lived in an area of red-brick houses and a puke green and pink house went up, that would be what the HOA should stop. The HOA should enforce what the majority of its residents wants. If they say that puke green and pink is OK, then I should know that going in... and abide/suffer by it.

BTW, puke green and pink are nasty. Damn Austin.

 

i live in houston. are you saying that west houston/memorial area is not the suburbs?? if you're saying it's not the suburbs, that's fine...we're just defining terms wrong. but outside the loop on Memorial Drive, west to Eldridge, north to I-10, south to Westheimer....that area has increased in property value for literally 40 years. homes that were $250K 10 years ago now go for around $400-$500K.

 

Yes, I'm saying that area is not the suburbs. To me the burbs in houston are: Kingwood, The Woodlands, Sugarland, Katy, Baytown, Pearland, Missouri City, and Champions.

 

You could get stuck to someone who wants to build a real life Simpson's house.

Simpsons House

 

cool...i agree. particuarly with Katy. if you buy a home there right now, you're probably stuck there a while....way too much new development...why by the used house when you go down the street and have one built exactly the way you want?