Posted on 08/22/2007 5:32:12 AM PDT by Hydroshock
“How about the Home Owners Associations (HOAs) that charge a $75. setup fee to take 1 minute to modify the home account with the new owners’ information?”
How about the high cost of the entire HOA racket to the home “owner” who is essentially stripped of his/her property rights in HOA controlled housing?
Potential home buyers, myself included, are increasingly seeing the whole HOA/common interest development scheme that is so prevalent today as a total fraud. HOAs are there so municipalities can tax at full rate and yet provide little or no service. The homeowner gets to pay for these services AGAIN through HOA dues and special assessments.
Not only that, under the HOA regime, the owner loses most or all control of his home to the HOA corporate board of directors which is by and large unconstrained by the federal and state constitutions. Buying into an HOA controlled property is really consigning yourself to a financial and liability black hole and a legal minefield.
If this is home ownership, I would rather rent in an apartment complex. There I don’t have any pretention of ownership nor do I have any clipboard bearing rule enforcing “condo commandos” to put up with nor are there any opportunistic lawyers looking to make a big fast buck from me with “legal fees” from fines imposed by the HOA.
If they really want to bring back the housing market, one thing that needs to be done is to offer HOA-free housing. I would rather have a couple of purple houses in the neighborhood than be vulnerable to HOA boards, their micromanagement companies, predatory attorneys, and all those stinking little rules written in obfuscated legalese.
Really want to revitalize the housing market? Better look beyond the banks and the financial problems. Look at the product you are selling! I see no reason to expend my life savings on a cookie cutter house that is not controlled by me, but by a power hungry, arbitrary, legalistic, and undemocratic corporate HOA board of directors. I would rather rent!
Back to the subject, consider that many real estate agents leaving the profession were just sucked in by brokers (usually from the big 'chains') who see listings and sales drying up, and take any warm body into the office. They know that there's a reasonable chance that any of that "prospect's" friends and/or relatives who are in the market to buy or sell are going to go through the newbie to give them a break.
Some states even have "temporary" licenses for people who are undergoing required training before license testing. If they fail the test, then the brokerage firm is legally PREVENTED from paying them a commission on a closing from someone the newbie dragged in the door. That's the way it worked in WA state when I signed up with a broker back in the mid-1970's.
When the guy next door parks a half dozen vehicles in his driveway 24/7...has a front lawn that has gone to seed...has shutters hanging by a thread...puts his trash out for pickup two days too early...a satellite dish the size of a deck table umbrella..., well, you get the picture.
In a condo, when there's just a wall between you and a drunk that beats his wife at two in the morning while playing Alice Cooper at full blast.
Yes, the associations can get a little power hungry, but they are there to enhance the value and integrity of the neighborhood.
Not everybody has the common sense that you possess. Just recently in our region, the association had to step in because a Pakistani homeowner decided to own a goat and rooster...on a 12,000 sq. ft. lot.
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