Posted on 11/28/2022 7:20:39 AM PST by george76
I own a second home in Pagosa Springs, CO. A couple years ago the HOA for Pagosa Lakes went full dictator and declared war on short term rentals in Pagosa Lakes. We home owners were not able to vote on this; they simply declared it with minimal input from the owners. When I sent a scathing letter that included the “damn” word I was informed of another policy they enacted without input. If they don’t like your correspondence you are subject to a $500 fine for the first offense, $10,000 for the second and $20,000 for the third. Gee, what kind of message is that sending?
You can still offer up your home in Pagosa Lakes for a short term rental, but first you must buy a special expensive permit from the HOA and the county assessor will reassess your home at TRIPLE the market value and you will be taxed accordingly. Mission accomplished: most owners opted out of short term rentals.
When I bought my place five years ago approximately 70% percent of the homes in Pagosa Lakes were second homes for people living elsewhere (mostly Texas, according to our real estate agent), and I doubt that has changed much. This is what is called a resort community. Many of us purchased homes here because we wanted the option of short term rental income. The Board of Directors for the HOA laughably tried to rationalize their decision. The real reason is pure NIMBY; they and their friends can’t stand Texas riff-raff in Pagosa.
The Board says local workers cannot find affordable housing due to the homes being used for AirBNB. Sorry Board, not my problem. You are my HOA, not a social outreach program that I sponsor with my dues. I drove an hour each way to my job for most of my life and I had roommates until I was forty years old. You want to live in a resort community or other desirable place you got to suck it up.
Does the Board REALLY think those AirBNB homes will convert to long term rentals? Of course not! Those idiots know we want to visit our second home frequently and don’t want someone living there full time (whoops, give me a minute while I whip out a check for 500 clams, or am I up to ten grand?).
So how has this played out? No post-Covid recovery for Pagosa. The short term renters used to come in and spend like drunken sailors. It being a vacation they would bring extra money. They’d load up at the pot shops and the liquor stores because you can’t get pot in Texas, and because beer, wine, and liquor costs 30% more in The Lone Star State. They would ski at the nearby resort, because, you know, skiing sucks in Texas and they would enjoy the famous Pagosa hot springs. Imagine the rage this causes the Board. Texans in our hot springs! Gross!
Now the small businesses still surviving are largely up for sale. On top of that, 70% of the homes and businesses going dark in Pagosa attracted the tweakers from Durango, Sante Fe and Taos. Our home was recently broken into by a pair of meth heads from Taos, one of whom is currently in jail there. They lived in our shed for a week or two getting high on hand sanitizer and leaving a pile of cigarette butts and beer cans and broken glass on two doors. The responding sheriff’s deputies said this problem spiked shortly after the Board’s decision to eliminate short term rentals and is a continuing problem throughout Pagosa Lakes.
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So the geniuses solved the worker rental housing crisis by eliminating many of the jobs. I picture the Board members sitting blissfully on their deck in the pines, wearing their masks, relieved at not having to hear rednecks or local workers living it up next door.
I offered this story to two “newspapers” in Pagosa Springs and received no replies. It probably radiated like nuclear waste from their screens, a veritable Cleveland Steamer. You see, advertising (i.e., survival) for these corndog wrappers comes mostly from the huge number of real estate firms in town. God forbid word gets out to potential buyers that the local HOA is fascist as Hell and does whatever they want with YOUR home and your home is not safe from tweakers.
It distresses me that I cannot ask these town newspapers to pursue important stories that affect their community. Their interests lie elsewhere.
My condo building also forbids short term rentals. The rationale is that it’s a security risk to have a constant influx of new strangers. The doormen won’t know who belongs.
Amazing how you all seem to be keying in the HOA and not the fact that he purchased a “second home”, that was actually nothing more than a rental property in a ski town.
A property, like all the other “second homes” that was filled with drunk skiers from Texas.
Is some of the stuff the HOA did a little excessive? Maybe. How about all of you complaining about HOAs, go find the street in some college town, known for the epic parties that are thrown in all the rentals or maybe take up residence in the area where all the fraternities are, report back and let us know how it works out.
HOA Nazis!
The first step is to find a really expensive, small place for your farm. That way you can spend $200 per night for a place to keep your potted plants.
NEVER-—NEVER—EVER-—own a home in an HOA or with CCR’s.
You will cry forever.
Plenty of places to live—2nd home or not—where you do NOT have a small group of monsters telling you how to live YOUR life.
HOAs... if you’re dumb enough to buy in one or you need the company of people daily, then you get what you get. When I retired every damn real estate agent tried to get me to buy in a housing community even though my requirements were remote and no neighbors.
I finally found a nice piece of land and built. After the house was completed even the builder said they won’t be building on anymore sites like mine, they’ll stick to community building.
I lived in Pagosa Springs forty nine years ago, a small Hispanic town with only a lumber industry to support it. We lived on the road to Chama.
The vacation housing boom had just started west of town, separate from Pagosa Springs proper. Four housing lots to the acre! Way too small for me.
Last time I was through there was in 2015. I knew it had grown large when I saw a Walmart store on the south side of the road to Durango.
Wish I was still in that area, but not Pagosa Springs West.
Isn’t downtown Pagosa Springs at the bottom of Wolf Creek Pass?
My general rule of thumb is that an HOA makes sense in any location where a fire next door can spread directly to your home. That would include multi-unit condominium buildings and townhouse developments by definition, as well as many subdivisions of detached homes where the properties are much smaller than 1/2-acre in size.
The same thought occurred to me. Spring break isn’t just for Spring anymore.
One thing the author did not mention is that most likely Colorado state laws on landlord tenant and anti discrimination in housing would likely apply and be used against property owners at some point. Want limit the rental to families? That could land you in court. Want to screen criminal history. There are limits. Want to require an application fee? Better make sure it does not exceed actual processing costs. That is not even including a possible eviction nightmare.
hahaha. you think you own your home? don’t pay your property taxes and see how quick that changes. we all basically rent from the government until they decide to evict.
Ok, so I want to pay extra for property that has an HOA and then pay monthly dues to a HOA board that tells me how I may use “my” property. I have never seen the allure of living in such a community.
No question, the most conservative or liberal people are the same when it comes to HOAs, once they get the boards the often-become tyrants with a little power and seek to gain more.
A few years ago, in the neighborhood of our primary residence, we had a batch of new younger owners move in and they all wanted to change the bylaws to “modernize” them, one Sunday a women in the young owners group knocked on our door to lobby for the changes she was advocating.
One of their new rules they wanted to implement was a fining committee to fine owners for rules violations.
I told her I was for eliminating rules because the fewer the better and was absolutely opposed to fines. It’s fun to watch young and idealistic people get hit in the face with reality.
Does your insurance handle being used as a short term rental? Are you properly permitted by the county to do so?
Just like Uber violating a lot of Taxi laws, Air BnB violates a lot of hotel laws.
No sympathy.
My guess is that it was a yearly agreement but with that said, in our HOA agreement, it specifically forbids the renting of our homes. (detached condos)
I lived in an HOA-controlled development that was formed in 1969. I lived there from 2015 through 2022.
The board was very lenient and fair in how they dealt with the homeowners on issues like tree removal, repaints, remodels, etc.
Back to basics.......
What does your contract with the HOA say on the subject?
My daughter used to work for a lady that had ‘vacation rentals’ that costed $5000 a week to rent in Destin. They come fully furnished and even have bicycles and beach floats and umbrellas to use.
She told me most renters are good, clean people that leave the units just as nice as when they arrived, but every now and then they would get a family that would leave them trashed an stuff missing, like appliances and even furniture!
They would not get their $1000 security deposit back, and usually threaten to sue, but none ever did.............
I would not want to be surrounded by AirBNB trash.
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