buying a condo in phoenix az

Don't complain when someone opens a junkyard or some other noisy, miserable eyesore next door to you.

HOA's keep the riff raff out.

 

The neighborhood my Dad lived in abolished the HOA in 1992, it was started in 1968. The City was opposed to it, they didn't have enough code officers to handle the increase of 3,400 homes to their rolls. My parents bought the house in 1988.

The result, in the cul de sac where he lived, 6 houses, the first house on the right was kept immaculate, manicured lawn, cars garaged, house always looked great.

Next house, elderly couple died in '94, new family moved in, family of 6, by 2006 they had 6 cars, a boat and an RV. Cars were parked in front of anyone's house, anytime the neighbors complained, the father would tell them to F*** off, the boat was inoperable and sat on the side yard, thankfully a lightening strike took care of it in '08, burned out hulk sat for 8 months until the City towed it away, after a lengthy court battle. The RV sits behind the fence, hasn't moved since '06, when it blocked in by the boat.

Dad's house, since 2000, he's paid someone to take care of the yard for him, only exterior defect on the house was the driveway was breaking up. Since my Mom died in '03, he's only had one vehicle, it's always garaged. House always looked nice.

Next house, largest backyard on the block, homeowner had 3 inoperable RV's stored in the back yard, none have moved since the late 90's. In 2010 he sold two of them, bought another one, parked in it the backyard, never used it. Backyard has several dead trees in various stages of falling down, in 2006, one fell and took out the fence, Dad had to sue him to get him to split the cost of replacing the fence, last time I saw it in '14, the front yard was half dead and filled with weeds.

Next house over, single mother, bought the house in foreclosure in 2005, three kids. She worked two jobs, oldest daughter had guys coming and going at all hours, mother was never home. Yard was always full of weeds, overgrown shrubs, she didn't care. Cops raided the place in 2010, oldest daughter was arrested, went to jail for dealing coke and pot. Bank began foreclosing on her in 2013.

Next house, nice family, parents, 3 kids, grandparents. Make an effort to take care of the place. As of last year, when my Dad moved out, none of the kids drove, 3 of 4 adults drove, two car garage, 5 cars and an RV. One of the cars sat behind the fence, hadn't moved since it was parked there in 2004. Another car sat on blocks, no engine, no trans, in front of the house until the city towed it in 2012 when they came out to replace the water main and it was in the way.

Final house on the block, older gentleman, late 60's medically retired cop, spend his day drinking beer and sitting on his front porch, when he's not meticulously taking care of his property.

Three houses directly behind and bordering him, one is and has been a bank owned for 5 years, they do nothing to take care of it. Other two houses, houses look good, paint kept up, yards looked like hell.

2014, Dad put the house up for sale, moved into semi assisted living, appraised at $385,000, owed $200,000. Value reduction because of surrounding junk, house was listed at $289,900, sold for $270,000. He could try an sue his former neighbors for diminished value, but would be too costly and time consuming.

The only time my house has lost appraised value was when the housing bubble hit in '08/'09, dropped from $204,000 to $135,000. Currently back up to $190,000. Former HOA board members house just sold for $194,500, she bought it 2004 $150,000. Think I'll stay with my HOA. BTW, most properly run HOA's will sue or take banks and bank owned property to court for failing to maintain the property, Cities don't care.

 

That's what they said in the beginning when HOA's were formed to keep black families out of white neighborhoods.

But hey whatever floats your boat.

And I live in an apartment. Seems foolish to spend money buying property I'm never at.

 

Thus, if you've read the documents, then you hold his feet to the fire and tell him to prove you're in violation, if he can't then the ball is in your court. Every month, or on demand, I get a copy of the covenant violation report from our management company, I check up at random on the manager to make sure he's doing his job. If a homeowner calls him to complain about receiving a violation or something they think is in violation, he's required to confirm it or have a board member confirm the violation before sending out a letter, if he doesn't it's his butt that's on the line. Few years back, we had one manager demoted, and then fired for sending out letters without confirmation. Management company has required for the last 3 yrs, when the manager does his every two week property inspection, he has to photograph all violations, and the photograph has to stay attached to the account until it's brought into compliance. It's amazing since that policy went into effect, the number of problems or complaints from homeowners about the validity of a violation letter has dropped dramatically.

 

HOA's actually got there start in the 19th century, and it was only in extremely rare cases was this found to be true, and it was more typical in the PNW. 1948 and 1968 civil rights and supreme court cases ruled these illegal. BTW, the original were to keep Hebrew families, not blacks out of neighborhoods. Also, state by state it varies greatly about the power and authority HOA's have, many states have started to restrict that power, in some cases, states have pressed criminal charges against HOA boards.

 

He shouldn't have to go defend himself on what he does on his own property. If there wasn't a Nazi HOA, there wouldn't be any problem.

Further proof that HOA's are run by control freaks who were either not smart enough to be cops or not dumb enough to be politicians.[emoji4]

 

thats good you want to buy a condo

 

There were documented cases of HOA's having wording specifically geared toward keeping black families out.

Like Charles Manson said, "The Truth is Ugly."

 

So, if I buy the property next to you, have parties till all hours of the night, keeping you awake, let the house fall apart, junk cars all around, no lawn, basically a pig sty, that's acceptable to you? You have money to throw around to accept that your property will lose value? It can take most city code enforcements years to perfect a violation of the code, whereas an HOA can correct or have it corrected in months, if not week. BTW, in my City, code enforcement will not address a weed violation until it's at least 3 ft tall, the HOA will get involved if the weed shows up. All of the streets in my HOA, with the exception of two, are private, controlled by the HOA, the other two are controlled by the city. Last summer, the HOA spent $45,000 in street maintenance, repaving, crack seal, chip seal, restriping of parking areas, the residential streets all look great. One of the City controlled streets has a crack that formed 4 yrs ago, initially, it was 2" wide and surrounded a man hole cover, it now varies from 4" wide to 6" wide and is more than 50' long with several smaller offshoots, and creating a trip/fall hazard if someone walks across the street. Three weeks ago I was informed by the infrastructure dept. they will be doing crack seal on that street in 2017, not before. Spoke with my City council rep. last week, he came out and looked at it, he's asked to the infrastructure dept. to put it on the schedule to get it done this year, they said they will need an extra $5,000 for their budget to do it. We have an HOA quarterly meeting next week, we'll be discussing fixing it ourselves and suing the city for the cost.

And those cases have been examined by the courts, and forced to make changes, or face severe penalties.