Living in a place with a Homeowners Association(HOA) comes with many pros and its share of cons. Whether you’re a seasoned Realtor or a first-time HOA homebuyer, understanding HOAs is crucial. We’ll explore what HOAs are, how they operate, and what you need to know before buying a property within an HOA community. We are sharing the financial obligations including assessments, dues, and fines. We will dig in on restrictions and what to look out for as an owner or buyer in an HOA run community. Listen in to hear the challenges of being on an HOA board, potential mismanagement of funds, and the reality of thankless board positions. Plus, we’ll touch on the drama that often unfolds inside neighborhood Facebook groups. Come back in two weeks when we share real-life HOA stories and thoughts from our listeners!

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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.
Alissa 0:01
The structural engineers are having to come out and do a full report.

Katy 0:07
The next meeting, they would make another one, like, a few weeks away, 75% had to show up in order to vote. Then the cities would be like, back on you now, I can’t get in there to maintain these. That’s you.

Alissa 0:22
Hey, It’s a Christmas miracle. This condo is actually my price range, and within 10 feet of their front door, built a huge two story house. Hi, y’all welcome to hustle. Humbly, it’s Alyssa and Katie, and we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market. We

Katy 0:42
work for two different companies where we should be competitors, but we have chosen community over competition. The

Alissa 0:47
goal of our podcast is to encourage you to find your own way in business. So stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi Alyssa. Hi Katie. Welcome

Katy 0:56
to episode 260 HOAs, the pros and cons. Yeah, all about HOAs. I don’t know. We’ve never talked about HOAs before,

Alissa 1:05
and I think that with all the changes in insurance we’ve been having the last two years, it’s good to revisit and understand what our responsibility is as agents representing clients. Okay, great.

Katy 1:17
I’m gonna tell you what an HOA is first. Please do per my friend the Google machine, okay, hey, a homeowners association HOA. So I also think it’s funny, because homeowners is technically one word, so it would be an H, A, right, whatever it’s an HOA is an organization that makes and enforces rules and guidelines for a subdivision planned community or condominium building. HOA members are the residents of the subdivision community or building. You

Alissa 1:51
may see on your appraisal that there is a spot that says, PUD, yep, PUD, that is a planned unit development, yes, that is usually where the appraiser has to put the HOA information. As far as is it in a planned unit development, how much are the dues? Yeah,

Katy 2:11
yeah. Okay. So what let’s do dues first before we’ve got lots of interesting information. But first of all, I think locally, when we think of an HOA, we picture a neighborhood with 50 or more houses, people paying maybe yearly of small fee, it could be 100 bucks, and they maintain a subdivision sign right and do a little light yard maintenance. Some people, when they think of an HOA, picture a plan unit community where the HOA comes and mows everyone’s front yard and does all of the weeding and has a pool and has, maybe is even a gated community or so. There are levels upon levels of what your HOA do. And I think some people, when they hear Hoa, think of the condo complex, and they’re like, we’re paying like $700 a month for insurance and their water bill and all these other things, right, right? When you think of an HOA locally, what do you think of?

Alissa 3:10
I think of like, dsld, okay, a local or tract, yeah, like a Track Builder that is building where the same house is, like, every fifth house is the same house, and I just think of that. But then I when I think of condo or townhome HOAs, I picture something totally different, yeah, just because the restrictions are different, yeah. And this would be a really good time to refresh on the episode of different property types, right? We’ll share that this week on Instagram, yes, but it would be if you know, we’re not going to get into the complete differences between no townhomes and condos, but the HOAs are different.

Katy 3:54
A homeowners association can exist, though, for all of the property types. Yes, any type, in theory, you can have a collection of homeowners for a mobile home park or a condo complex or just regular detached home neighborhood. So I think everyone thinks of something different when they hear the term Hoa,

Alissa 4:15
and they should, because there’s all different types, and

Katy 4:19
this is fun. You don’t live in an HOA, I

Alissa 4:21
don’t, but I do, right? That’s why I think this is going to be a great episode. Perfect.

Katy 4:28
Okay, so the episode of property types is 205, perfect. So revisit, learn about property types. We are not by any stretch of the imagination, condominium experts. No, we have, what, a handful of con true condo complexes here. A lot of our attached properties are townhomes, right? Which means you own the land below

Alissa 4:50
you. Yeah. We have more condos in the LSU area, yeah. But, and I don’t think even if you’re a quote, unquote condo X. Expert, every Hoa is going to be totally

Katy 5:03
different. Some require you to pay monthly. Some of you want to want you to pay quarterly. Sometimes you pay yearly. There’s different amounts of money, and your HOA dues can change, probably every year. I would think, with

Alissa 5:16
insurance increasing right now, we are seeing a lot of dues increasing and special assessments happening. Do you want to talk about what a special assessment is?

Katy 5:27
Yeah, actually, I have a little note here. So a special assessment would be for a larger project or some expense that cannot be covered with the reserves or the normal dues that the residents are paying, right? So, like, we need extra money, and I want we’ll just talk about so I talked to an agent in Florida and condominiums, there’s so many condominiums there, right? Like on the beach, they’re having a lot of trouble, because, if you recall, there was this condo complex that the building collapsed in the Miami area a couple of years ago, so scary, and after that, the state government was like, Okay, well, we need to check all these buildings. We need to put some laws in place to make sure people are protected, right? So they’re now having to do these structural exterior assessments, right? Like they’re coming to check the structure.

Alissa 6:19
The structural engineers are having to come out and do a full which

Katy 6:23
the actual report very expensive. Then if they find this is what the law, I guess, is saying in Florida, then if they find a certain number of things on the outside, then they have to do this deep dive on the inside, which is another report and also expensive. And then, depending on what they found, and what’s in this law, the complex is required to fix anything they found. Okay? And they have, like, a quick y’all don’t quote me on this, but it was like one year, two years, it had a time frame, okay? So then they had this time frame to get it done. So now they know they have to pay for the report, then they have to pay for the repairs. The people who were in the condo that own these units, they don’t have a choice. They’re just going to make an assessment and be like, This is what it cost, and then we all have to split it, right? So it’s becoming a problem also for resale, because now you know, you have these assessments coming due, or residents are there, they can’t afford to pay for them, and they’re like, we’re just gonna have to sell. Because you have to think too a lot of these are probably second home in some cases where they’re like, I this is not worth the money for me, right? But then it’s hard to resell. You’re going to affect your value.

Alissa 7:28
Yeah? I have noticed that things that will make HOA dues higher anytime it’s a gated community, gates are a good bit of maintenance. Yeah? Some condos, you know, with condos you don’t own your exterior, yeah, but some HOAs cover windows and some don’t, yeah? You know, everything has to be read within your descriptions of the HOA bylaws, and people really don’t understand when they purchase a condo, they’re given this stack of a 60 page, 60 pages of HOA rules and regulations. Do you think your clients read that? No, I do think it’s important that when you are selling a condo to a client or town home or anything with anything with a HOA, even a neighbor, yeah, right, any Hoa, you have an email in writing, where you have attached those documents, and you say, please see the attached HOA documents, yeah, it is your responsibility to review them and make sure that you feel comfortable. I’ve had clients say I didn’t realize we couldn’t have chickens, right? I didn’t realize I couldn’t park in the driveway, that I had to park in the garage, you know? Like, there’s different things. Yeah,

Katy 8:45
you can’t assume anything if a neighborhood has an HOA. You also can’t assume a neighborhood has an HOA, even if it did at one point. Let’s say it’s a 50 year old neighborhood. They are simply run by their residents. If people stop running it, it just sort of will fizzle. Sometimes they stop collecting the dues. So maybe you’re expecting it to be restricted, and people told to follow the rules, and there’s no one actually enforcing the rules correct.

Alissa 9:13
And I think that’s the perfect time to let the audience know that there are two types of HOAs. There’s privately owned, okay? And then there’s those that are run by a governing Association, like an actual management company. So there’s the owners, where the owners are just making it work, okay? And then you have a management company that everybody’s paying there is likely things that the title company making this all even more official. Okay,

Katy 9:43
they’re not different, though. So I’ll tell you, because I live in one okay, the our homeowner association is run by the homeowners, right? Okay, we have a board, president, vice president, treasurer. Then there’s an architectural committee. I am actually on the architectural committee. We’ll come back to that. Okay, so there’s a board of three people that live in your neighborhood, that’s correct. They are, they are humans that live. They live in one of the houses in the neighborhood. They were voted on by the residents, okay, you have to have 50% people of the neighborhood show up to vote. All right, wow. At the yearly meeting, it’s really hard to get that done, and we had to go through a bunch of legal stuff to fix our actual restrictions, because then it said if 50% didn’t show up the next meeting, they would make another one, like a few weeks away, 75% had to show up in order to vote. And then we sort of got in this locked position where you could almost not even change out the leadership. And I mean, anyone can quit at any time. They could be like, I don’t want to be the president anymore, okay, but we hire a management company to collect the dues, pay the bills, to keep up with the budgets and do all of this stuff, to send out violation notices. Like we do pay a management company, but that is again voted on by the residents, and then the board has the authority to they have changed our management company before, but it is not a different thing. Both things are true. It’s almost like y’all are a hybrid. I think they’re all that way.

Alissa 11:11
So I have worked in some where it’s just a management company. There’s not my own, like there’s not any residents, per se, they’re

Katy 11:23
not required to get approval from residents.

Alissa 11:25
I don’t know now you’re making, but mostly

Katy 11:29
the homeowners association is as its core, owned by the homeowners of that they can

Alissa 11:38
fire the management. Yeah, yeah, I did know that interesting.

Katy 11:44
Okay, so let’s go back though to assessments for a sec second. Let’s say you have a gated community. Let’s say it’s a neighborhood with streets, or even a gated community with, you know, maybe a little several complexes or whatever. Once you gate that in our area, everyone’s like, it’s a gated community. Like, it’s such a bonus. I’m like, but once you gate it, the streets are no longer public. And when it’s time for road maintenance, the neighbor, the people who own those homes, are going to have to pay. And there was notably a very large, very fancy neighborhood here with a gate that when they had to do the road work. A lot of the homeowners were like, wait, what? And they all had to get this pretty hefty 1000s of dollars assessment in order to do redo all the roads. So it Yeah, great. The gate might be like a perk, or you’re gonna pay for it. You’re gonna pay dearly, because you’re gonna pay for the gate maintenance, which is a pain in the butt, and it’s always needing to be addressed, and now you’re on the hook for your roads, because before you could call the city locally, y’all, this is how it happens. Literally, yeah, I don’t know how it happens where you are, but locally, when a developer finishes making a new neighborhood, they donate. I’m doing my air quotes, the roads to the city. Yeah, okay. What a donation. This is your problem now, yes, right? We’re not. It’s not my problem anymore. And then if the HOA went and put a gate on it, then the city’s gonna be like, back on you. Now, I can’t get in there to maintain these. That’s you. And so assessments would happen for that as well. But those are things you need to know. If you’re showing houses to or even whatever, if you’re showing houses to a buyer who’s looking at, I want a gated community, that’s great. Be advised your dues are not collecting enough to take care of these roads. At some point in the future, there’ll be an assessment. You will have to do an assessment, or you’ll be falling into potholes. I

Alissa 13:36
don’t know. Another item that you that I have seen require assessments is balconies. Oh, yeah. So if you’re in a condo association that has balconies, that is an exterior item typically covered by the HOA, but they don’t always have enough reserves when the balconies start failing. And if you go around some of our old, old LSU condo complexes with balconies, they are scary looking. Yeah, you don’t want to be out there. You don’t want to be on the balcony. But those can be anywhere from $3,000 a unit to $8,000 a unit. And then my family in Florida that has a Beach Condo, they had to do a $15,000 condo assessment. But I’ve heard of assessments being six figures. I Yeah, when I was briefly looking for a Beach Condo before I bought the cabin in Gatlinburg, the HOA dues and assessment was actually what made my decision. It’s like I couldn’t this was my first investment property as a vacation rental. And while I felt comfortable with the mortgage, once you added in HOA dues potential assessments, all of a sudden I was way out of my comfort zone. And there’s too many question marks, so many question marks, and one actually came up in my search in my price range, four bedroom, just. I had been looking for like It’s a Christmas miracle, this condo is actually in my price range. Well, the realtor messaged me because I said, What’s the deal? I know this is too good to be true. And she checked it and said, Listen, the HOA has a $250,000 lien on this condo, so whoever buys this unit has to pay off that lien. Why? Because the seller was seller can’t pay it. They financially can’t pay it, but that’s why it was priced like $200,000

Katy 15:33
in there. Yes, the seller

Alissa 15:35
didn’t have the cash.

Katy 15:37
This was a nightmare for the listing agent, because everyone who saw it was like, I can afford this. And then they’re like, wait, I can’t afford 250 more 1000. The

Alissa 15:45
listing agent was very smart, because she basically screened it in the disclosures and in the realtor remarks, which I couldn’t see because I wasn’t in Florida, you were the buyer. The agents saw it immediately. They were like, no, no, but that poor listing agent probably got a lot of sign calls. It almost feels like you’d

Katy 16:03
have to price it at $250,000 higher and put in the public remarks. Price includes the $250,000 lien that buyer will be responsible for. Yes,

Alissa 16:15
that’s a lot. It was huge. But if you think about it, some of these higher end condo complexes, especially on the beach, or places where Hurricane insurance, certain insurances are so high, you’re looking at anywhere between like 1005 1000 a month. Yeah, for HOA dues,

Katy 16:34
right? So, right?

Alissa 16:36
It’s just, it’s just a lot to think about.

Katy 16:39
Okay, let’s talk about another tip while we’re so we don’t want to assume anything. We need to check the restrictions during our due diligence, and you don’t want to check them right before closing, because it’s not an out,

Alissa 16:50
right? No, it’s not well, that’s a good thing to talk about. It’s not an out. It’s not an out. But I do like that. You know, we in our market, we have a condo addendum that is used when you are helping someone buy a condo. Okay? It adds another level of contingency right to the transaction. We did have a listener write in from another state that said they also have this condo addendum, and that they like it because it gives you that extra layer of right? It’s

Katy 17:21
telling you you have to get the restrictions and sign off before, like, That’s right?

Alissa 17:27
Yes, you pick the date. It can’t be the day before closing, but it’s usually like, within your due diligence period, okay, or within the first 15

Katy 17:36
my problem is for all of the neighborhoods that are not condo complexes that are still HOA. So all these detached home neighborhoods that we have like you have a buyer who thinks they’re gonna go build a metal building in their backyard, or who’s gonna I don’t do whatever they want, to change out the color of their front door to hot pink. And it’s not a lot like buyers think that when they buy a house, they get to do whatever they want correct. And when you’re in an HOA, especially on the exterior, you’re not allowed to just do whatever you want. You have to ask for permission to build a pool. Possibly you have to ask for permission to move your fence. You have to ask for permission for the fence style like so I think it’s great that addendum is so helpful for condos. And people already go into a condo, usually with a mind set up there is an associate, someone’s taking like it’s running like an apartment complex, almost right? But when you go to buy a detached home and you’ve never thought about it before, or maybe you didn’t live in a neighborhood with an HOA before, it can be a really rude awakening. I

Alissa 18:35
think it should not be called a condo addendum. It should be called an HOA addendum, agreed that says you have this many days right to review all of the HOA documents provided by the seller. Yeah, you have this much time to make sure you’re comfortable to check the finances of the HOA Are they healthy? How are things looking? You know, one big thing that surprises a lot of people, is pet policies. Oh, yeah. And HOAs, you

Katy 19:04
had someone have this issue, right?

Alissa 19:05
I did. I had someone that wanted to buy a condo for their friend to rent out. He had been looking for an investment property, and then he just so happened to have a friend that needed a rental. So he was like, hey, I’ll buy this condo. You can live there. Well, the guy had two dogs. No, I’m sorry, the renter had three dogs. And the HOA in their pet policy said no more than two dogs per unit, which makes sense. I guess if you’re sharing walls with people, you need to think about these. Look, I’ve seen one very loud dog before, correct? Yes. And it also had a weight limit. No big dogs allowed in the complex. And I mean, these are things that you what? If you bought a house and then moved in and a week later got a letter that you had to get rid of your dog, you wouldn’t

Katy 19:55
do that. I guess I’m reselling this. I’m gonna lose money. A lot of money, or my dog, I’m gonna lose money, or my dog, right? Or wait to get fine. Things gonna happen while we’re on. This is a great time to talk about. So these are things you need to think about during your due diligence period, right? So we have a template that you can email to your buyers that is there make sure you’re sure. Checklist. This is a freebie. Yes, it, and it talks about HOA in the like, all the things you want to check right? So if you go to hustle, humbly, podcast.com/make, sure you can help your clients, make sure they check on the HOA and get that off of you, because I also don’t want you to be sued because you didn’t tell a client now look at closing. There’s definitely, probably some paper that’s going to get shuffled over them that says you’re in an HOA, but I can see where there would be some confusion if they weren’t really clear about that there was an HOA. What an HOA is. You want to make sure they’re sure. One

Alissa 20:56
of our listeners that wrote in said that the realtor was always the first one blamed by their client 100% when they got upset about an HOA rule that they found out after the fact or a special assessment after the fact, it was always my realtor didn’t tell me that when something goes wrong After the sale, they will blame you as their representation and as they should. I think Realtors don’t always do the best job explaining the HOA,

Katy 21:29
and maybe they didn’t know, which is why we’re having this episode. Yeah, maybe you didn’t even it’s a good refresher for me, because look here, it’s common to have them for a neighborhood, but maybe where you’re where you are, it’s not but there are some, or maybe you have more condos. Let’s I feel like it’s all negative. Nancy, I was about to say that, can we do some positives of having a homeowners association? There

Alissa 21:50
are certainly some positives. Yeah, there are definitely positives. Number one,

Katy 21:54
I want there’s this one neighborhood that I drive through regularly, and it’s an older neighborhood, so clearly, there’s no HOA like functioning there. There’s a house with a swing set in the front yard. Oh my, and it looks really ridiculous. And it’s like, but you have a backyard, yes. Why is that in your front yard? But there’s, it’s so the positives are, you do want people to have to follow the rules to keep your value up? Right?

Alissa 22:20
So the most important benefit of an HOA, in my opinion, is keeping your property value good. If you your neighbor would not be allowed to let their house look like a foreclosure. Yeah, you gotta mow. You have to mow, or you’ll be fined. And you can actually the HOA can actually foreclose on your home if you do not pay your dues. This is fascinating. Yes, they can file for foreclosure. I mean, I think you have to be pretty far behind. But if they have sent notice after notice after notice, they have the right to do that. I’ve never heard this. So, yeah, they have a right to foreclose for non payment of dues. It could be, you know, some

Katy 23:03
type of you’d sign that when you bought. I’m sure. Do you know what I mean? Like, there had to be some term of that, that particular style hos. Now

Alissa 23:13
I’ve never necessarily seen for maybe this condo that I talked about with the $250,000 on it. But I haven’t particularly seen an HOA because it’s got to be banking behind

Katy 23:27
the primary mortgage, right, or, if there was no mortgage, maybe, right?

Alissa 23:32
Yeah, that’s a good point, so, but I have seen them place liens. I’ve seen plenty of HOA

Katy 23:41
liens. We have HOA liens on several of our homeowners. Our neighborhood has about 165 lots. The other interesting thing is, some of our homes a handful, not that many. The owners bought two lots and built their house in the middle because they wanted a bigger yard. Yeah, they have to pay dues twice because they’re still considered a lot. It’s per lot. So like my parents, happen to live in my neighborhood. They live in a house they built, and then they also own a vacant lot that they never haven’t built on yet. They pay dues twice. My neighbor across the street built their house in the middle of two lots. They pay dues

Alissa 24:15
twice. Your parents cut their lot. Your dad cuts Yes, yes. You

Katy 24:19
have to get a or you’ll get a notice and a fine. Now listen to how funny this is, though, the way our HOA works with notices and fines. So we have a management company. Someone comes around on their little management company car once a month at random. You do not know when they’re coming to site visit, okay? And they know they take pictures with, like, time stamped photos of all the violations they see. You know, I don’t know weeds or your grass isn’t cut, or there’s a car parked on the road, or any trailer parked in your driveway, whatever, whatever. But the way our restrictions are written, you have to have the same violation three. Months in a row before you get a fine what are the odds that for three months in a row your grass is at mowed? For three months in a row you’re there’s a car on the driveway, although maybe this car, you do park there almost all the time, but randomly, when they showed up, it wasn’t there the second time, and then you start the clock over again? Yeah, it’s just wild to me. And then after the three times, and that’s a lot to track, so much to track, and after the three times, the fine is like 50 bucks. So I’ve heard homeowners in my neighborhood be like, I know I’m not allowed to have this four wheeler on my driveway, but I don’t care. I’ll just pay the 50 bucks every three months because it’s cheaper than storing it somewhere else. That makes sense. So it’s like people sometimes are like, I’ll pay it. I don’t care. I’ll pay it. I don’t care. So that’s, I guess we’re back on negatives, but at least they’re driving around and they’re sending but I have a personal problem with the way it’s set up, because every time they send these letters, it’s like three pages of paper in an envelope. It cost us, the homeowners, $6 per letter. So out of our dues that we paid them, the management company charges a $6 per letter. So they’re charging a $6 per letter. You have to get the same three times. So basically, we have to spend $18 to then try and collect $50 It’s such a waste. So y’all vote on that if 50% of people would ever show up to a meeting, oh

Alissa 26:23
my gosh. How do you go to your meetings? I

Katy 26:25
do. Yeah, I do.

Alissa 26:26
How often are they? Once

Katy 26:27
a year? That’s it. Like an hour. They’re usually at the local library. How do they go terribly? They’re the they’re painful to attend. Yeah, they’re painful to attend. And being the president, vice president, treasurer, whatever you want to be, those are thankless jobs. You are just getting calls from people who want to complain about barking dogs and kids driving too fast and all kinds of nonsense for the most part, right? So. But the other I want you to tell the story of the house that you showed that if they had only had an HOA, the house with the house in front,

Alissa 27:07
the house with the house, you showed this?

Katy 27:11
Or did you list it? The house with the house? Oh yes, yes. You didn’t sell it to this person. You’re the listing agent. I

Alissa 27:18
did not sell. Tell us about the house, if only they had an HOA, I wouldn’t have let them buy this house. But the house used to face a certain street and had a big front yard and then a back driveway. Okay? It was like on a corner lot. Yes, it was on a corner. So it faced one street, the front door faced a street, okay. Then at some point, the owner, many years ago, realized, well, they knew they didn’t own that vacant lot in front looked like their front yard. It looked like their front yard. It looked like a totally normal if someone, at

Katy 27:55
some point did own both, I feel like they would have had to so weird to put your house there, if not.

Alissa 28:02
And somebody bought the vacant front yard, which is not a huge lot. I may not have even thought, Oh, someone could build here one day, because it wasn’t huge. And then you have setbacks on corners, right? So somebody did buy it. And you’re correct. You cannot build a wide, huge house, but you can go up you have a really tall house. So somebody bought this lot and within 10 feet of their front door, built a huge two story house. So

Katy 28:36
when this house opened their front door, 10 feet away, they’re looking at the back of

Alissa 28:40
this their two story house. They are now looking at the back of a two story house, and so they had to fence their front front door, door, which is now operating as the door to the back yard air quotes. And there isn’t really a backyard anymore, because you open the door and it’s just a narrow walkway, like a sidewalk, and you can go left out your front door, and you can go right out your front door, and there’s some yard on the left of the house, and there’s some yard on the right of the house. So now it has two side yards, and the back is the driveway. I just cannot. So the house in photos looks okay, but when you drive by it or go see it, the feedback is, this house is backwards, yeah, because there is no front door. And I’m like, Well, you see there is a front door. It’s just hidden now it is now the back door to the backyard. They did do a okay job. So you know how I got the carport. They also had what used to be the old back door. They built out a little stoop. They jazzed it up. They jazzed it up and made a little patio to look like a front door. Yeah. So they did their best, and the photos look okay, but when people go in person, they’re like, this house is backwards. Yeah, they should have never been allowed to build that close. But there was no HOA. There was no HOA there, and the city didn’t care. They just gave them a permit because they met the rules for construction. Yes, that’s exactly what happened, yeesh. I mean, that’s the where you want your HOA. Now, I do not live in an HOA. I did what we always tell our clients not to do, which is and bought the nicer home in an area. Okay, so the way that my street is set up, it’s just a one, it’s a very long one entrance in, one entrance out, dead end road, yeah, the first eight or nine lots on that road are acre and a half tracks that do have restrictions on them, right? Like a deed restriction? Yeah? Well, you have to have a front porch, and you have to be so many square feet, I like all the houses on my street. I’m the last one before it turns into a trailer park, correct? So after you pass my house, there’s like woods, and then it becomes a trailer park, which is why we could afford this house eight years ago, right? It was. And look, here’s the thing, I love my house. I love my house. I wouldn’t have been able to buy it eight years ago if it was in a neighborhood where all the houses looked like that, because it would have been way more expensive. And it was a risk. It was a risk I was willing to take for Tanner to be able to have a workshop. He wanted to have that big building. He wanted to have a big metal building, and he has a work vehicle. So we are a three car family, my car, his car, his work car. The neighborhood we used to live in, we had trouble with parking it. Yeah, it had to be in the driveway a certain way. We had to always like if I had to leave, but he hadn’t left yet. We had to move shovels around. It was just hard when and Tanner is not good with HOAs. But, you know, we were redoing our patio, and it required a cement truck, and they came and sent us an ugly letter saying we didn’t ask permission, and it wasn’t something we they thought we were putting in a pool, which is something you had to ask permission for. And I said, we’re not, we’re just doing a patio. But Tanner did not appreciate their tone of voice. You will not tell me what to do. And we moved pretty quickly after and that was a big reason why, because, and now me, personally, I could still be in my old Maplewood house

Katy 32:42
forever asking for permission.

Alissa 32:44
I Yeah, moving around the car. I quite enjoyed living there, and I even didn’t mind having an HOA. Now, what’s funny is, past the trailer park was vacant land, yeah. Dsld, who is one of our local track builders came, and they’re, they’re one of our better ones, and they built a subdivision back there, yeah, and I bought a house back there as an investment property. They have an HOA, though they have an HOA, yeah? So on my same street, you know what’s funny is my, my street name is the same street name as my rental property, right? But it’s like, way, way back. Yeah, it’s like a mile and a half down the road. So it’s different. But they have a HOA. I don’t I have quite enjoyed that, that I have appreciated the HOA. I had a tenant one time that wasn’t keeping up with the grass. It was important to me that the neighbors had no idea that it was even a rental house, right? I wanted it to be like I wanted to be a good landlord. And so after so many times of getting letters from the HOA showing my tall grass, I told the guy who cuts my grass to also cut that grass and increase the rent. And now every tenant that I’ve had in there for the last five years, cutting the grass is included, and I haven’t gotten a single letter from that because you’re doing it. It’s just being taken care of, right? And I think the neighborhood has done really well. It has certainly appreciated well. It has stayed a good neighborhood that people want to buy in, people want to invest in, right? And so the property values are continuing to increase, yeah,

Speaker 1 34:28
and most people will argue that is a nice benefit of having some uniformity and a homeowner association like we’re supposed to be working together to keep the value of the property up, yes, and increasing, and I have seen it work firsthand in that neighborhood, yeah. So I feel like that one is, you know,

Alissa 34:50
I mean, are there complaints? And do people have things to say, Sure, yeah, but I have seen the benefit. And I do think because of where it’s located, if there wasn’t an A. Hoa, it could go bad real fast, right? Because it’s such a hot spot for rentals, too. I think it could just be overrun by corporations buying them up and for the location and getting into the good public schools right there. Yeah, and I just think the properties could easily, but I actually go run in there, because I can’t, I’m I don’t have a neighborhood, so I have nowhere to go run, yeah, or walk. So I’ll just go park at the little pond and I run the neighborhood, and I just really enjoy it, like it’s cute. It is cute in here. Okay, so

Katy 35:34
let’s back up to your patio. You didn’t get permission for okay, even though, in your neighborhood, you didn’t need permission. Actually, in that neighborhood. I also knew about a scandalous story where there was a servitude, and this homeowner was, like, asking for permission for the pool, and they were saying no, and they were like, who cares? We’re putting in this pool. And there was, like, a legal battle. Oh

Alissa 35:52
my, yeah. But I, like I said earlier,

Katy 35:55
am on my homeowner’s architectural control committee? Okay, I am not a board member, but it is a committee, a committee of the board, right? In fact, the president of our board is also on the committee, and then one other person from the neighborhood. They chose me several years ago because I was a realtor, and they wanted to make sure they had someone looking through the eyes of value. I think that’s so smart when approving, you know changes to their any change to your exterior in my neighborhood has to be approved. You want to add in a pool, you want to paint your door, you want to redo your roof, like the colors have to be approved. Like the style has to be approved. You want to build a new house. The best ones I’ve been able to stop are the new constructions we had because we still have a handful of vacant lots that people own and are going to build on. At some point within the last year, we had someone send in plans for a vacant lot to build a house that was going to have a we have plenty of three car garages. Yeah, all of our the size of our lots really require you to have your garage in the front. So there’s only so much you can do. This house had two two car garages on either side of the lot with the front door in the middle. So, oh no, it was gonna look like it was gonna look like a storage facility. That’s so bizarre. We were like, No. And you know what those people sold the

Alissa 37:16
lot. They were like, we can’t build our dream. We need to have all these garages. Oh, right. Well, then this isn’t the neighborhood. We’re not a fit. And they probably would have liked to know that before they purchase the lot. That’s what I find

Katy 37:30
to be. The biggest problem is like, they knew they were in an HOA. They surely didn’t have plans yet. They’re like, well, let’s get the lot now it’s available, but then they go to make their plans and find out the neighborhood isn’t even gonna approve this house

Alissa 37:43
like now, I can’t own this lot anymore. They could have lost money, yeah, but what a good thing for your neighborhood that you didn’t have this unusual house that sticks out like a sore thumb, right? You don’t want an eyesore bringing down value,

Katy 37:57
not have that. Okay, let’s talk about Facebook drama.

Alissa 38:02
Oh gosh, does

Katy 38:03
your HOA for your rental have a Facebook group?

Alissa 38:06
We do. Are you in it? I am. Okay.

Katy 38:08
Is it dramatic?

Alissa 38:10
It’s not too bad. Okay, great. I’m

Katy 38:12
so happy to hear that when ours started. And we’re gonna get to some listener stories too. And I know there’s one with a Facebook note in it. When ours started, it was like, Okay, our developers still owned more than 50% of the lots when I first moved here 10 years ago. So he was the HOA, yeah, there were no voted on members. It’s him. He’s in charge. This is he’s like, the He’s the king of the land, right? This is my land. Well, I guess the residents that were here were like, well, let’s just make a Facebook group, because we need to be able to be in contact with each other. And, you know, it’s nothing official, okay? And it’s great for, hey, there’s a dog loose back here. Hey, something’s going on here. Hey, we just saw an alligator in the back pond. That is for real. The stuff that happens, it’s helpful, like, wildlife and fisheries is coming. But just to let you know, there’s an alligator in the back pocket, yes, be careful. Don’t like a dog. There’s Han there’s nutria digging holes on the side of the pot. Like, okay, yes. But then it also has people who are just like, so and so. Like, there’s a kid on this golf cart doing this thing and playing music too loud, and there’s this, and there’s that. And then a few years ago, there was a knockdown drag out between the HOA and one of the homeowners whose kids were riding on four wheelers back in the land that was like our, you know, owned by the neighborhood, but it wasn’t like maintained, or it was just like extra land where they had taken dirt to put on the neighborhood, right? They they the neighborhood. Put up a fence to keep these people were driving into the neighborhood from other places, not just this particular kid in the neighborhood with their four wheelers, unloading them off of a trailer and then going like wild, riding like our insurance has to pay for that if something happens, right, right? It got so bad that. Eventually the neighborhood sold off this piece of land to the horse farm that’s behind me. Yeah. They were like, we can’t be in charge, responsible. And the horse farm people were like, We don’t want these people riding back here, because they keep crossing over to our land without realizing it. You see, we’re pretty rural out here. Yeah, I am the most rural neighborhood.

Alissa 40:20
We’re both in pretty rural areas for being in the middle of the city, yeah, which is kind of nice. But you know, what’s funny is, I think I was made for a subdivision, oh, yeah, but I’m not married to someone who is, and I can enjoy both. I really enjoy the perks of my house, but I also really enjoy neighbors and being able to have sidewalks and to go run and to just let the kids go play in the street. Yeah, so there’s pros and cons, for sure, but I think, because I’m not living in the HOA, whenever someone does post something negative, I find it like you’re thinking, it’s hilarious. Oh yes, yeah, so cute, though. Like the other night at like 1030 someone said we just got ding dong ditched, whose kids are out. And I’m like, Oh, that’s so funny. Like, that’s so cute that, yes, kids these days, if they came to your door, you know Tanner would it would not be good. So it was just sort of like, you have to ask yourself, how’s your mindset, right? Are you made for an HOA might not be. Are you gonna get your panties in a bunch every time the littlest thing happens and makes you mad or but the other day, this lady posted, hey, I have this miniature kid wheelbarrow. I’m just gonna put it at the road if anybody wants it. And I was like, Oh, I’ll come get it if nobody’s claimed it. And she was like, Sure, it’s all yours. And so I went and picked it up, and then Tate immediately put all of his blocks in it, brought them to the other side of the art. So I took a picture and sent it and sent it to her. I actually posted it in the group on her comment. And was like, thank you so much. He loves it. And then she was like, Oh, I’m so glad my I thought it was so cute, but my kids just were never into it. So what I wanted to say about the HOA neighborhood Facebook groups is that it’s sort of like the realtor Facebook group. Oh, yeah, and maybe that’s why I am good at the HOA Facebook groups, because when I served on the board for our local board, and Connie doesn’t let us participate too much, I had, I’ve always had rules placed on me by the Board and by Connie on how your behavior should be in a group. So for example, in a realtor Facebook group, if somebody says, I’m so aggravated that our MLS doesn’t have a field about if you can check yes or no, if the House has ever flooded. And this is ridiculous. It was my job as a board member to go say, Wow, it sounds like you’re really passionate about the MLS. Did you know we have an MLS committee? We would love to have you so that you can voice your opinion in a way that will make a difference, instead of ranting on Facebook. Same thing, yeah, same thing with that. You know, you don’t ever want to be the voice of negativity within your Facebook group. Yeah. You also need to be mindful that I have had clients that joined their neighborhood Facebook group before closing, and it almost gave them cold feet, like they we were closing in a week, and they asked to join, put in their address, got permission, and they’re like, they’re the everyone in the neighborhood is talking about the package thief and how the packages are getting stolen. This

Unknown Speaker 43:40
is bad how

Alissa 43:41
kids are speeding down the road and, you know, the neighbors are fighting. It’s like, are you trying to help your neighborhood, right? Are you just, what is your plan to complain, or are you just complaining in a way that is non helpful, right? Do not be the ranter, because I think these HOA Facebook groups can bring down the value of a subdivision. Well,

Katy 44:04
they just cause so much turmoil. Yes, unnecessary. Unnecessary. Because let me tell you, in a in a neighborhood of 165 lots that I’m in, if something happens between two neighbors and the back street and I’m not on Facebook, which, for the record, I don’t go to the group anymore and ever read the post, because it was a bit much. I would never know. I would still have a positive, wonderful experience in my neighborhood, because my neighbors are lovely. Like, now, if it is a problem that needs addressing, there are channel call the police. Like, call your HOA board, but like, just posting it to post and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t,

Alissa 44:42
please, just don’t be that person and maybe even tell your buyers that. Give them a little HOA etiquette. The squeaky wheels are the ones that post Yeah. So you got and if there is a way to politely help solve a problem, you know, like, for example, yeah. Between my house and the new neighborhood is the trailer park and vacant land. Well, there is so much litter on that stretch, and someone was just complaining, complaining, complaining, litter, litter, litter, like, what are we going to do about this litter? It makes drive. It’s not our neighborhood land, so our HOA doesn’t control it, but it makes driving to our neighborhood look bad at the same time, my sweet guy who helps my handyman is, like, looking for work. I’m looking for work. Do you have anything? Do you do you want me to come, like, landscape your yard? Like I’m just looking for work. And I said, Hey, I know. Just feel free to say no, if this is outside of your pay grade, but how would you feel about picking up trash between my house and the next neighborhood? And he was like, Yes, we will do that. And you paid him. So here’s what I did. He said it was going to be like, $600 Oh, that’s a lot of trash. I’ll have to have to see if I can find that is a lot of I remember the photo. So, I mean, it had never been done in the history of this lane of ever the street, had always had trash, always had trash. So I he sent me a picture of all of what they were doing. No, no, no. He sent me a picture at the end. But I went and took a picture of them. I posted it in the HOA Facebook group and said, friends, if you see this guy, please stop and say thank you to him. I am making, I’m collecting donations to give him and his crew for doing this. Honestly. By the end of the day, I was like, he it took him two days with him and like four of his guys,

Katy 46:41
this is a lot of trash, so much trash, okay?

Alissa 46:47
And I’m thinking he’s probably kicking himself for saying $600 okay, so I posted in the group. I said, I’m just gonna pay pay him to do this, because I see that people are complaining, and I just prefer to take action. I don’t feel safe going out on the road and doing it myself, because there’s no median. Like, yeah, it’s hard. It’s a tough road, so it’s pretty dangerous. I’m not gonna go do it myself. I said, this is my Venmo. If you would like to contribute to paying him, just send it and put trash pickup, and I will be sure that all the funds get to him. We collected over $1,000 and you gave it to him. I gave it all to him. So he’s so excited, yes. And he said, Miss Alyssa, because I so many people say, so many people stopped and told me Thank you. That

Katy 47:32
was probably even better for him than Yeah, imagine doing a job getting paid, but also getting 100 thank yous, yeah.

Alissa 47:39
So he got, like, I think he got, I think we collected, like, $1,100 and some change. Okay, great. So he got $1,100 500 more than he quoted. And then people were stopping rolling down their window. One person brought them all Gatorades. I love it. It was so sweet. How does it

Katy 47:57
look now?

Alissa 47:58
It doesn’t look good. We probably need to do it again. I was actually trying to think of a creative way to get, like, a keep tigertown Beautiful trash can out there. Yeah, you know, like, I don’t know. I need to work on this again

Katy 48:11
before we wrap up this section. I This is probably hard for some people to hear. And I will say this because I lived in Colorado for a stretch, and a lot of times you’ll hear people say, Oh, I went and visited St Augustine. It was just like New Orleans, but clean. Or I went to Charleston. It was just like New Orleans, but clean. Y’all. If you’re not from here, you probably don’t realize that there are places where people just do not even think twice about throwing trash out of their car window. And we, unfortunately, live in one of these places,

Alissa 48:48
we need a litter campaign. We have some, we have a we have a local realtor, and we started a huge litter campaign. Made a huge she’s

Katy 48:55
doing a great job. But, like, baseline, you know, like back in the, you know, probably don’t remember this, too, too young, but back in the 80s, there would be like the, this is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Like these public campaigns about, don’t do drugs, you know, pick up litter, Don’t set the forest on fire, those kind of things. This is what we need, yeah, because the people here are, they just throw out the trash. It’s so

Alissa 49:16
disturbing. And you know what’s funny? I grew up in a pretty lax household, like we didn’t have rules, really. We didn’t have curfew, but you never throw trash on the ground. My parents were like, You do not litter, yeah. And it was like, Oh, okay.

Katy 49:29
You know, when I was growing up, my Girl Scout troop used to go down Tara Boulevard, because that’s where our leader lived in that neighborhood, and we would pick up trash on Saturdays because there was so much trash, and we could do it once a month, and it would just be covered in trash. We pick up all kinds of cigarette butts and the whole thing.

Alissa 49:47
But imagine how much, and just from a business standpoint, okay, if you were, when I was lived in Maplewood estates, I was on the board for like, a year, and it was actually a pleasant experience. I. Met neighbors. I knew it was good when I was preparing for my first HOA meeting at someone’s house, and the President was like, Hey, I’m gonna go through the drive through daiquiri place and pick up daiquiris. Just text me your order. And I was like, sweet. I could get all bored with this. Like it was just a fun we were friends. There wasn’t a lot of drama, like it was minor issues. But then I have a friend who joined her, Hoa for business, and by the end of it, everybody hated her, yeah? Because they were like, you’re the lady that does this and you’re the lady that fusses me,

Katy 50:31
right? And it depends on the situation, yeah? What are people wanting and needing? And one bad, troublesome resident can cause a problem for everyone. So I know my mother in law is on her HOA board in a small neighborhood, and she’s, I think, always really liked it, because that’s how she meets her other neighbors. She would go put the letters on the sign, you know, do’s or do, or, like, happy summer or whatever. So it’s just really cute. And

Alissa 50:56
I think even if it’s a negative place, like, ask yourself, How can I be the one that makes it a little bit more positive? Yeah, what can I do? You know, we always talk about how I don’t spend a lot of money on advertising. I was fully prepared to pay $600 out of my own pocket for this trash pickup campaign. And I did think this is a good advertising like, way to get your name out there. She’s a positive person. She’s taking care of our neighborhood. Yeah, and I didn’t even have to spend it perfect, because I got, and, you know, people sent donations. I got five or six $5 donations. Yeah, I got 10 or 20, like, 25 to $35 and then I had a few lingerers that sent, like, I had like, two or three people that sent me 100 bucks. I

Katy 51:39
mean, you’re a genius, but I need to find a way to channel that,

Alissa 51:44
to keep it going so we don’t have to do this huge overhaul. Next

Katy 51:48
time it needs to have a sign that says the residents of this neighborhood paid to have this strip cleaned, you know, please keep it nice. Or, like, yeah, yeah. Like, I need to figure something, like a sign. That’s like, I

Alissa 52:02
was trying to think of a way I know we’re going off on a total tangent here. So if you need to go to work, you can turn us off at this point. But this is what actually one of my thoughts. So to be honest, the trailer park is not the highest quality trailer park, okay, it, um, isn’t the most it’s been there a long time. It’s been there a long time, and they are responsible for 99% of the litter, right? I was trying to think of a way to put up a sign that’s like, if you can prove to me that you picked up a whole bag of trash, I’ll Venmo you $10

Katy 52:37
well, you should just be like, like, post

Alissa 52:39
a before and after picture. What like? How do I get them to prove this? I

Katy 52:43
know right, because what if they just brought their trash from their kitchen? I

Alissa 52:46
know that’s why I’m like, I can’t do that. I’m trying to think of a creative way to entice the litter bugs to pick up after themselves. Hey, this is where you live, too. Keep it clean like we love this area. They stick their gum on the signs. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to think like systemic problem. They’re not gonna care about the moral aspect of it. No. So I need to find a way to motivate them otherwise. Or, you know,

Katy 53:15
I ice cream.

Alissa 53:18
I think I’m gonna have to just keep you know, what I need to more than once a year, like maybe twice a year, have my guy go just to do it overhaul, yeah, that’s just gonna have to, you know, that’ll be my giving back to the neighborhood in the area. I

Katy 53:31
love that. That’s great. Okay, so there’ll be a part two, yeah, there will be a part two of more stories, all the HOA stories come out next to but coming, we’ll skip up one and yeah, come back. HOA stories. Coming, yeah, you know, we love a good story. It’ll be like ghost stories only, Hoa story.

Alissa 53:49
But okay, I know this was like, sort of negative, but they do help your property values, and you need to check your mindset. Don’t let your feathers get ruffled over nothing. Yeah, you know, like, pick your battles, right? They

Katy 54:00
are your neighbors.

Alissa 54:01
What is that quote about? Be the light you wish to see in the world that’s

Katy 54:05
so positive I was going for good fences make great neighbors, or, oh my god, where they’re like, Okay, Tanner, right, you know, but they are your neighbors. They

Alissa 54:17
are. Let’s

Katy 54:18
do a toast. Okay, here’s

Alissa 54:19
a toast. Thanks, guys. Okay, bye. Hi

Speaker 2 54:21
everyone. All right. My name is Elizabeth Estrada. I hail from Ventura, California. My brokerage is in Ohio, California. I am toasting Bonnie Goetz because she is an amazing human being that I love. She is my mentor. She is a fabulous soul that I just so blessed that I met her, and it is absolutely a gift from God. So so much appreciation, and I wish her the best, and everybody listening just so much love and positivity from California. Bye guys.

Alissa 54:53
Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast. If you enjoyed

Katy 54:57
this episode, please go to rate this podcast. Com slash hustle humbly and leave us a review or drop a comment if you’re listening on Spotify, if you

Alissa 55:05
have an episode topic or someone you’d like to toast on the show, please email us at team. At hustle humbly. Podcast.com,

Katy 55:11
find us on social media at hustle humbly. Podcast, don’t forget to find all of the free resources at hustle humbly. Podcast.com/resources,

Alissa 55:20
see you next week. This is the good life you.