Our listeners sent in their real life HOA stories and we can’t wait to share them with you. Let’s dive deeper into the world of Homeowners Associations in this episode. Join us as we read real stories from the trenches. These stories explore the ups and downs of living in an HOA community. From preserving property values to navigating neighborhood drama, discover why some people love HOAs while others can’t wait to escape them. Whether you love or hate HOAs, this episode will give you a fresh perspective and plenty of laughs along the way. Weeds, wildflowers, RVs in driveways, speeding teens and insurance nightmares… Tune in for all of this and more!

Leave us a review at RateThisPodcast.com/HustleHumbly

Get your FREE Database Template

Email Templates 101

Agent Systems 101

All Resources

Submit your topic ideas and toasts to Hello@HutleHumblyPodcast.com.

—————–
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
“I love Katy and Alissa and The Hustle Humbly Podcast.” <– If that sounds like you, Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let us know what you loved most about the episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, follow the podcast. We’re adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. Follow now!

The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

Alissa 0:01
Every month we have to address the house with the most complaints the HOA president’s house. What’s

Katy 0:07
he doing?

Alissa 0:11
But it could have totally affected our sale if they didn’t. Yeah, this sounds like a way for HOA to make money someone,

Katy 0:16
yeah, and someone has too much power. Wait, the President didn’t come to the meeting. No got ousted while she wasn’t even there. She

Alissa 0:24
knew what they come throughout. Yeah, he

Katy 0:26
knew what was coming, and he made her press Wait, wait, wait, this is getting so good. It’s my nepotism. It is. It is.

Alissa 0:36
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. Hey, Katie. Welcome

Katy 0:56
back for another fun filled discussion about HOAs.

Alissa 0:59
Yes, lots of good stories we have. Wow, that was very Yoda of you. That’s so funny. Good stories and aircraft, okay, right? This

Katy 1:08
is episode 262 and it is the second part to episode 260 which was two weeks ago. We gave you all of the information about HOAs. What we know anyway, some of our stories, but now we asked for the listeners help, and there was so much help that we needed another episode, because these stories need to be shared. So how do you want to play this? Do you want to go back and forth? What’s your what’s your vibes?

Alissa 1:37
You know, what’s funny? It reminded me of a story. This will be our little intro. Okay, great. You know how I love to relate things back to movies. So Zootopia, did your kids ever watch it a while ago? Sweet little bunny rabbit wants to be a police officer. And everyone’s like, you’re a bunny, you can’t be a police officer. But she’s like, I want to do good. I want to like, help the city and make it a better place. Okay, well, because she’s a bunny, they like, make her be the meter maid. I

Unknown Speaker 2:05
don’t remember any of that.

Alissa 2:07
And her parents, who were so upset about her wanting to be a police officer because they wanted her to be safe. When they found out she was a meter maid, they were like, Yeah. And now me and my kids go Meter Maid, meter maid, meter maid, because that’s what they do. That’s what her parents do. On the phone, and she’s like, No, I’m a real cop.

Katy 2:26
They’re like, No. Anyway, it’s

Alissa 2:28
her job to go put tickets on all the cars. And she decides, like, Well, I’m gonna be the best Meter Maid there is, well, yeah, you’re gonna do it well. And then it’s like, all these all the people are like, seriously, the meter ran out five minutes ago. She was too good. She was this little girl was like, my mom said, I wish you. She wishes you were dead. It’s like, she’s like, Man, this is I wanted to do good, and now everybody hates me. That’s the story of the HOA. That’s like, being on an HOA board. I wanted to do good, but yeah, so you’re just gonna have to really check your mindset and your attitude, and you know, just make sure that you’re the positivity and the in being helpful in your HOAs 100% I just wanted to start off with something funny before we dive into all these stories.

Katy 3:15
Okay, so we send out an email. If you’re not on our email list, you should definitely get on it. I think you can easily do that by picking up any of our freebies on the website. Or you can just go hustling podcast.com/newsletter, and just type in your email, right? So we asked the email list, do you HOAs love them or hate them, and do you have stories? Yep. Okay, so that’s the qualifier here. The first response was HOAs. HOAs, my, oh, my, how I loathe and love them all at the same time. I love them for the property value, basically wait, because typically in my area, those neighborhoods hold their value well, because they require a certain standard of care and living. Now for the loathing. Are you ready the neighborhood? HOA was fine until someone created a Facebook group. Oh no. In the beginning, everyone was sharing how much they love the neighborhood and how great bloody blah, blah, blah. Meter now. Meter right now, it has turned into people complaining about weeds, someone posting someone else’s kid’s car for driving too fast, etc. We just recently elected our first board. Finally Sold 100% of the lots, and so ownership was transferred from the developers to the homeowners, and so I am cautiously optimistic for IT to improve. Stay tuned. I didn’t we’re not going to give you names, but I will tell this poor person, it won’t get better. And I’ll tell you how I know that our developer own, they’re allowed to keep it until they have no lots left. Okay, so like where she says, Are they finally sold 100% our developer turned it over to us with about 20 or so lots left. Because basically, there was an uprising, and the residents the neighbor. Code. Were like, you’re doing a terrible job, and we’re taking this over. And he was just like, fine. You want to do it. Do it. So he picked out the first board, and then was like, fine. And then he pretty much sold all the lots right after that. But it just because the homeowners are in charge instead of the developer, it will not change the types of problems that arise. No,

Alissa 5:21
sadly, and you know, there’s always going to be the complainers out there. Let’s, you know, I know we always say, be the agents other agents want to work with. But you know, also be the neighbor that people want to live by. Don’t be the realtor in the Facebook group, just being ugly, yeah, complaining about everything. All right, you do one. Okay. This one comes from Maryland. Great. I owned a house in Maryland. I owned pasta, owned when we went to sell the HOA said we couldn’t sell because our shed and deck weren’t permitted. The Shed and deck were there when we bought the house. Oh, my God, they told us, in order to sell, we had to apply for the permits for the shed and the deck. And I pushed back on it, because what would we do if the permit wasn’t approved? Yeah, they’re already here. Would we have to tear them down? If so, that would have definitely affected our sale price, because people like the deck and the shed. No kidding. They said the only way for us to sell that that it was the only way for us to sell. So we went on ahead and applied for the permits. Luckily, the HOA approved the permits, but it could have totally affected our sale if they didn’t. Yeah, this sounds like a way for HOA to make money someone, yeah, and

Katy 6:35
someone has too much power, yes. Like, we have a lot of let’s go back to my neighborhood. We have a lot of grant here’s my air quotes grandfathered in issues. Because when the developer was in charge, he’d be like, yeah, man, that’s fine. Do that, yeah, man, dude, there was no system in place. There wasn’t like, send in a request for your deck and get it approved and make sure it’s in the right spot, and then it meets. He would just be like, sure, whatever. Or he’d be like, No, you can’t. Like he just was. He was a dictator. You just do whatever he wants to do. But a lot of times he approved things that the new board of residents or that the actual restrictions say are not allowed.

Alissa 7:13
So people would like this person not to do it. I want to do it too. That’s what

Katy 7:18
I’ve been dealing with the whole time.

Alissa 7:20
Oh my gosh. Well, there’s

Katy 7:21
three houses that already have this kind of gutters, and you’re saying the ghost gutters aren’t allowed. But look at these houses and I’m like, Well, if everyone jumps off my bridge, are you gonna jump off the like, I can’t help it if someone else broke the rules, or I can’t help it if he approved a variance, right? So a variance would be like a variance to the rule. But at the same time, it’s really hard. Like, what if you bought a house that had the variance in place, right? And then you go to sell and they’re like, this isn’t approved. It’s just a whole can of worms, a whole can of all right, I’m ready for my next one. I am team Hoa, good. If you’re gonna live in an established neighborhood with defined boundaries, the if was all bolded, if they help keep up the home’s value, monitor uniformity and generally provide valuable services for the community, beautification, signage, playgrounds, pools, etc. But sometimes they can go wrong, very wrong. But that was the end. That was the end. It

Alissa 8:20
doesn’t say how they go.

Katy 8:24
It’s like, it’s just a warning. It’s just a warning.

Alissa 8:28
I thought she was gonna be our light in the darkness. They can go wrong, very wrong. Oh my God, what do you got? Okay, this one’s kind of long, but it’s pretty good. I’m not in love with HOAs, but I don’t hate them either. Okay, my sister’s ex husband had to have a trailer for work, and it stuck four inches out of the driveway. They kept getting fined for it. They also lived in the cul de sac, so I thought it was a bit crazy. That’s how he pays the HOA with his job. That’s, yeah, yeah. Like he

Katy 9:01
is not making money.

Alissa 9:04
That’s how he pays the HOA. So stop finding him. I currently live in a neighborhood with an HOA, and my dear husband volunteered me for the HOA board. I hate it, because every month we have to address the house with the most complaints the HOA president’s house, yeah,

Katy 9:22
the president’s house gets the most like, complaint.

Alissa 9:24
What’s he doing? You know, what’s funny is, she says her name, yeah, don’t do and she said, I’m gonna change it, but she writes her name is Karen. Her that girl, like, no, she said actual person’s name in like, a sentence, not like, used her name and assume that she’s calling her out. She’s like, her name is Karen. I changed it to Karen because I’m like, this is cracking. This is so funny. Karen is a retired older lady who doesn’t want to use a y’all who doesn’t want to use Roundup. Oh, my word. She needs all the wild flowers. Flowers and has one side of her yard with a picket fence. Cute. I don’t use Roundup in my yard. No one else is allowed to have a picket fence and get complaints of her. Wildflowers look like weeds instead of flowers. That could happen. She has weeds growing through the cracks of her driveway. Trees and bushes grow through the slots of her picket fence. Oh my she is the first house you’ve seen when entering our neighborhood. Unfortunate. This is my second year on the board, and at this year’s Open Meeting, they voted me president. I did not want or ask for the position. Oh my God, because the few homeowners that showed up. Didn’t think it was okay for the President to have the worst house fair. Karen did not attend the HOA meeting. Wait The President didn’t come to the meeting. No, she got ousted while she wasn’t even there. She knew what was coming throughout, yeah, she knew what was coming. We tried to give her suggestions on how to clean up her yard. Oh, my word. So she painted the picket fence. The property manager started fining her. She had plenty of warnings and time to work on her house. She now wants to sue the board, because she said her yard is compliant and the property manager is being militant. This is wild. We asked her to remove herself from the board. Yeah, they removed her, her presidency. Oh, she was still on the board. Got it, and now her and her adult son, who lives there with her, are door knocking the entire neighborhood, even at 9pm even more complaints about that. If we can’t get her voted off, my husband and myself will step down from the board completely. Right? The two of them are on the board together. Yeah, oh, he made her president

Katy 11:46
and he made her press. Wait, wait, wait, this

Alissa 11:47
is getting so good. It’s like nepotism. It is. It is. The other three members of the board are all older ladies that want to get off the board sooner rather than later. Yeah, they’re probably friends with Karen. Maybe we would like to do fun stuff in our neighborhood. You don’t have time for that, but her yard and complaints take up all of the meeting. Past Hoa, board members have reached out because so many complaints have come through. They all got off the board because they were tired of explaining to her why she needed to clean up her yard. It’s been a battle for five years. This sounds like legal battle and still going these needs a lawyer, because this, you know, I think that’s what so many people think, is I’m gonna join the HOA and we’re gonna have a big Halloween party, and we’re gonna do hot dogs by the pond, but you spend the whole time worried about Karen and her picket fence, yeah? And the bees kind of like outside of Katie’s neighborhood, there’s a house that is not in the neighbor, no, he can do whatever he wants. He can do whatever he wants. It’s outside of the neighborhood, that’s right? And it made me think of this lady, but they are actually beekeepers, correct? They are honey. They make themselves honey. So you can pull up to in their driveway, and they have their Venmo name, and you, you it’s, you know, the honor system. You take honey and then you Venmo, yeah, and the honey is really good. The honey is so good. And he has all these signs on his property that says, These are not weeds. These are for the bees. These are wildflowers. They are pollinating local, native flowers. And he also has signs for the city that says, Do not spray like, don’t. Don’t round up that ditch in front of his house. Yes. Like, yes, right, right, right. And we also, our city also sprays for like, mosquitoes and things at certain times. So he’s like, look, no sprays here. I want it to look like this. Please do not spray it. I’m making honey.

Katy 13:43
Honey is here. Also, I learned, recently learned a term called rewild. Oh yeah, my best friend told me that this is a thing landscapers are doing, like they’re re wilding yards, or landscape to bring back, like the native plants, or like wildflowers, whatever I’m like, this is weeds.

Alissa 14:01
Yeah, we this is gonna look wild. It’s a good like, but it’s

Katy 14:05
supposed to be better because you’re not putting roundup on it. You’re not like,

Alissa 14:10
just let the plants be. So when we went to Austin for vacation, their wildflower, quote, unquote weeds, like along the side of the interstate are this gorgeous, bright blue. Ours here are yellow dandelions. But I remember looking at, I mean, like, look at all these weeds. And Tate being like, Mom, look at the pretty flowers. And I’m like, oh, Is the glass half empty, or Is the glass half full? Well, is this something you want to care about and dedicate your life to? Yeah, is

Katy 14:38
this going to be the hill you die on? Right? The weeds? Yeah, people are so offended by weeds too. I know golly, all right. I used to call them necessary evils, the HOAs, but the longer I live in one, the more I tell myself I want to sell and move to the country. I agree. It is a thankless job, but in my neighborhood, the board runs. Uncontested, because no one who isn’t retired has the time for it. It seems they have become jaded and don’t really have the best interest of the community anymore. It feels more like a dictatorship every day. If you receive a violation, there’s no warning it is an immediate fine, whereas I think there’s too many warning warnings in my neighborhood, yeah, then it doesn’t come off the record for two years. So if you receive another violation under that category, within two years, the fine continues to rise, even though it is not the same violation, and the problems between lenders and condo HOAs is a whole nother story.

Alissa 15:36
I mean, I think there needs to be a happy medium. Yours does give way too many warnings, too many that is too much.

Katy 15:42
One warning, then you’re fine. Yes, that’s it. You’ve been warned, and the warning needs to be on your permanent record, not you’ve been warned this month, and then in a year, you do it again. No, you’ve already been warned. Yeah, one more time, whenever you do it, you get the fine. Can I do another one? Yeah, I swore I’d never buy a house with an HOA. When Barry and I found our dream Vermont house, we almost didn’t go for it. For this reason, we were very wary of an HOA. However, we learned every Hoa is different, which is true. It is true. Ours is $1,800 a year and covers our road maintenance in a mountain they’re in a mountain community, our snow plowing and our water, this is way cheaper than if we had to handle all those things independently. Yeah, thank

Alissa 16:29
you for that positive. HOA testimonial, well, you

Katy 16:33
knew she would be positive.

Alissa 16:36
Yeah, I’d have one. Okay, after living in a few HOAs, I prefer there to be a governing Association, management company with a system in place. Yes, systems are very important. Yes, very important in HOAs, yes. HOAs, in larger, long established neighborhoods, are great, if you don’t mind being heavily regulated, as is my preference in the neighborhood where I grew up, you would get a glossy postcard in the mail if the tarp on your separate backyard shed was left on too long. So like, I guess they had some damage, and like you, people tarped their sheds. Well, you have to get that tarp off ASAP. You can’t just tarp it and call it a day. To deal with the glossy postcard, they would just spend money on nice post cars being like, hey, remind she said, my poor dad went through this. I also hate when people park on the grass for extended periods of time. It’s tacky. And I enjoy when the HOA makes it go away. See,

Katy 17:36
most people are like, thank you that way. But here’s the problem, get your tarps for the most part. All of these issues are simply a nuisance. Yeah, they are not harming your health or well being. You just don’t like the look of weeds more. Karen’s fence with her natural wildflowers, she tried to paint the fence and look. It’s okay. You gotta follow the rules, but you also should find out what the rules are before you join the neighborhood, and then you have basically said, I am gonna live here. I will follow the rules, but they’re all nuisances. Yes, it’s too loud and look a nuisance. Can then ruin your life, but, oh

Alissa 18:15
yeah,

Katy 18:16
are you ready for me? I

Alissa 18:17
have something about nuisances. Please tell us go, go get okay. This is from one who has a lot of experience, because she did property management for condo association. Okay, yes, in Massachusetts, love it. She said it was her niche anyway. She said this is just what she wrote. People have no idea what a condo is or what they are actually. Purchasing agents do a poor job explaining this. When buyers get into our community, they are shocked to find out they cannot have a dog or hang a flag pole or smoke on their quote, unquote, air quotes, own balcony because you don’t own the balcony. The agents just give the docs to the buyers to read them, but they never actually do. Then there is actually fair housing rules within the people with disabilities act. Associations have to pay for reasonable accommodations for disabilities. Nobody even knows this. Then homeowners think that the manager and the board can police noise. If we find someone it is then a harassment like your My Hoa is harassing me for being wowed. Okay, HOAs are are so fun to say the least, seething face, facetiousness. Oh, my God. A condo is great for some but it is not an entry level house. It is an entry level piece of the whole the lower price point comes with a lot of restrictions and dues. If someone is buying a condo, I recommend to them that they should get on the board, then they can learn why landscaping has a $40,000 a year budget, or understand what. Is involved in the operations, but at the very least they can understand how their money is being spent. I think a supplemental assessment is also better than raising the condo fee. Okay, so that was just some general insight, but good thoughts. Some condo like it’s it’s not the board’s problem that your neighbor is being loud, that could be a police problem, right? So you really need to make sure before you go post on that HOA Facebook group. Whose job is it? Yeah, and if this is something that is consuming your energy, maybe you are the person they need for the board. That’s

Katy 20:35
right. If you’re spending all that time worrying about it, just join the board. Take Action. Serve. Serve. All right, here’s another I had sellers that were chased off by their HOA. Oh, my word. They had never lived in an HOA before and decided that they wanted wild flowers and stuff. I didn’t even know that was

Unknown Speaker 20:56
coming.

Katy 20:59
People in their wild fly, Oh, wow. This stirred up the HOA who found that it wasn’t against any bylaws. Like, that’s not against the rules. So the HOA president went out of his way to make them uncomfortable and found a boundary issue with their lot. The issues created in the night, the issue created in the 90s when a fence was put up. The fence was approved by the HOA then president, who still sits on the HOA committee from the 90s. Wow, whoa, that’s 30 years being 40 years being on the committee. They drove my clients out, then tried to put a cloud on the title to keep them from selling. Well, you don’t want them. You can have it both ways. Yeah, let them leave. It was long and difficult transaction, but we did sell for the asking price of 850, but, but here’s the real question, was the seller? Karen, Oh,

Alissa 21:52
was it? Karen, there’s no way.

Katy 21:57
Yes, y’all the weeds and the wildflowers are hot button issues. Oh,

Alissa 22:03
I think if this is really pressing your buttons, it may be time for a little life evaluation. What level of stress? Sure.

Katy 22:12
What was that movie anger management, when they’re like, who’s from? Maybe you need to find a free Tai Chi, yes, yes.

Alissa 22:21
We need to find a way to not care about the little the weeds. The weeds are making people crazed. Yeah, all right. Do you want to do one? So I have one that is a personal story from when I lived in Maplewood. Great. Let’s hear it. Is it about weeds or wildflowers? No, okay, it is about the ponds, and that when they wanted to put fountains in the ponds, okay, that was going to cost money, yeah, and they were going to do an assessment for that. Were you there? I think you were gone, but yeah, because I lived there, because you didn’t okay? So they were going to do a neighborhood assessment so that we could put ponds, I mean, fountains into the ponds. Well, at the meeting, there was all this pushback, because I don’t, or, like someone would say, I don’t live on the pond. Not gonna see it. I’m not gonna see this fountain. I don’t wanna pay for it. If they want a fountain, then the pond lots need to be the ones that are assessed, and they also need to be the ones that maintain the fountain. But then they were like, No, the site you if you walk in the neighborhood, you can see it. You see it. It’s not like the pond is surrounded by houses in a circle. It’s not hidden. It’s you pass it on the street. And they were saying, you know, it makes the neighborhood prettier. It could make people want to live here more make the neighborhood more appealing. And so there was this huge debacle about it, yeah, and in the end, they got some prices, and the people with the pond lots did not mind covering the installation, okay, the fountain, but then was the

Katy 23:56
HOA going to cover the main? Yes? Okay. What a great compromise. It

Alissa 24:00
was a great compromise. And, you know, divided amongst enough people. It wasn’t that much of an assessment. Yeah, so again, is this the battle that you want to fight?

Katy 24:11
Is it that big of a deal? What I’m learning today is that the battles are all the same, because in my neighborhood, we also have pond problems. We have 123, ponds in the front part of the neighborhood that have fountains and two ponds in the back that are really supposed to be retention ponds. No fountains. Okay. Fountains in a pond are quite a large expense. They’re hard to maintain. They break. You’ve got to set them on the timer. There’s electricity to run them very

Alissa 24:44
lights to gates, right? Yes. Well, same

Katy 24:49
thing happens. The ponds start running up a big bill, and all the people who don’t live on the pond are like, we don’t want to pay to fix the pond fountain because we’re not on the pond. But everyone. One else says the exact same thing, but you can see the pond when you walk by or people drive through and they’re like, Well, look at this beautiful neighborhood with the ponds and the fountains. And then eventually, you know, the the board just has to be like, we have to fix them. They’re here, yes, and it gets done. But I think it’s funny that pond problems are high on the list. Now

Alissa 25:20
you’re not on the pond with the view of the fountain. What do you think you’re okay with keeping them? Here’s

Katy 25:25
the here’s my deal. If your neighborhood has something in it, like that, that you would consider an amenity, having a pretty pond, when I drive by, I can see the fountain. I’ve taken the picture of it many times. Yeah, okay. If it’s considered a neighborhood amenity or something that gives it character, I feel like it’s okay for everyone to chip in and be like, let’s keep it nice, yeah, so that I agree we can enjoy it, because there are some spots where you can get to the pond that are public, open to the neighborhood, right? Yes, my house is not on it. I’m not seeing it every morning when I wake up, but, but that’s also the problem. When they break or something’s wrong, the people that are on the ponds are like, well, this pond has got algae. This pond film isn’t working, and that’s my view, and I want to see it every day. So, you know, there’s just a lot of turmoil about the ponds. But I say it’s part of the neighborhood we all have to pay to keep it nice. Are you ready for another story? Sure. I absolutely love living in an HOA. Oh, good I have. Thank goodness. I have lived in an HOA community for 15 of the last 20 years, three different condos. So we’re talking about condos and she loved them all. She loved them all. I currently own two condos in two different HOAs. So this is a good sampling. One is an investment property. I am a low maintenance person. I pay time for lawn work, gardening, fixing roofs, etc. I let the HOA do that. I also love amenities when living in an HOA community, security, a gym, a pool, package, receiving, etc. HOAs are very common where I have lived, Chicago and San Diego. In Chicago, it is almost a given you will have to live in an HOA at some point. San Diego, not as much, but becoming more common as our home prices have increased so much, I am able to position myself as more of a subject matter expert, having lived in HOAs for so long, so great niche, right? Yeah, served on multiple HOA boards and fully understand the financing side of HOAs. I always explain to clients, you pay an assessment. This is just like if you lived in a single family home. If you live in a single family home, you need to put aside money for a new roof, water heaters, etc. I mean, it’s true, yeah? Right, same thing. This is part of your assessment. You may also have a gym membership or security for your home. If your HOA is gated or has a gym, take those off your monthly family budget, because now that comes with your place. When they ask why assessments go up, I calmly explain that you just that just as you would have to increase your home savings budget, you need to increase the HOA reserves because things cost more every year. A roof on a home doesn’t cost the same as it did in 1990 so nice, just as a roof on a condo building doesn’t cost the same, I prepare my clients for assessments to go up about 3% a year. Okay? And be excited if it is less. The downside insurance, yeah, really tough for HOAs to get insurance right now, just as it is for single family homes, this is a major issue in our industry in general, but basically all good things, yeah, thank you.

Alissa 28:32
Thank you. On that note, she made some excellent points like, does your HOA have a gym? Does it have this? Does it have that? A few years ago, I went on a listing appointment in university Crescent condominiums across from the LSU lakes. They are luxury, very fancy. I hadn’t been in many of them, okay, and so this was sort of my first experience. It’s gated. She gave me instructions on where to park, take the elevator, and she had a one bedroom, one bath condo. Okay, it had high ceilings, but it was small, you know it, but it was cute. She had a very nice balcony, but, and she said, But, let me tell you why I love this condo so much so she was moving for work. She said, You see, this is a small place, and she opened her door. We went in the hallway and she opened the door, across the street from her front door, okay, across the hallway from her front door into the common area, okay, huge gourmet kitchen, a library with, like, really cute chairs everywhere, a living room, a dining table. And she was like, and let me show you my office. And I was like, okay, so we go into this office. It’s a, it’s a boardroom, basically. It has a, it looks like a title company closing room, sure. Okay, huge, long table. She’s like, the Wi Fi is a. Amazing, she said, but it’s here for people to use and no, she said, This is mine. No one ever went in there. Nobody ever comes in here. She says, I come in here every morning and make coffee. Wow, I barely use my kitchen because I just come in here. She was like, This is my office. This is where I watch my shows at night. She was using it for everything, everything. She was like, my unit is perfect, because it is. It’s like, it’s connected. She was like, to me, I don’t have a 900 square foot condo. She’s

Katy 30:34
like, look at all this. I

Alissa 30:35
just opened the door and walk across the hall and this is all mine. Wow. She said, let me show you my gym. She got her little key card, brought me into this luxury fitness center with like one person in it. She was like, This is my gym. This is what I do. Let me show you the pool. Nobody at the pool. And you’ve seen this place. This place is fine, and everything was so well maintained. She was like, I know all the gardeners names. I know everybody that is on staff here. She was, like, living in the Taj Mahal. She was and I thought it, she said, you know, people don’t use their benefits. They think, oh, it has a gym, it has a pool, whatever. Nobody actually uses those things. And she was like, the reason I’m so in love with this place is because I use everything I pay for Wow. And by the end of her tour, I’m like, should I buy this? You’re like, maybe I need to live here, right? Like, this is amazing. Like my kids could go play, like you only own this little bit, but, right? But you have all this at your disposal. How convenient. Like, she convenient. She totally sold me, totally did. And it’s just a reminder of how much you’re paying for right that you don’t always take advantage of, right? Okay,

Katy 31:52
what’s your next one?

Alissa 31:53
Okay, this one is a good one, okay? And I know that some of our listeners let their children listen in, so I’ll try to keep this PG ish, okay, okay. This is from one of our listeners, and she did give us this disclaimer that maybe it’s not suitable for

Katy 32:08
work. Let’s also tell them that she said it’s NSFW. And you were like, what’s that? That

Alissa 32:13
means, Katie, Katie told me not suitable for work. Okay, I do without you. Okay. Oh, no. I worked 12 years as a paralegal for attorneys that represented HOA and condo boards, I could tell some stories, and she does. Oh, great, perfect. The one that always stands out, but there the one that always stands out the most is this particular dispute between homeowners. The complaint was that one set of homeowners extracurricular marital activities were too loud, okay, and the attorneys had to send a warning letter to the loud couple. I wish agents knew how important it was to review and familiarize yourselves with the declarations and bylaws handbooks before listing a home. This is clearly not something that HOA they didn’t know that was going to come up. They did not anyway. She continues. They need to reach out to property management if available, to ask about assessments and to not always rely on the homeowner knowing the information needed. Okay, I am sure it is different in each state, but a few items that always came up that caused fines or litigation. For example, company cars with logos on them could not be parked in a driveway overnight. Oh, no. Another was when someone was forced to sell or remove their pit bull. Okay? Flags and flag poles always an issue. Everyone wanted to fly whatever they wanted, but the rules would say no sheds, fences, pools. Requirements were another big one. FHA, financing is not always an option. There was just so many legal issues that I learned from working at the attorney’s office.

Katy 33:56
I mean, it makes sense. Yeah, the flags. I heard a flag one recently the HOA got over like was, like, no flags because, because someone wanted to fly a flag that they didn’t want flown. And then they said no flags at all. And so they made them take down their American flags. But then I think there’s some laws in play there, so we’re not going to get into that, but it can get a little dicey. Here’s the next one. These are sounding warm or common Hi HOAs can be awesome for people that would rather delegate lawn care, exterior maintenance, snow removal, etc. If the association management company is organized and responsive, it can be a beautiful thing if they are not, well, not so beautiful. Very interested to hear what everyone else says. Everyone else is saying the same thing. If they’re good, they’re good, if they’re bad, they’re bad. Yeah, and the line gets crossed very quickly. All right, what’s your next one?

Alissa 34:46
This listener has a condo listed right now in Nashville, and has had several deals fall apart because the HOA board let their FHA approval slip. So it used to be FHA approved, and everybody knew. This complex is FHA approved, and now it’s not that could be because there’s too many renters now that could be because their insurance, their master policy, is not up to what FHA requires. She said that they are working to get it back. But I don’t know how long the process takes. Let me tell you. It takes a while. Yeah, it really requires the HOA board to be on top of everything. So her sellers thinking they might just have to rent out the unit, yeah, instead of sell

Katy 35:28
it. Oh, and that’s a problem, and that wasn’t what you wanted to do, right? Okay, here’s a story. This is currently happening in my Hoa, not mine. Yeah, the listeners, Hoa as we speak. I live in a new construction community where the developer handed over the HOA control to the homeowners at the beginning of the year. At that time, the developer transferred control to an individual who then started adding hand picked homeowners as board members. So he said, You take care of this. You’re my friend. They added them. Okay? All of this was done without a neighborhood vote, as required by our CCRS. The community caught wind of this, sent out a vote to disband the current board. 94% of our neighborhood voted for this move instead of servicing for the remain, instead of serving for the remaining 30 days, all current board members resign. So we’re boardless. We’re bored. We’re holding an official vote next week to appoint our new board. So much drama. Yeah, they are so much drama. Do you have another I have

Alissa 36:30
one more where they just give some good advice. So she says she has a lot of experience with HOAs, and the majority of her sales are in HOA for herself. So she was saying, HOA fees also cover cover maintenance around your home. If you live in a single family home, you are on the hook for general maintenance, like a gardener, a pool guy, things like that, things like a new roof or a tree that falls over. But I has also learned that there is not a black and white answer to good HOA versus bad HOA. When reviewing documents is is important to review the CC and ours covenants and restrictions. Yeah, that’s, I had CCRS also, okay, that’s like, I don’t know what the two covenants and restrictions, such as, do they how is there parking do they allow rentals? Do they allow Airbnbs? And you always want to check their reserves. Okay? It is crucial to see if any special assessments are coming up or planning to come up. No one wants to move into a new home and then find out they owe anywhere from two to $100,000 on a special assessment. When I moved into my home, we had a $4,000 special assessment. Four months after closing, I had a client purchase a condo, and the seller prepaid a $25,000 special assessment that was scheduled. I always try to weigh the pros versus the cons of each HOA for my buyers, I also tell them that in addition to the rules of the HOA you will have personalities to deal with, and you will never have a true understanding of this until you live in the community. For reference, I’m in California, and most of my HOA sales have been condos. HOA dues range from 300 to 600 when a fee month. I guess per month gotta be when a fee is over 600 a month. I’m leery. Unless there are very nice amenities, I always ask for clarification before writing an offer. That’s very smart. She made a really good point, though, about writing in there, and that’s also part of our condo addendum, yeah, any upcoming assessment, known assessment, right,

Katy 38:38
are to be paid by not just like currently do, but like, do you know they’re coming? That’s really good. All right, here’s a good one. When we go back to our poor Floridian friends, yeah, I have so much to say about HOAs right now, specifically condo ho A’s namely that they’re pretty much all in trouble. Insurance premiums have tripled for ho this person is in Florida. Insurance premiums have tripled for HOAs, causing monthly dues to skyrocket in order to cover them, and deductibles to rise sharply. The domino effect is there is little left over then to contribute to reserves every month. So reserves have dwindled, making special assessments a likely outcome down the road. Add in that many of the complexes built in the 60s and 70s are facing some deferred maintenance in their roofs, spoilers, garage door openers, swimming pools, you name it. To top it off, when lenders see the state of the hoes finances, they won’t lend on these properties, and the deal falls apart. I just rescued a deal by bringing in the local credit union who can do Portfolio loans when the buyer’s first lender realized she couldn’t do the deal at the 11th hour. My advice is to have the lender look over the HOA docs and make sure they can do the loan before even going under contract, if possible. I’m not sure how localized this is, but I know insurance premiums are up everywhere, and many HOAs have been dropped all together by their insurance companies since the collapse of the condo. Building in Miami. So fascinating. I know it’s really, really bad. Now you’re going to tell us, or you want to tell us about these. Is this a the Florida

Alissa 40:08
law? One of our listeners from Florida, Kelly, Daniel, sent us a copy of her newsletter because it includes the new 2024, Florida HOA laws. So these are the Gladys Kravitz law. Yes, the Gladys Kravitz law. This is as of July 1, 2024 so it’s just just just happened. Just happened. Yes, so HOAs are now prohibited from enforcing rules on some residents but not others. Oh, that should be a given quality, yes, okay, banning homeowners or their invited guests from parking personal business or first responder vehicles that are not commercial vehicles in their driveways, basically, like regardless of if there’s a logo on it, okay, banning contractors or workers from the homeowners property, That’s a big thing in CCl, okay, finding residents for leaving garbage cans at the curb or end of their driveway within 24 hours of scheduled trash collection. So

Katy 41:09
they’re saying you can’t find them. Okay, finding

Alissa 41:13
residents for leaving holiday lights or decorations past the HOA rules without prior notice, okay, after which the homeowner has one week to take them down. Okay, limiting or creating rules for the inside of a structure that isn’t visible from the street, I would agree with that, yeah, if you can’t see it from the street, then who cares? Things like, oh, it also can’t be seen from a neighbor’s property or, like, a golf course, okay, if you make sense, a community area, a community area. Yeah, they can no longer ban vegetable gardens or clotheslines if they can’t be seen from the street, a neighbor’s property or adjacent property, and they require, they can no longer require review of plans for central AC or heat, if it’s not visible from the street as well. Okay? It also requires HOAs to provide each member a physical or digital, digital copy of their new rules and regulations by October 1 2020. That’s a good one. They need that kind of was interesting, like they had to get the law involved right,

Katy 42:18
because there’s so many different ways these rules are done. All right, here’s a good one. Can I both love and hate HOAs? Yes, everybody thinks too, yeah. It really depends on the situation. In two different condos, the HOA boards were such a pain to deal with. The people were frustrating. The dues kept rising. There were special assessments. It was awful. On the flip side, during covid, our crazy purchase was 35 acres off the grid, of Off The Grid land in Colorado, this quotes neighborhood of 40 lots was some full time residents, some lots with houses, some lots with cabins, others with nothing. It does have an HOA with one page of rules, including things like no big piles of trash, no no non working or unregistered vehicles and building a certain number of feet from the lot lines. They also maintain the roads and a gate that helps keep strangers from camping hunting on our private land. They also contract with the local rancher to allow cattle to free range graze in our neighborhood, which makes all of our taxes fall under agriculture and are therefore much lower. Oh, our dues are under $400 a year. So in this case, we love our HOA and our Yearly Meetings are a hoot and such an interesting mix of people. That’s

Alissa 43:36
so fun, isn’t

Katy 43:37
that so fun? So fun. Okay, let’s do a quick FHA Fannie Mae one. This is impacted a recent downtown condo that listing that she had the HRA board for this building, unfortunately, is made up of individuals who don’t actually own units in the building. I don’t really know how that happened. Maybe they don’t, I don’t know there anymore live there anymore. They recently voted to increase insurance deductibles on the building to lower the out of pocket expenses. This, however, impacted the Fannie Mae loan limitations for condo deductibles. Fannie Mae requires that a single deductible occurrence must be no greater than 5% for certain insurance types, the building now fell into 8.9% no longer able to qualify for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan product without a buyer having to get more insurance to bridge the gap. All in all, HOAs can be awesome, so as long as decisions are made in the best interest of the homeowners and not driven by power hungry individuals, wow. A lot of power like yes, stuff,

Alissa 44:42
I will be the king of the condo. That’s

Katy 44:44
right, I’m gonna tell you. I’m trying to see I had a couple more. I wish I had a funny one. Personally, I have never lived in one, but I do see the value in them. It truly provides that low maintenance. See, I think sometimes people in some markets just picked it’s like they’re. Come and mow your lawn and the whole vibe, but that low maintenance lifestyle that some people really want need. I am seeing more and more younger people seek out an HOA because they are so busy and they don’t want the responsibility of the lawn, et cetera. I think that HOAs are more successful when they are ran by a management company, versus the homeowners. I think when homeowners make up the association, it creates drama, yeah, because the people on the board will try to make it the way they want it and enforce their will into the guidelines. I even had, like a situation of one of our previous presidents here then said, I It’s time for someone else to be in charge. But this is who I want to be the president, because I can tell them what to

Alissa 45:43
do. That’s terrible, but that’s it’s so political. Always club so political. I

Katy 45:48
was like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this. I’m like, no, no, ma’am. Okay, one more story, and then we will call it a day. Okay? Are you ready?

Alissa 45:56
Great stories, such good stories. I always learn best from like, hearing what everybody else is going through, we’re

Katy 46:03
gonna have to do two, because one of them has Betty Sue character, oh, literally, okay. As a realtor, I believe that good HOA helps to maintain good rising property values in a neighborhood. Fair, these are, there are people, however, who should not live in an HOA neighborhood. My husband is one of them, unfortunately. Did I write this? No, we went from a 14 and a half acre and a house that could not be seen from the road that also backed up to a 600 acre farm to an attached one level alley entry garage home in a great HOA neighborhood. We don’t even mow our lawn or pluck our weeds anymore. It’s all done for us. But you can’t easily take a man out of the country. Lol. He’s been in trouble over and over again, from parking out front and guest parking overnight to leaving his trailer hooked up to the SUV in the back. He’s just not good HOA material, and the HOA management company lets us know it, emails, letters, threats. If everyone around here didn’t love him so much, I feel certain we would have been thrown out already. Oh my. Then there’s my sister’s HOA for her town home complex in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, located a mile and a half off 30 a with a sidewalk all the way to the beach. The HOA manager was an on site homeowner, not a management company. This manager couldn’t afford to pay higher HOA dues, so she kept the dues the same for years, while neglecting maintenance and not building reserves to do the capital improvements and repairs. My sister, who was a retired realtor, moved into the neighborhood and promptly overthrew the then current HOA president. Her efforts brought to light all that needed to be done, but there were no funds with which to do those things, so the entire neighborhood had to be hit with special assessments, skyrocketing dues just to try and get it back on track. And now they probably hate her, the former president put her home on the market and sold it before all of this came out. Right? All right. Last one, HOAs are very mixed bag of emotions. It’s a great way to go out on paper, they want the best for each homeowner, but what usually happens is that someone gets on their high horse and takes it upon themselves to be the neighborhood leader and goes around issuing fines to all the homes for everything they can, for everything they can, because they have the power to do so here in Georgia, we have a mix of different types of HOAs. You have ones that everyone thinks their homes are are a million dollars, and the grass should be combed and fed bond bonds. Then you have the ones where it sounds great when you that. Then you have the whale. Then you have the ones where it sounds great when you sign the C, A, D, and think they have your best interest at heart. But when Billy Joe pulls up with his RV in the front lawn and lets Betty Sue live in it for a few years. The HOA doesn’t do a thing. I am for an HOA overall, but one that shares responsibility between neighbors and not with one leader of the pack making all the decisions. And they are hard to find.

Alissa 48:54
They are hard to find. So many stories. Look at all these stories,

Katy 48:59
so many stories. I think we got to most of them. Yeah, wow. Thank you all for sending in your stories. We always love to share what’s going on in other places and your opinions. It’s very helpful for learning so much from y’all. We learned so much. Ultimately, I think I learned that I don’t want to be in Florida in an HOA currently, I know, but I would love to live in Florida, right? So what do we do? Yeah, you take the good with the bad. Yeah, yes, okay, here’s a toast everyone.

Speaker 1 49:31
This is Christy Chapin topolaski from Caldwell, banker Realty in Woodbridge, Virginia, and I just want to toast the amazing agents with hashtag, Team Woodbridge, y’all are the best business partners a broker could possibly want to have. I appreciate you all so much, and I am so looking forward to having a strong finish to 2023 and crushing 2024 thank you all. So much for your partnership. I appreciate you.

Alissa 50:02
Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast. If

Katy 50:06
you enjoyed this episode, please go to rate this podcast.com/hustle humbly, and leave us a review or drop a comment if you’re listening on Spotify,

Alissa 50:14
if you have an episode topic or someone you’d like to toast on the show, please email us at team at hustle humbly podcast.com, find

Katy 50:21
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 50:30
see you next week. You.