(D. Gerasimatos) writes:

I wouldn't paint my house purple, but there are some purple houses in
my neighborhood. What's the big deal about it?
....
I think the color of one's home has a negligible effect, if any, on the
property values in a given neighborhood. This is just an excuse people
trot out when they want to control what other people do with their
property.

Diminitri, I see you are posting from berkeley.edu. Pleaes tell me,
what is your age, and how many homes have you purchased and sold.

I ask because I'm trying to reconcile you spewing such an idealistic
view where you're trying to convince folks that others' perceptions
won't affect the sales price of their home because these perceptions
"shouldn't matter" or because you do not care about them. The folly
of course is that you're assuming that most buyers think like you do.

However, the market does need buyers like you. I have friends trying
to sell their house that's aobut 100 yards from high voltage right of
way. Like you, they were quite accepting and "dosn't bother us" when
they bought their place brand new. Now it's 5 years later, they have
a growing family and want to move, but cannot... their house has been
on the market 9 months, they're learning that perhaps they should've
considered the whims of pickier buyers before pulling the trigger.


Way back when (in a neighborhood without an HOA) my father set out to paint
his house in two colors. The top half of the house was one color and the
bottom half was another color. When he was halfway through (had painted
the one color) half the neighborhood had come over to say that he was
ridiculous and how hideous the house looked. Well, when he finally
finished a lot of people came over to compliment him on it and some people
even painted their houses in the same manner. The idea didn't fit in
with their narrow view of what 'looked right' but the final product looked
fine. Colors, whether exterior or interior colors like carpeting, are a fad.
Lime green was cool 50 years ago, then pink, brown, beige, white, whatever.
Are you going to repaint your house every time someone on the block thinks
the color is dated or 'ugly'? Paint your house the color you want it to
be and maybe you'll set a trend. Even if not, at least you'll be happy.
HOAs want everyone to live in a navajo white world.

Bravo to your Dad.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

In article ,
JerryL wrote:

Well, we all now know you don't care about the color of the houses
surrounding you. Now, how's about the pickup truck on the lawn on your left
side and the broken down car to the right and the washing machine across the
street being used as a planter. I assume that wouldn't change the value of
your house, would it?


When people look for clues like this what they are looking for is an idea
of who their neighbors are. As I said before, just because an HOA doesn't
let some guy use his washer as a planter that doesn't suddenly make him
a desirable neighbor to have. It's a slippery slope to decide what is
or is not acceptable for your neighbors. Too many kids with toys
scattered everywhere? Wrong color living room? Too many cars? Obnoxious
wife? You cannot legislate who your neighbors are, which is what HOAs
try to do.


You know what would change the value of a house to me? If it was part of
an HOA. I definitely view it as undesirable. Rubbish scattered around is
something that can be taken care of at the municipal level.


Dimitri

In article , Todd H. wrote:

I ask because I'm trying to reconcile you spewing such an idealistic
view where you're trying to convince folks that others' perceptions
won't affect the sales price of their home because these perceptions
"shouldn't matter" or because you do not care about them. The folly
of course is that you're assuming that most buyers think like you do.


Most buyers in my locale (Los Angeles County) do not buy in neighborhoods with
HOAs and I assure you that sales prices here are just fine relative to
neighborhoods that do have HOAs. Someone else mentioned the same thing
about his neighborhood in San Francisco. It seems that HOAs are mostly a new
phenomenon associated with the likes of cookie-cutter tract homes. As
such, can it be that HOAs exist because these communities do not yet have an
identity? I will grant that it is a lot easier to gauge an established
neighborhood as compared to one of brand new (unoccupied) houses. To me,
living with an HOA feels like living in a condo complex.


Dimitri

In article ,
JerryL wrote:

Do you own your own house? I'm jusst wondering if you put your money where
your mouth is.


Yes, I do. Do you? Is there a point to this?


Dimitri

When people look for clues like this what they are looking for is an idea
of who their neighbors are. As I said before, just because an HOA doesn't
let some guy use his washer as a planter that doesn't suddenly make him
a desirable neighbor to have. It's a slippery slope to decide what is
or is not acceptable for your neighbors. Too many kids with toys
scattered everywhere? Wrong color living room? Too many cars? Obnoxious
wife? You cannot legislate who your neighbors are, which is what HOAs
try to do.


You know what would change the value of a house to me? If it was part of
an HOA. I definitely view it as undesirable. Rubbish scattered around is
something that can be taken care of at the municipal level.


Dimitri
Do you own your own house? I'm jusst wondering if you put your money where
your mouth is.

On 12/19/05 08:46 pm JerryL wrote:

When people look for clues like this what they are looking for is an idea
of who their neighbors are. As I said before, just because an HOA doesn't
let some guy use his washer as a planter that doesn't suddenly make him
a desirable neighbor to have. It's a slippery slope to decide what is
or is not acceptable for your neighbors. Too many kids with toys
scattered everywhere? Wrong color living room? Too many cars? Obnoxious
wife? You cannot legislate who your neighbors are, which is what HOAs
try to do.

You know what would change the value of a house to me? If it was part of
an HOA. I definitely view it as undesirable. Rubbish scattered around is
something that can be taken care of at the municipal level.

Do you own your own house? I'm jusst wondering if you put your money where
your mouth is.

I'm not the person to whom you addressed your question, but ...

We bought a house and deliberately avoided anything in a "planned
development" and/or with an HOA. Several of our neighbors have boats or
motorhomes parked in their driveways or alongside their houses. Down the
block somebody parks a "commercial vehicle" (namely, a van proclaiming
itself to belong to somebody or other's office-cleaning service) in his
driveway most of the day. The people across the street have three
vehicles parked in their driveway most of the time because their triple
garage is occupied by other vehicles and other items that they are
gradually trying to unload. On the corner lot during daylight hours in
fine weather are a bunch of reconditionaed lawn mowers for sale. Many
houses have roof- or chimney-mounted TV antennas. In each direction
there is a house with a tower supporting an amateur radio or CB antenna.
All of these would no doubt incur the wrath of the HOA Gestapo if we had
an HOA, but thankfully we don't: this is a nice neighborhood that does
not remind me of Pete Seeger's "little boxes all made of ticky-tacky,
and they all look just the same," and we all get along.

Perce

(D. Gerasimatos) writes:
In article , Todd H. wrote:

I ask because I'm trying to reconcile you spewing such an idealistic
view where you're trying to convince folks that others' perceptions
won't affect the sales price of their home because these perceptions
"shouldn't matter" or because you do not care about them. The folly
of course is that you're assuming that most buyers think like you do.


Most buyers in my locale (Los Angeles County) do not buy in neighborhoods with
HOAs and I assure you that sales prices here are just fine relative to
neighborhoods that do have HOAs. Someone else mentioned the same thing
about his neighborhood in San Francisco. It seems that HOAs are mostly a new
phenomenon associated with the likes of cookie-cutter tract homes. As
such, can it be that HOAs exist because these communities do not yet have an
identity? I will grant that it is a lot easier to gauge an established
neighborhood as compared to one of brand new (unoccupied) houses. To me,
living with an HOA feels like living in a condo complex.

Dimitri

It's true HOA's aren't everyone.

But if you feel personal expression is your birthright via nutty
choices with the exterior of your home that might degrade my home's
value, then, by god the system works--cus it'll keep you from moving
into my neighborhood.

Folks are still interested in finding out if you've ever been through
the process of selling a home though. It's the first taste some
ideologues get of the importance of perception of exterior appearances
of homes vs your own personal tolerance level and philosophy regarding
cars on cinderblocks and purple garage doors.


Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

In article , Todd H. wrote:

Folks are still interested in finding out if you've ever been through
the process of selling a home though. It's the first taste some
ideologues get of the importance of perception of exterior appearances
of homes vs your own personal tolerance level and philosophy regarding
cars on cinderblocks and purple garage doors.



My own home is typical for my area and isn't the topic of discussion.
What I want to know is why you think that someone with a purple house
five doors down is somehow lowering the property value of your house.
Hell, I can't even tell you what color the house five doors down is
off the top of my head.


Here are some purple houses:


http://members.aol.com/readheadedleague/new_page_1.htm


What's the big deal?


Dimitri

"D. Gerasimatos" wrote in message
...
In article , Todd H. wrote:

Folks are still interested in finding out if you've ever been through
the process of selling a home though. It's the first taste some
ideologues get of the importance of perception of exterior appearances
of homes vs your own personal tolerance level and philosophy regarding
cars on cinderblocks and purple garage doors.



My own home is typical for my area and isn't the topic of discussion.
What I want to know is why you think that someone with a purple house
five doors down is somehow lowering the property value of your house.
Hell, I can't even tell you what color the house five doors down is
off the top of my head.


Here are some purple houses:


http://members.aol.com/readheadedleague/new_page_1.htm


What's the big deal?


Dimitri


You haven't answered his question. Have you ever sold your house or any
house before?

In article ,
JerryL wrote:

You haven't answered his question. Have you ever sold your house or any
house before?


It's question just as pointless as asking whether I own my own house.


My house isn't purple, but I assure you that there are houses selling
for well over $1 million within 0.25 mile of me. As seasoned experts
maybe you can tell me how much more you think they would be worth if
there weren't 2, 3, or 4 purple houses (I don't count them) within that
0.25 mile? Maybe you can derive a formula that calculates how much less a
house is worth as a function of its proximity to a purple house working all
the way down to the case where the house itself is purple. How ridiculous!


Dimitri

Okay, you've never sold a house. Your relatively narrow view makes
more sense now.

What I want to know is why you think that someone with a purple
house five doors down is somehow lowering the property value of your
house. Hell, I can't even tell you what color the house five doors
down is off the top of my head.

What you're missing is that it's not about you. It's not about the
outlier datapoints. It's about what potential buyers as a whole will
think. And folks have a funny way of making up their own minds about
what sorts of things will turn them off of a given property, even if
they are two otherwise identical houses/neighborhoods.

And what's to prevent that purple house (with, say 2 families living
it with 5 cars, and an RV, and a boat in the driveway, from being next
door vs 5 houses away)? Absent municipal restrictions on exterior
paint (which seldom exist), and absent HOA covenants narrowing the
field to something approved by some sort of body, the answer is:
nothing.

Here are some purple houses:
http://members.aol.com/readheadedleague/new_page_1.htm
What's the big deal?

Gotta admit, it almost works for a Victorian in San Fran.

Now, try it with recent construction in the $400k range in the midwest
and see how many showings you get for the house next door, and what
the buyer feedback will be after the showing. If "I wonder if that
potential new neighbor is a wack job" isn't on their honest list of
ponderings, you'll have a lot of surprised experienced sellers here.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Yes, quite evident that he hasn't tried to sell a house in the midst of
slovenly neighbors. Your view doesn't change until you get hit in the
wallet but then again he's trying to impress us that he lives in an area
where the houses are a million plus. I assume people living in houses 'a
million plus' don't park cars on the lawn or paint their houses purple so he
can be very benevolent of his neighbors.

(D. Gerasimatos) writes:
In article , Todd H. wrote:

Folks are still interested in finding out if you've ever been through
the process of selling a home though. It's the first taste some
ideologues get of the importance of perception of exterior appearances
of homes vs your own personal tolerance level and philosophy regarding
cars on cinderblocks and purple garage doors.



My own home is typical for my area and isn't the topic of discussion.

Okay, you've never sold a house. Your relatively narrow view makes
more sense now.

What I want to know is why you think that someone with a purple
house five doors down is somehow lowering the property value of your
house. Hell, I can't even tell you what color the house five doors
down is off the top of my head.

What you're missing is that it's not about you. It's not about the
outlier datapoints. It's about what potential buyers as a whole will
think. And folks have a funny way of making up their own minds about
what sorts of things will turn them off of a given property, even if
they are two otherwise identical houses/neighborhoods.

And what's to prevent that purple house (with, say 2 families living
it with 5 cars, and an RV, and a boat in the driveway, from being next
door vs 5 houses away)? Absent municipal restrictions on exterior
paint (which seldom exist), and absent HOA covenants narrowing the
field to something approved by some sort of body, the answer is:
nothing.

Here are some purple houses:
http://members.aol.com/readheadedleague/new_page_1.htm
What's the big deal?

Gotta admit, it almost works for a Victorian in San Fran.

Now, try it with recent construction in the $400k range in the midwest
and see how many showings you get for the house next door, and what
the buyer feedback will be after the showing. If "I wonder if that
potential new neighbor is a wack job" isn't on their honest list of
ponderings, you'll have a lot of surprised experienced sellers here.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

In article , Todd H. wrote:

Okay, you've never sold a house. Your relatively narrow view makes
more sense now.


You can assume that I have or haven't. I refuse to play that game. I made
a mistake of answering the first question. I will say that I am not the
one with a narrow view here.


What you're missing is that it's not about you. It's not about the
outlier datapoints. It's about what potential buyers as a whole will
think. And folks have a funny way of making up their own minds about
what sorts of things will turn them off of a given property, even if
they are two otherwise identical houses/neighborhoods.


You know as well as I do that the size location, size, and condition of
a house are the primary factors that influence its value. Now, you
can say that 'location' includes how many purple houses exist in an
area but the reality is that my neighborhood (with a few purple houses)
is valued pretty much the same as any other local neighborhood composed
of houses of similar size and condition. The palette of house colors isn't
really an issue. If a house is valued at $1.5 million and then suddenly
the house 3 blocks over is painted purple from beige do you honestly
think it will drop in value?! What if that house is 1 block over? 8 doors
over? Next door? I am waiting for you to produce the formula which shows
this as a function of distance!


And what's to prevent that purple house (with, say 2 families living
it with 5 cars, and an RV, and a boat in the driveway, from being next
door vs 5 houses away)? Absent municipal restrictions on exterior
paint (which seldom exist), and absent HOA covenants narrowing the
field to something approved by some sort of body, the answer is:
nothing.


My question is: Why do you care what color the house next door is?


The other problems (if you perceive them to be problems) can be handled
by municipal ordinances.


Now, try it with recent construction in the $400k range in the midwest
and see how many showings you get for the house next door, and what
the buyer feedback will be after the showing. If "I wonder if that
potential new neighbor is a wack job" isn't on their honest list of
ponderings, you'll have a lot of surprised experienced sellers here.


I think this has more to do with the conformist mentality of the people in the
Midwest. They might not like living next to Asian or Jewish people either.
I am not implying you (or they) are racist. I am just saying that people
in certain parts of the country get uneasy when confronted with new
things. It's why I don't live in an HOA in the Midwest. My California
sensibilities might lower their property values!


People who like to live like fearful sheep ever afraid of 'lowered property
values' seek out HOAs. The rest of us take 'em or leave 'em. Rest assured that
our property values are about the same as theirs in the end, though. It would
be an easier sell to say "We are in an HOA because we don't like people
who do things differently than we do" rather than trotting out the 'property
values' excuse.


Many years ago people in San Marino were afraid that Japanese families moving
in would 'lower their property values'. The reality is that those houses were
always expensive and still are based on the massive estates that predominate.
I think some of them might even be shades of purple. I think you are
overestimating how many would-be buyers really care about what color the
house 2 blocks over (or even next door) is. A nice, well-maintained house
is a nice, well-maintained house whether it is green, blue, beige, pink,
orange, or purple.


Dimitri

In article ,
JerryL wrote:

Yes, quite evident that he hasn't tried to sell a house in the midst of
slovenly neighbors. Your view doesn't change until you get hit in the
wallet but then again he's trying to impress us that he lives in an area
where the houses are a million plus. I assume people living in houses 'a
million plus' don't park cars on the lawn or paint their houses purple so he
can be very benevolent of his neighbors.


Why does a purple house make for a slovenly neighbor? By the way, I've
said this before but there are more than a couple of purple houses in
my neighborhood. It's okay. Really. No one has died as a result and
we've managed to weather the resulting loss of property values pretty
well.


Dimitri

"D. Gerasimatos" wrote in message
...
In article ,
JerryL wrote:

Yes, quite evident that he hasn't tried to sell a house in the midst of
slovenly neighbors. Your view doesn't change until you get hit in the
wallet but then again he's trying to impress us that he lives in an area
where the houses are a million plus. I assume people living in houses 'a
million plus' don't park cars on the lawn or paint their houses purple so
he
can be very benevolent of his neighbors.


Why does a purple house make for a slovenly neighbor? By the way, I've
said this before but there are more than a couple of purple houses in
my neighborhood. It's okay. Really. No one has died as a result and
we've managed to weather the resulting loss of property values pretty
well.


Dimitri
I repeat. You have never sold a house before and therefore do not know what
you speak of. If you found you were losing prospective customers or sales on
your house because people didn't care for your neighborhood you wouldn't be
so liberal.

(D. Gerasimatos) writes:

My question is: Why do you care what color the house next door is?

You're focusing overmuch on the purple house. Make it the tons of
autos always parked on the parkway. Make it RV's in the driveway. Or
boats. Or disabled cars. Or really wacky looking additions. Check
the home repair newsgroup--not too long ago, some idiot wanted to
convert an in ground swimming pool into living space. If he was in a
municipality with a lax building code.... imagine.

People care because they know that--even it it doesn't offend their
own sensibilities--it is likely to drive buyers away when it comes
time to sell the property.

The other problems (if you perceive them to be problems) can be
handled by municipal ordinances.

If and only if the ordinances exist. Trouble is, you will find that
municipal ordinances don't disallow things that prudent sellers really
wouldn't want to have happening next door without recourse.

Conformist or not, these are the realities of resale, which one day
you might find out. Post your address, and we'll take up a fund to
buy the house next door and really fix it up nice, and see if your
views don't change.

HOA-free neighborhoods (and I have a house in one now) can be lovely
places, especially with a municipality that has building codes that
are enforced, and zoning ordinances that are enforced and variance
review procedures that ensure that neighbors are informed and invited
for public comment when a neighbor is doing something "out of the
ordinary" with their property.

HOA-encumbered single family subdivisions (which I'm not ruling out on
my next purchase) can suck if the HOA is infested by a board that gets
off on micromanaging neighbors and you're a person that wants to do
something "out of the ordinary" with your property. Or if they have
high costs and don't provide any value for it.

So there are no universal guarantees one way or the other, but as
someone who improves his homes with an eye toward "return on
investment," I sure as heck don't object to enforcement bodies (be
they municipality or HOA) that have a stick to beat on a potential
yahoo who moves in across the street and wants to re-enact the Beverly
Hillbillies, and undermine my (and other sane neighbors) ROI goals.


Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005, JerryL wrote:

I repeat. You have never sold a house before and therefore do not know what
you speak of. If you found you were losing prospective customers or sales on
your house because people didn't care for your neighborhood you wouldn't be
so liberal.

Well, I have sold a house. With a rental on one side and with a model-T
sized single car detached garage with a four foot driveway and a busybody
with wacked-out landscaping on the other side and made a fine profit.
And would not consider being in a HOA hive neighborhood.


---
The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should
serve the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free society
these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their
function is to serve as checks upon the state.
-- Alan Barth

(Todd H.) wrote:

(D. Gerasimatos) writes:
My own home is typical for my area and isn't the topic of discussion.

Okay, you've never sold a house. Your relatively narrow view makes
more sense now.

I've sold property, and I have to agree with Dimitri. Maybe it's because
we're from the same general area.

What I want to know is why you think that someone with a purple
house five doors down is somehow lowering the property value of your
house. Hell, I can't even tell you what color the house five doors
down is off the top of my head.

What you're missing is that it's not about you. It's not about the
outlier datapoints.

But it IS about outlier datapoints. When you ask someone to justify the
Kremlin-like restrictions an HOA imposes, inevitably it's to prevent "some
nutcase" from doing something horrible to his property, something so
egregious and offensive to the local community standards that his actions
will lower property values in the whole neighborhood.

Well, that's an outlier. Most people aren't nutcases.

It's about what potential buyers as a whole will think.

This may be one of those "varies with the market" kind of things. One of
the things that makes the Bay Area such a desirable place (as far as
property values indicate) is that it's quirky and weird ("happy weird, not
creepy weird," as one midwestern transplant told me).

I suppose it's bad enough that Malvina Reynolds was inspired to write
"little boxes made of ticky-tacky... little boxes, all the same" as she
passed through Daly City, just South of San Francisco. But at least those
ticky-tacky boxes were green and pink and blue and yellow.

How would neat little rows of cookie cutter houses, all the same shade of
beige go over? Nobody would buy them.

writes:
On 19 Dec 2005 21:55:39 -0600, in misc.consumers.house (Todd H.)
wrote:

You're focusing overmuch on the purple house. Make it the tons of
autos always parked on the parkway. Make it RV's in the driveway.


Cities and counties have plenty of laws to cover that sort of thing
already.

But not all of em. So it's hard to make a one size fits all
recommendation, but this discussion has certainly fleshed out the
variation points for folks to make their own decision:

Do ya like the houses in the neighborhood in question? If
not, why bother.

Existing variability among houses in neighborhood.

Municipality and state restrictions already in place that
won't cover your personal tolerance for "goofy ****" you might
see.

Existing "goofy ****" in said neighborhood.

HOA fee (and don't forget this may as well be additional
property tax money--cus it's part of your monthly
payment you'll have to squirrel away that doesn't
build equity for ya).

HOA efficiency/reputation/ "PITA vs value added" factor (talk to
people who are members of it to find out)

Personally, I've owned properties with and w/o HOA and been happy.
But my involvement in this thread was primarily to root out the
fallacy of "HOA's have 0 useful purpose in the world, why on earth
would anyone buy into one in a single family home?" It's not really
that simple.


Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

In article ,
JerryL wrote:

I repeat. You have never sold a house before and therefore do not know what
you speak of. If you found you were losing prospective customers or sales on
your house because people didn't care for your neighborhood you wouldn't be
so liberal.


Obviously people don't mind my neighborhood given that sales prices here
are about the same as anywhere else - purple houses or not.


Dimitri

In article , Todd H. wrote:
(D. Gerasimatos) writes:

My question is: Why do you care what color the house next door is?

You're focusing overmuch on the purple house.


Yes, because it shows how arbitrary the rules imposed by HOAs can be.


Conformist or not, these are the realities of resale, which one day
you might find out. Post your address, and we'll take up a fund to
buy the house next door and really fix it up nice, and see if your
views don't change.


The realities of resale have very little to do with how many purple
houses exist in one's neighborhood.


Dimitri

"If you think the color of a house matters that much then I think you
are a loon. Would I personally avoid buying a house (or offer less for
a house) based on what color some guy across the street painted his
house?! Are you nuts?
Dimitri "

You keep changing this back to the "color" of the house, as if we're
all saying the homes have to be painted, white, or biege or some
standard color. The colors most reasonable people would choose are not
the issue. You avoid the example I cited where some whacko paints
their house in a way to **** people off because they are either whackos
or totally ****ed at the neigborhood. Another poster showed you a
picture of a house with evey color of paint and all types of bizarre
stuff stuck on it. It looks like hell. And virtually everyone in a
nice neighboorhood would not want to have to look at that every day.

The issue isn't whether you don't mind looking at monstrosities like
that. The issue is what it does to property values. As I said, ask
any real estate agent and they can tell you that having that across the
street to look at devalues your property and makes it harder to sell.
That's a simple fact. So no, I'm not nuts, but I'm beginning to think
that we're all wasting out time here with someone who lives in a
neighborhood that is already so crappy, that can't even comprehend the
issue.

wrote:
This HOA charges $420 a year (goes up every year of course) and it's
members have the privilege of being hounded to death plus being
What a cheap house? Move to Lake Limerick and join the HOA!

You neglected to mention that Lake Limerick is a "manufactured home"
community. By their nature these homes depreciate. OTOH without the
HOA can you imagine how much faster the property values would have sunk?

wrote:

: Another poster showed you a
: picture of a house with evey color of paint and all types of bizarre
: stuff stuck on it. It looks like hell. And virtually everyone in a
: nice neighboorhood would not want to have to look at that every day.

Your idea of a "nice neighborhood" is one in which houses don't look
like that. But if you have an artist community, where people buy
there *because* they like to express themselves artistically, and
because they like to be around people who express themselves
artistically, then a house with "evey color of paint and all types of
bizarre stuff stuck on it" would be a draw for the nieghborhood.

Greenwich Village in NYC was a depressed area that "starving artists"
could afford to live in. Then people with money who wanted to be
"hip", and who wanted the excitement of "wild and crazy" community,
moved in. Prices went up, and the starving artists had to move out.
The only places they could afford were un-renovated factory floors
that weren't even residential, in a section of town that was almost
abandoned when light industry left the city. Perhaps you've heard of
the lofts of SoHo, NYC. The same thing happened - the artists moved
in, and then the wannabees moved in, and SoHo became the hippest,
neighborhood in the city.

In some neighborhoods, all the kids play football across everyone's
front lawns, after they clear the tricycles and toys out of the way.
Someone who wants a clean, spotless lawn and doesn't want those damn
kids running around on it would be a "bad neighbor". In other
communities, people want nice spotless lawns and peace and quiet, and
if you let your kids play on other people's lawns, you are a "bad
neighbor".

Figure out what kind of community you want to live in. Then, find a
house in a community that seems to match what you want. If they rules
requiring people to act the way you want, well, that may be a plus.
If they have rules prohibiting people from acting the way you want,
that's a big minus.

--- Chip

Charles H. Buchholtz wrote:
Figure out what kind of community you want to live in. Then, find a
house in a community that seems to match what you want. If they rules
requiring people to act the way you want, well, that may be a plus.
If they have rules prohibiting people from acting the way you want,
that's a big minus.

Chip - you are a genius! This is the first well balanced, articulate
view of the subject that I've read.

If there were an FAQ for misc.consumers.house.homeowner-assn then your
post should be on the top of the list.

wrote:
Wrong they are mostly stick built homes.

I haven't been there myself, but manufactured homes and trailers are
among the types of construction (and usage) allowed in Divisions IV and
V, and parking of travel trailers, campers, and tents (!) without any
attendent construction is permitted on all lots. Ergo, depreciating
property. Sounds more like an RV park than a "Country Club".

1. Manufactured homes must be factory built to (HUD) Housing and Urban
Development standards and federally inspected.

2. Manufactured homes, mobiles and trailers will not be permitted in
Divisions I, II or III. Manufactured homes, mobiles and trailers will be
permitted in Divisions IV & V.
3. One manufactured home, mobile or trailer will be permitted on any
single lot. Age, other than new, (one through five years) and type of
manufactured home, mobile or trailer must be inspected by two member of
the Architectural Committee prior to placement at Lake Limerick Country
Club. All expenses associated with said inspection including, but not
limited to; existing mileage allowed by IRS, lodging, meals, etc., must
be borne by the mobile home owner. A majority of the Architectural
Committee must approve the inspectors’ recommendation. (Approved by
Board of Trustees September 19, 1998)

4. A manufactured home, mobile or trailer older than five years will not
be approved for placement at Lake Limerick Country Club.

5. Skirting must match exterior decor of home, and be in place within 60
days of home placement.

6. Specific requirements a

a. Removal of undercarriage and towing attachment;

b. Placed on a permanent foundation;

c. Crawl space completely enclosed with a material compatible with upper
exterior;

d. Taxed as real property.


------------

Travel trailer, campers and tents will be allowed by owner/members
between April 1 and
November 15 in any given year. They will also be allowed at other times
if the required building

permits (Club and Mason County) have been obtained and a permanent
building is actually under

construction. Travel trailers, campers and tents are permitted on
weekends or other short periods

between November 16 and April 1 provided they are removed after each
brief use.

4. Guest travel trailers, campers and tents shall be permitted,
providing that sanitation procedures for

human waste and was water are managed so as to comply by hook up or
otherwise to conform

satisfactorily with the intent of Item #11 in “Guidelines Common to All
Divisions.” Owner/members

shall be held responsible for the actions of their guests.

On 19 Dec 2005 21:55:39 -0600, (Todd H.) wrote:

(D. Gerasimatos) writes:

My question is: Why do you care what color the house next door is?

You're focusing overmuch on the purple house. Make it the tons of
autos always parked on the parkway. Make it RV's in the driveway. Or
boats. Or disabled cars. Or really wacky looking additions. Check
the home repair newsgroup--not too long ago, some idiot wanted to
convert an in ground swimming pool into living space. If he was in a
municipality with a lax building code.... imagine.

Municipalities worth living in will address these problems. If
building codes are so lax in certain places, that's probably because
the residents want them that way. Your obsession with controlling the
things that matter to you (paint color, number and type of vehicles,
etc.) would kill you in such locations and therefore should be a free
clue that you should not live there.

People care because they know that--even it it doesn't offend their
own sensibilities--it is likely to drive buyers away when it comes
time to sell the property.

You willfully disregard that old adage: one man's trash is another
man's treasure. What you perceive to be extreme is perfectly
tolerable to a lot of people.

The other problems (if you perceive them to be problems) can be
handled by municipal ordinances.

If and only if the ordinances exist. Trouble is, you will find that
municipal ordinances don't disallow things that prudent sellers really
wouldn't want to have happening next door without recourse.

Please give us reasonable examples of such things. Paint color, as
you know, doesn't count because that can be changed very easily and is
highly a matter of personal taste anyway.

I think you are overreacting to Dimitri's essential point, which is
"live and let live." Everything really generally does come out in the
wash, assuming no malice involved (and if there is malice, let's
remember that other old adage: "what goes around comes around").

And I speak as someone who has bought and sold four houses in
different locations in the same city.

"Please give us reasonable examples of such things. Paint color, as
you know, doesn't count because that can be changed very easily and is
highly a matter of personal taste anyway. "

Sorry, but paint color does matter if it's totally out of character
with everything else nearby. Like the example I gave long ago. Take a
nice neighborhood of very conventional mid-America looking homes. But,
you have one homeowner that's ****ed off at the neighbors. Probably
for some reason like the neighbors got tired of his dog running loose
and crapping in their yards or chasing their cats. So they called
animal control on him. So now he's ****ed off and to get even, decides
to paint his house with graffiiti so it looks like a wall from an
overpass in Harlem. He knows two other homeowners are trying to sell
their houses, while he has no intention of leaving anytime soon. And
to make things even better, he puts every conceivable lawn ornament,
starting with pink flamingos, and moving on to painted toilets, which
he claims are legitimate lawn decorations, out for everyone else to
see.

Now, without a HOA, despite that it's only a house color and lawn
decorations, how exactly do you "very easily change that?" And don't
give us the BS that it won't affect property values, because every
reasonable person knows that it does.

In article .com,
wrote:

"Please give us reasonable examples of such things. Paint color, as
you know, doesn't count because that can be changed very easily and is
highly a matter of personal taste anyway. "

Sorry, but paint color does matter if it's totally out of character
with everything else nearby. Like the example I gave long ago. Take a
nice neighborhood of very conventional mid-America looking homes. But,
you have one homeowner that's ****ed off at the neighbors. Probably
for some reason like the neighbors got tired of his dog running loose
and crapping in their yards or chasing their cats. So they called
animal control on him. So now he's ****ed off and to get even, decides
to paint his house with graffiiti so it looks like a wall from an
overpass in Harlem. He knows two other homeowners are trying to sell
their houses, while he has no intention of leaving anytime soon. And
to make things even better, he puts every conceivable lawn ornament,
starting with pink flamingos, and moving on to painted toilets, which
he claims are legitimate lawn decorations, out for everyone else to
see.

Now, without a HOA, despite that it's only a house color and lawn
decorations, how exactly do you "very easily change that?" And don't
give us the BS that it won't affect property values, because every
reasonable person knows that it does.


Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through just to annoy two people who
are selling their houses anyway. How often does this happen? I'm guessing
very rarely. How often does it work and the sellers actually lose money?
I'm guessing even less often.


Dimitri

JerryL wrote:
I repeat. You have never sold a house before and therefore do not know what
you speak of. If you found you were losing prospective customers or sales on
your house because people didn't care for your neighborhood you wouldn't be
so liberal.

Disclaimer: I like purple houses myself, and I live right across the
street from one. In fact, it's not just purple on the outside (a deep
shade of purple), but also the flower garden is all purple, and the
inside walls are painted all purple. The lady who owns it is no wack
job - she's the nicest neighbor on the street, one who is always out in
her lawn working in the garden, or touching up her paint job. She just
happens to be an artist. The purple walls in her house are a dramatic
backdrop for her colorful artwork. Purple is her favorite color. She
even dresses head-to-toe in purple.

Further disclaimer: I currently live in a duplex condo, not the same
sort of HOA you are talking about, but there is a condo association
consisting of the two owners - me and the people who live upstairs.
It's a very relaxed condo association, however, with not too many
rules.

Okay, disclaimers out of the way, I wanted to point out that it does go
both ways. You are concentrating only on the "sell" side of the
equation. What about the "buy" side? If the purple house across the
street meant I could buy my own place for less, I see that as a
positive.

In fact, our neighborhood is one of those ones that is undergoing
revitalization. It is currently a mix of old multifamilies that have
older residents who've lived there forever, and are now nearing
retirement. Many of these properties are in deterioration because the
owners haven't been able to keep up with maintenance due to health
issues. They are all slowly selling off their properties to developers
who come in and do extensive renovations before selling as duplex
condos to younger people.

So for me, when I was shopping around, i saw value in a neighborhood,
half of which is rundown, the other half newly renovated. It indicated
to me that my investment here was going to pay off over the years,
because the neighborhood is being slowly revitalized. The purple
house? Was a plus for me. Because it indicates that this neighborhood
is slowly being taken over by artists, professors, researchers, doctors
who work nearby in one of the two slowly expanding universities; their
expansion towards my neighborhood is driving the revitalization. In
10-15 years this neighborhood will become prime real estate for those
who take jobs in the new university buildings.

So if you are shopping around and see rundown houses in the
neighborhood, the important question to answer is: "Is the neighborhood
on an upswing, or a downswing?"

As for HOAs, I used to live in an attached townhouse development that
had one. We moved in when everything was new. What happened over the
years is that the development *deteriorated* instead of staying
maintained. HOAs, IMO, are far more likely to go on a downswing than
non-HOA neighborhoods!

That is the downside to HOAs, and that trend in my previous development
was directly attributed to the HOA!!! What happened was that every
little decision - whether to repaint, reshingle, perform maintainence -
was exhaustively debated to death in petty little squabbles, and
nothing ever got done. Within a few years, the whole development
deteriorated into what looks today like a low-income housing slum.

I truly believe if there had been no HOA, owners would have been free
to maintain at their own pace, and the development wouldn't have slid
into slumdom. Instead, having to get a vote on every niggling
maintenance issue ensured we never actually did anything to improve the
place, except when it was very far too late.

jen

On 20 Dec 2005 17:57:06 -0800, wrote:

"Please give us reasonable examples of such things. Paint color, as
you know, doesn't count because that can be changed very easily and is
highly a matter of personal taste anyway. "

Sorry, but paint color does matter if it's totally out of character
with everything else nearby. Like the example I gave long ago. Take a
nice neighborhood of very conventional mid-America looking homes. But,
you have one homeowner that's ****ed off at the neighbors. Probably
for some reason like the neighbors got tired of his dog running loose
and crapping in their yards or chasing their cats. So they called
animal control on him. So now he's ****ed off and to get even, decides
to paint his house with graffiiti so it looks like a wall from an
overpass in Harlem. He knows two other homeowners are trying to sell
their houses, while he has no intention of leaving anytime soon. And
to make things even better, he puts every conceivable lawn ornament,
starting with pink flamingos, and moving on to painted toilets, which
he claims are legitimate lawn decorations, out for everyone else to
see.

This actually happened in my part of the city. And, to add joy to
your day, the house color was purple. The reasons this happened were
different, but the motive was the same: to **** off the neighbors.
The guy lived there for a while, and then finally ended up giving up
and had to sell the house. The buyers hated the house color, but they
took shinypenny's point of view and saw the potential in the house and
the neighborhood and bought anyway.

Now, without a HOA, despite that it's only a house color and lawn
decorations, how exactly do you "very easily change that?" And don't
give us the BS that it won't affect property values, because every
reasonable person knows that it does.

Honey, property values go up and down all the time, and none of us can
always nail down the exact reasons for these fluctuations. So, you're
right that paint color affects property values, but you're wrong to
apply such a negatively broad brushstroke on the big picture here.
Listen to the example shinypenny gave, where the HOA actually had a
stifling effect on maintaining and improving the associated
properties. There are two sides to every coin.

KLS writes:

There are two sides to every coin.

And that sums up this discussion thread nicely.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

wrote:
There was a horrible derelict house one down from mine when I bought my house.
I did not like it being so near but I did like the price of my house. I've
been here less then a year and that horrible run down derelict that was
attracting the criminal element and was a total eyesore has been renovated.
It's the second most valuable house on the block now and it looks gorgeous.

Heh, that was the story of my house; I'm told before it was renovated
it was the number one eyesore on the block! The renovator did a
beautiful job, gutting it inside and out, not just upgrading it
cosmetically, but also replacing all the studs and upgrading the
plumbing and electric. (Everything but, sigh, the roof!).

In the past three years since we've lived here, two additional houses
have been completely reno'd, with a third is in progress, all by the
owners who are getting ready to condo-ize and sell as starter homes or
empty nester homes, and then they can retire on the profits. A third
house, non reno'd, just went up for sale, and the listing bills it as
"perfect for the developer."

What motivated all these owners? The reality that if they sell as a
mulitfamily without reno'ing, they may make $550K (the going rate
around here - we live in an expensive market). But if they reno and
condoize, they can make as much as $650K on the upstairs unit, and
$525K on the downstairs unit (and that is in a flat market - I just
checked housing prices last week - it was higher last year). Yep! That
is a great motivator, don't you think?

Meanwhile down the street and around the block on the corner is the
scariest empty house you've ever seen, with boarded up windows. It
looks completely abandoned for decades..... except for the giant fancy
brand-new yacht and the classic automobiles (with drape clothes over)
parked in the backyard, which is kept meticulously mowed. And someone
is coming around to take the cars out every now and then, and maintain
the yacht. We figure it's the owner, and he must live somewhere else.
He's likely waiting until just the right time to sell this corner lot,
which is dual zoned residential/commercial. Ideal location to put in a
trendy restaurant. When the timing is right, the owner will make a
mint. Lesson: not all abandoned vehicles littering a lawn are bad for
resale values! Having an expensive yacht or auto parked on your yard
can actually be a very *good* sign!

Timing may be coming sooner rather than later: the commercial strip
down the street is slowly going gentrified. We just got our first
high-end clothing boutique. It looks kind of out of place for the
neighborhood right now, but they seem to be doing brisk business.

jen

In article .com,
shinypenny wrote:

Lesson: not all abandoned vehicles littering a lawn are bad for
resale values! Having an expensive yacht or auto parked on your yard
can actually be a very *good* sign!


There's a person a few blocks away who parks a newer Porsche on the lawn.


Dimitri

"The other problems (if you perceive them to be problems) can be
handled
by municipal ordinances. "

Interesting position. So, a municipality can set limits on parking
RV's, trucks, lawn ornaments, house color, or whatever else they
choose, then it's OK? But if a HOA is set up for a neighborhood with
the same intention, then it's not?

"I think you are overestimating how many would-be buyers really care
about what color the
house 2 blocks over (or even next door) is. A nice, well-maintained
house
is a nice, well-maintained house whether it is green, blue, beige,
pink,
orange, or purple. "

And I think you are choosing to conveniently focus on house color and
refer to the houses as "well-maintained." What's to keep a house
"well-maintained?" Most municipal ordinances only address issues of
maintenance when a home is already in pretty sad shape, well beyond
what most HOA's would tolerate. If folks want to avoid having
overgrown lawns, roofs with shingles falling off, pieces of siding
coming loose, etc, I see nothing wrong with it. Most of those items
would not be addressed by a municipality unless they were extreme, or
in the case of things like the siding, probably not at all.

In article . com,
says...

"The other problems (if you perceive them to be problems) can be
handled
by municipal ordinances. "

Interesting position. So, a municipality can set limits on parking
RV's, trucks, lawn ornaments, house color, or whatever else they
choose, then it's OK? But if a HOA is set up for a neighborhood with
the same intention, then it's not?


Well, munincipal ordinances are set up by elected officials. And elected by a
town or similar principality. You don't get quite the kind of petty little
association-specific grudges and agendas. Not completely, of course, but
fighting city hall takes on a different cast as compared to fighting your
neighbors.

Munincipalities don't go into house colors and the like. They *do* go in for
parking and zoning concerns that are of wider interest. Not Xmas decorations
and lawn ornaments and stuff like that which are a matter of taste. The "line"
gets drawn further away from the individual, more to truly common concerns.
They're not going to be going a around enforcing things like banning inflatable
Santa Clauses for a whole town, so that makes a natural limit.

Where I am in the northeast, there aren't so many HOA's as in other parts of the
country. Individuals pretty much segregate to the communities they want. If
you want to have a small-engine repair sideline or an auto-restoration hobby,
you're likely to purchase in a more rural area after checking the ordinances.

My neighborhood has no HOA, and is comfortably in between as far as common
practice. Everyone keeps things pretty much in shape. But there are elders who
can't quite keep up and young families with kid stuff out sometimes. Prices
have skyrocketed due to our location, upkeep, and the whole area going upscale.

Colors here in the northeast tradtionally are white-with-black-shutters. Not
like how it was where I grew up in Texas, to be sure. We do have a purple house
(I think it's rather subtle, actually, kinda grey-lilac with dark grey trim) and
a salmony-pink house with redwood shutters(mine). The seafoam colored house
next to mine went to green-brown siding a couple of years ago, mine is going to
a beige siding with either green or blue trim next year. The neighborhood is
pretty tight; we got a little ribbing as the "Florida houses" with their seafoam
house next to my pink house, but it's been pretty clear we can do what we want.
My neighbor on the other side was pretty uptight about the house color thing -
the husband wailed to me all about the purple house six houses down, while we
stood in front of my pink house - hmmmmmmm. Well, they've gone off last year
to a local McMansion development where all is neutral. Well, good on everyone.

Cheers,
Banty

"Munincipalities don't go into house colors and the like. "

That is simply not true. Most don't but just like there are HOA that
may not get involved in paint colors, there are municipalities that do
get very much involved in issues of paint color. It's not unusual for
towns to have historical districts, where they closely regulate
everything from house paint color, to what type of windows you can use
for replacement. I recall seeing someone in here or alt.home.repair
a few months ago complaining because they wanted to repair a slate roof
in a town with these type of restrictions. They could not do the
repair, because the town insisted the repair would not look right and
insisted on replacing the entire slate roof. Now, considering what
that costs, I would say this behavior by a municipality is a lot worse
than a HOA regulating house color.

And lots of municipalities regulate things like fences, limiting where
you can put them. Here where I live in NJ, fences are not permitted in
a front yard, which is simply an aesthetics issue, exactly as a HOA
might do.

"Not Xmas decorations and lawn ornaments and stuff like that which are
a matter of taste. "

That isn't true either. A current example: A local municipality here
in NJ is looking into that very issue. Seems at one guy's house, it's
always some kind of holiday, with no respite. He goes from massive
Halloween, to Xmas, to Valentine's Day, to Easter.... You get the
idea. Neighbors are complaining about not only how it looks, but the
cars that pull up to look at it, etc. So, enough people have
complained that the municipality is in the process of dealing with it
and they are considering an ordinance.

"Where I am in the northeast, there aren't so many HOA's as in other
parts of the country."

Not for individual homes, but HOA are all over the place here for
condominiums and town homes.

In article .com,
says...

"Munincipalities don't go into house colors and the like. "

That is simply not true. Most don't but just like there are HOA that
may not get involved in paint colors, there are municipalities that do
get very much involved in issues of paint color. It's not unusual for
towns to have historical districts, where they closely regulate
everything from house paint color, to what type of windows you can use
for replacement. I recall seeing someone in here or alt.home.repair
a few months ago complaining because they wanted to repair a slate roof
in a town with these type of restrictions. They could not do the
repair, because the town insisted the repair would not look right and
insisted on replacing the entire slate roof. Now, considering what
that costs, I would say this behavior by a municipality is a lot worse
than a HOA regulating house color.

Ah, yes, that's true.

But it's not *generally* true; it's more of a specific case.

Although, especially where old victorian houses are involved, what is enforced
is whatever can be historically confirmed, which can be quite bright and garish
in terms of siding and trim colors!


And lots of municipalities regulate things like fences, limiting where
you can put them. Here where I live in NJ, fences are not permitted in
a front yard, which is simply an aesthetics issue, exactly as a HOA
might do.

"Not Xmas decorations and lawn ornaments and stuff like that which are
a matter of taste. "

That isn't true either. A current example: A local municipality here
in NJ is looking into that very issue. Seems at one guy's house, it's
always some kind of holiday, with no respite. He goes from massive
Halloween, to Xmas, to Valentine's Day, to Easter.... You get the
idea. Neighbors are complaining about not only how it looks, but the
cars that pull up to look at it, etc. So, enough people have
complained that the municipality is in the process of dealing with it
and they are considering an ordinance.

"Where I am in the northeast, there aren't so many HOA's as in other
parts of the country."

Not for individual homes, but HOA are all over the place here for
condominiums and town homes.


Yes. Although there, so much is common I'd expect to find something like an
HOA.

But it's not like one can't easily avoid having an HOA around here.

Cheers,
Banty

In article . com,
wrote:

Interesting position. So, a municipality can set limits on parking
RV's, trucks, lawn ornaments, house color, or whatever else they
choose, then it's OK? But if a HOA is set up for a neighborhood with
the same intention, then it's not?


HOAs charge you for the privilege.


Dimitri