On Jan 25, 8:22 am, wrote:
On Jan 24, 8:10 pm, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:



A person who lives in a place with an
HOA at some level wants to live there and is accepting of that fact.

Maybe.

Or maybe they don't have much choice.

I just don't know, Jim. Perhaps I have a different idea of choice.

I'd rent before living in a HOA development.


What I mean is that if your job is at X and your spouse's job is at Y
and the decent schools are at Z, there's a practical limit on where you
can live and not spend your entire life commuting. On top of that, most
people have definite money and time limitations.

And I suspect that they have a strong sense of "Right now!"

I waited until a combination of market prices, interest rates and
availability showed me the house I wanted.
There are some canards going around about houses. One is that you have
to have a house immediately and anything other than buying a house now
is throwing money away. That perception on many people's part's has
led them to making bad decisions.

I bought my house in 1994. Until that time, I lived in a mobile home.
We looked at houses the entire time, but saved money and waited until
the right house came along. It was a nice house that came on the
market during a mini-slump. It had sat for some months, so the sellers
were "motivated". We got the house at 75 percent of it's appraised
value, at a good interest rate, and it was in that neighborhood that
doesn't restrict antennas. Then we didn't refi except to reduce the
interest rate. It'll be paid off later this year. I live 2 miles from
work, and the kid walked to school until he went to high school.

I point his out because it's apparently quite different than what most
people think is the way to go about doing the house thing. Some may
say I got lucky. Luck had nothing to do with it. I just waited and
pounced when the time was right. Anyone can do that.

Now some people have issues with living in mobile homes, or fear that
any money spent on anything other than a mortgage is wasted. They have
to have a house, and they have to have it now. Okay, then they have to
put up with the idea of buy in haste, repent at leisure.

Some years back I considered moving, and looked at a number of homes in
my area. All of them had nice fact sheets and disclosure sheets to look
at and take away. None of them - absolutely none - mentioned an HOA,
CC&Rs, etc. Most of them had some CC&Rs, but the unsuspecting homebuyer
wouldn't know that until closing - if then. When your old house is sold
and your stuff is on the truck and you're at the closing, it's just too
late.

That's putting yourself in a bad situation. Remember, the real estate
agent is not your friend. After firing several agents, for reasons
like continually showing me houses outside my price range, (that I
determined, not them) and not disclosing HOA and other important
stuff, I was pretty well convinced of that. They are the sellers
friend, and the more they can get out of you, the better they serve
their customer. If that means allowing the buyer to think that
something is true while it isn't, they are happy to do that.

My point is that there are always options for a Ham, if people think
they just have to take whatever comes along, well, they've taken an
option that isn't Ham oriented.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -