I wanted to start by thanking our readers for reaching out with so many responses to my last article about HOAs and CC&Rs! As I expected, opinions and feelings were split. Some folks disliked and resented HOAs while others seemed to really appreciate having a known set of neighborhood rules. Given the response received, I wanted to provide some of our readers’ insights, thoughts/opinions, as well as answer a couple of questions. Again, I would be very interested in continuing the discussion, so feel free to chime in and reach out to me with your thoughts, opinions, experiences and real estate questions at jkeane29@gmail.com.
There were those who preferred to live in HOA communities, gaining access to common spaces like pools, workout facilities, group spaces, along with the homogenous properties. They liked creating a unique sense of community by working together with neighbors to complete neighborhood projects or enhancements. My experience in real estate has taught me that very few developments/neighborhoods have the same CC&Rs or HOA rules, so it is possible to find neighborhoods with different levels or different number of rules. I explained to one reader that one neighborhood in SE Bend has a very strict and powerful HOA that does not allow homeowners to park their own vehicles in their driveway. Other neighborhoods have very few CC&Rs and they only exist to simplify homeowners’ lives by maintaining “loose” property standards and community amenities.
Still, I got a lot of insight from people’s experiences living in HOAs. For example, one reader (Jim G.) made some interesting points based on his experience in a few different HOAs as well as living outside of HOAs. One thing that really stuck out to me was, “I would say that a larger HOA is superior to a smaller HOA, as there is a larger group to draw well-qualified board members from.” I heard from another reader about her experience in a large HOA (Gail T.) that, “If an HOA community gets too large, only the people who care about nit-picky things take over and run the place.”
Other readers felt that CC&Rs and HOAs were not a place they would want to call home. The reasons varied from wanting full control over their own property that they own. To quote yet another reader (Tess B.) “Why would I want my home to adhere to the standards that follow that same kind of aesthetic? My home is a reflection of me and my family. My sanctuary. I’m not going to, now or ever in the future, pay to be policed into a box to fit someone else’s ideal.” Quite a few people had similar thoughts and talked about how some of the “older” or “historic” neighborhoods were so charming because of the uniqueness of homes, the varied sizes and styles, which create a much more distinctive yet varied neighborhood.
I received yet another email from an individual who worked for one of the larger developers in town who is responsible for enforcing some of the rules in the various communities around town. She (keeping her anonymous since she used her professional email), discussed the challenging nature of enforcing rules and/or notifying people of violations. Apparently, it is common for people to not know the rules that govern their own neighborhoods. This is where I advise people that their real estate agents should be providing them with the CC&Rs prior to submitting any kind of offer. To do our readers a solid I will provide a link to Western Title’s CC&R look up tool so you can look up any neighborhoods rules in Central Oregon.
This article appears in Source Weekly July 25, 2024.
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I can’t imagine living somewhere where you can’t park your own vehicle in your own driveway. Sounds like North Korea-level type of oppression. It would really impact your property values, I would think, because who is going to want to buy a place like that?
I think Florida just passed a law to stop this type of HOA abuse.