4 ms·

> , we had a limit on how many units could rent out at once anyway so they never were going to have enough numbers What does this mean? If I owned a house in y

> , we had a limit on how many units could rent out at once anyway so they never were going to have enough numbers What does this mean? If I owned a house in your neighborhood and had to move away for work, my options are to sell the house, or get on a waitlist till the number of houses rented out reduces? As someone that's never owned a house, that sounds like a shitty rule that should be disrupted. I'm assuming there is a positive side to that only homeowners can see.

eropple 8y ago
It certainly sounds like he's talking about a condo association ("unit"), not an HOA, which tend to care about different concerns. Rules like this make it hard for an owner to not be aware of negative impacts that their property is inflicting on their co-owners. You know--the other people involved in the con-dominium. Words are fun and educational, aren't they? So, yes, there is a positive side. Most people have lived in places with absentee landlords. Many people don't want a preponderance of absentee landlord properties in a place where there is such direct impact from doing so; the thinking goes that if you rent out a house across the street from me, they might be annoying, but if you rent out a condo unit above mine, your tenants might flood my apartment because they didn't tell you the toilet had problems. Important difference. If you don't like that, don't buy into a condo association that does it. It is extremely rare for a rental-limit rule to be put in place these days, so in practice you should know going in whether those rules are in place. If by some chance you live in the one in a thousand that does try to put those rules in place today, sell and move on.
dcosson 8y ago
The "positive side" for the homeowners is pretty obvious - it lets them keep anyone that's not one of them out of the neighborhood. I don't know the specifics of this particular neighborhood, but if it's anything like the vast majority of America, it likely is a very shitty rule that should be disrupted.
- nradov 8y ago
  HOAs don't block purchases by particular people. There's no need for disruption here.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > HOAs don't block purchases by particular people HOAs no longer are able to do that directly (even though naked racial discrimination was actually central to the original purpose of HOAs and the covenants which give life to them), but they continue to enforce cultural standards that are designed particularly to enforce the behavior preferred by a particular subculture and exclude others.
    - nradov 8y ago
      Which specific cultural standards and particular subculture are you referring to?
      - nate_meurer 8y ago
        I'll give you one example: families with kids. I've known HOAs to try to pretty much straight up ban children; forbid them from playing outdoors, forbid riding bikes, forbid swingsets, trampolines, even sandboxes. Often couched in bullshit language about "protecting" the kids. Also dog owners. I know an HOA board that was, for a time, populated by fervent dog haters. They enacted a rule that forbid dogs from all streets and sidewalks. You could only walk your dog between your house and the next to the common grassy area behind. There's been some turnover in the board, but the rule is still in effect AFAIK.
        nradov 8y ago
        The rules you describe about children really only exist in age restricted communities intended for people age 55+. Those are basically retirement communities. Federal law explicitly allows age discrimination on that basis. Perhaps you can find a few isolated examples of other HOAs with such rules but they're extremely rare and not a widespread issue. I like dogs myself. But others don't so it's nice they have at least a few options on communities to live where they don't have to deal with dogs. Neither children or dogs are associated with particular subcultures. They're both about as mainstream as you can get.
gamblor956 8y ago
As someone that's never owned a house, that sounds like a shitty rule that should be disrupted. I'm assuming there is a positive side to that only homeowners can see. For starters, several federal agencies actually require COA's to limit the number of units that are not owner-occupied as a condition for government-backed mortgages. Some states and local laws also place caps on this to prevent condos from being used as unregistered hotels (see eg timeshares). As for your options? Generally, for cases like this your option would be to sell the unit or request an exemption. If you're moving far away, it's very likely that the COA will not grant the exemption, because units rented out by distant absentee landlords tend to generate the most and worst problems that COAs deal with.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Or, the other option... don't buy property that has these rules in place and you'll never have the problem. It's not like these rules pop up randomly - you have to sign condo/HOA docs as part of the closing process.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    I agree. HOAs are still relatively rare outside of SoCal, so this issue is unlikely to pop up for 99.999% of the US population.
    - yourduskquibble 8y ago
      > HOAs are still relatively rare outside of SoCal, so this issue is unlikely to pop up for 99.999% of the US population. This seems incorrect. They are more common than you think, especially in neighborhoods built within the last 30-40 years.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      22-24% of US population according to this website: https://foundation.caionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2017StatsReview.pdf https://foundation.caionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/... I don't think I've seen a development in the last 30 years that doesn't have an HOA, and it seems like like all of Florida/Texas is HOA.
duxup 8y ago
gamblor956 covered our motivations for that rule very well, if government backed mortgages aren't an option it could be pretty hard to sell your house. Folks can debate if government backed mortgages should be a thing, but as far as an association we decided we wanted to preserve the opportunity for folks to sell easily (well as easily as possible) by matching the government limits. Some of the folks renting at the time were quite upset... until I explained for the 12th time to them that everyone renting on that day still could rent, and then there would be a limit... so they were actually in a good spot. Takes people a while to understand sometimes ;) eropple kinda touches on a side concern about absentee landlords and such and that was very much on our mind as well. I did say in another comment that we allowed some exceptions if the limit was reached. In fact we approved all exceptions that came our way as there were very few requests. We wanted folks to be able to rent if they had to move fast, family event, and couldn't sell quickly. We didn't want to put anyone in a bind.

eropple 8y ago

It certainly sounds like he's talking about a condo association ("unit"), not an HOA, which tend to care about different concerns. Rules like this make it hard for an owner to not be aware of negative impacts that their property is inflicting on their co-owners. You know--the other people involved in the con-dominium. Words are fun and educational, aren't they? So, yes, there is a positive side. Most people have lived in places with absentee landlords. Many people don't want a preponderance of absentee landlord properties in a place where there is such direct impact from doing so; the thinking goes that if you rent out a house across the street from me, they might be annoying, but if you rent out a condo unit above mine, your tenants might flood my apartment because they didn't tell you the toilet had problems. Important difference. If you don't like that, don't buy into a condo association that does it. It is extremely rare for a rental-limit rule to be put in place these days, so in practice you should know going in whether those rules are in place. If by some chance you live in the one in a thousand that does try to put those rules in place today, sell and move on.

dcosson 8y ago

The "positive side" for the homeowners is pretty obvious - it lets them keep anyone that's not one of them out of the neighborhood. I don't know the specifics of this particular neighborhood, but if it's anything like the vast majority of America, it likely is a very shitty rule that should be disrupted.

nradov 8y ago
HOAs don't block purchases by particular people. There's no need for disruption here.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > HOAs don't block purchases by particular people HOAs no longer are able to do that directly (even though naked racial discrimination was actually central to the original purpose of HOAs and the covenants which give life to them), but they continue to enforce cultural standards that are designed particularly to enforce the behavior preferred by a particular subculture and exclude others.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Which specific cultural standards and particular subculture are you referring to?
    - nate_meurer 8y ago
      I'll give you one example: families with kids. I've known HOAs to try to pretty much straight up ban children; forbid them from playing outdoors, forbid riding bikes, forbid swingsets, trampolines, even sandboxes. Often couched in bullshit language about "protecting" the kids. Also dog owners. I know an HOA board that was, for a time, populated by fervent dog haters. They enacted a rule that forbid dogs from all streets and sidewalks. You could only walk your dog between your house and the next to the common grassy area behind. There's been some turnover in the board, but the rule is still in effect AFAIK.
      - nradov 8y ago
        The rules you describe about children really only exist in age restricted communities intended for people age 55+. Those are basically retirement communities. Federal law explicitly allows age discrimination on that basis. Perhaps you can find a few isolated examples of other HOAs with such rules but they're extremely rare and not a widespread issue. I like dogs myself. But others don't so it's nice they have at least a few options on communities to live where they don't have to deal with dogs. Neither children or dogs are associated with particular subcultures. They're both about as mainstream as you can get.

gamblor956 8y ago

As someone that's never owned a house, that sounds like a shitty rule that should be disrupted. I'm assuming there is a positive side to that only homeowners can see. For starters, several federal agencies actually require COA's to limit the number of units that are not owner-occupied as a condition for government-backed mortgages. Some states and local laws also place caps on this to prevent condos from being used as unregistered hotels (see eg timeshares). As for your options? Generally, for cases like this your option would be to sell the unit or request an exemption. If you're moving far away, it's very likely that the COA will not grant the exemption, because units rented out by distant absentee landlords tend to generate the most and worst problems that COAs deal with.

alistairSH 8y ago
Or, the other option... don't buy property that has these rules in place and you'll never have the problem. It's not like these rules pop up randomly - you have to sign condo/HOA docs as part of the closing process.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I agree. HOAs are still relatively rare outside of SoCal, so this issue is unlikely to pop up for 99.999% of the US population.
  - yourduskquibble 8y ago
    > HOAs are still relatively rare outside of SoCal, so this issue is unlikely to pop up for 99.999% of the US population. This seems incorrect. They are more common than you think, especially in neighborhoods built within the last 30-40 years.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    22-24% of US population according to this website: https://foundation.caionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2017StatsReview.pdf https://foundation.caionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/... I don't think I've seen a development in the last 30 years that doesn't have an HOA, and it seems like like all of Florida/Texas is HOA.

duxup 8y ago

gamblor956 covered our motivations for that rule very well, if government backed mortgages aren't an option it could be pretty hard to sell your house. Folks can debate if government backed mortgages should be a thing, but as far as an association we decided we wanted to preserve the opportunity for folks to sell easily (well as easily as possible) by matching the government limits. Some of the folks renting at the time were quite upset... until I explained for the 12th time to them that everyone renting on that day still could rent, and then there would be a limit... so they were actually in a good spot. Takes people a while to understand sometimes ;) eropple kinda touches on a side concern about absentee landlords and such and that was very much on our mind as well. I did say in another comment that we allowed some exceptions if the limit was reached. In fact we approved all exceptions that came our way as there were very few requests. We wanted folks to be able to rent if they had to move fast, family event, and couldn't sell quickly. We didn't want to put anyone in a bind.