Charlie and I both swore that we’d never again live in a Home Owners’ Association after leaving Murrieta, California. But, lo and behold, we live in an H.O.A. here in Mesquite, Nevada!
I need to explain why we backed-down from our position, because it made sense at the time.
Our homes in Bear Creek (Murrieta) were each part of two H.O.A.s: a Master, which encompassed the entire Bear Creek planned golf course community; and, a neighborhood H.O.A., which encompassed a particular condominium housing development within the overall community. The Master H.O.A. provided for gated security, main roads, streetlighting, and community facilities like tennis courts, a gym, a large pool, bocce courts, etc. The sub-associations paid for landscaping, streetlighting, neighborhood parks and pools, and maintenance of common areas.
Supposedly, everything outside of the interior living space of the condominium unit and the small private-use patios was the maintenance responsibility of the sub-H.O.A. This was fine when all the units were new and there was little wear and tear. However, over the years things would break, paint would get old, wooden fascia would rot, wrought iron fences would rust,roofs would leak etc. and maintenance would be necessary. Of course, the residents who were elected to the H.O.A. Board of Directors would be loathe to increase budgets to address expensive repairs or to carry enough budget reserves for “a rainy day” so to speak. So, over time, the H.O.A. Boards developed a habit of declining to repair common area items, forcing the homeowners to foot the bill individually, particularly when it was time to sell their home.
Bear Creek is an exclusive community where property owners can afford a high level of service. The monthly fee for the Master H.O.A. was about $250 and the fee for the sub-H.O.A.s ran around $400 when we left. That’s $650 per month on top of other household expenses like rent/mortgage, food, utilities, etc.
What really chafed folks was the fact that the H.O.A.s were spending a lot of money but not adequately addressing critical needs of the aging properties. Considerable expense was incurred in lawsuits; local lawyers made bundles of money off bad decisions by the Boards of Directors. Additionally, politics reared its ugly head, pitting “estate lot” property owners against condominium owners. There was never a dull moment, and a lot of hateful things were said regularly.
Consequently, no one wanted to serve on H.O.A. Boards, so the individuals who did end up as Directors had agendas, often at odds with residents and sometimes personal.
Myopia was common. One example was our Country Club Villas sub-association Board’s dealing with a settlement from the original developer of our subdivision. The H.O.A. got almost a million dollars in damages for poor workmanship on the original streets. Instead of putting this money in the Association’s reserves, for future street repairs, the Board decided make themselves popular by using the one-time money to subsidize the next year’s budget, causing the H.O.A. monthly fee to be reduced drastically… for that year only. The next Board of Directors (including myself) was forced to increase the H.O.A. fees drastically to make the Association solvent that year. Talk about pissed off property owners: they thought we were at fault! The bottom line was that the poorly-constructed streets remained in bad shape with no money in reserve to fund their repairs.
I was eventually elected President of the Association but resigned late in my term when some neighborhood politics caused a majority of the Board to abandon H.O.A. policy to the benefit of one of their neighbor friends. Things like this continued to happen over the years, as Board members used their position to favor themselves and friends and punish people that they didn’t like. Selective enforcement of CC&Rs and Association rules was common.
As I say, we were fed up with this stuff when we left Bear Creek. As a matter of fact, it was one of the key reasons for moving from a beautiful community that we had loved for thirty years.
We relocated to Mesquite, Nevada to live in a Del Webb senior community. There is an H.O.A. here, but it is a Master Association that is responsible only for main thoroughfare landscaping and the Community Center facilities. All of the homes here in Sun City are on private lots; there are no condominiums. There are CC&Rs enforced by the H.O.A. to standardize landscaping options, fencing type (if the property owner wants the yard to be fenced) and a few other matters.
To be honest, the H.O.A. exists at this point to help Pulte/Del Webb sell homes in this community. The master plan calls for several thousand more units to be sold over the next 5 to 10 years. The H.O.A. Board of Directors currently consists of one resident property owner representative and two Directors who represent Pulte Development.
The H.O.A. monthly fee here in Mesquite is $151 and has remained at that level since Sun City began to develop in 2008.
Thus, when we moved here, we instantly saved about $500 per month in H.O.A. fees. Since we left Bear Creek, the H.O.A. fees there have gone up by another $100. It’s just incredible how much money people are willing to spend to live in Bear Creek. However, should there be a downturn in the real estate market, those condominiums will be very difficult to sell with all of that monthly H.O.A. overhead attached.
We are pretty happy here with the minimally-intrusive H.O.A. that we have. I have had some beefs with the Board about neighborhood issues, but overall the H.O.A. keeps out of the way and lets us live a happy life here.
That may change down the road when Pulte Development winds down construction here and more homeowner representatives begin to dominate the Board of Directors. Then, Sun City will likely suffer from the same myopic politics that most H.O.A.s encounter.
Thankfully, we’ll probably be dead by then.