Home Owners Association in the Albuquerque area. What are its Pros and Cons?

(Transcript Snippet): “Tego:

Tracy, one last thing, there was this conversation that came up about homeowners association and, and you’ve had those clients that say, there’s no way I never want to be in a neighborhood with an HOA. And then we also have people that say, Oh, I want a neighborhood with an HOA. Cause they’ll keep the neighborhoo

What, you know,

Tego:

What jumps out at you about that, Tracy?

Tracy:

Well, you know, showing a lot of houses around the city over the years, you can usually tell when you’re in an HOA, when, when you’re in a neighborhood where there’s a homeowner’s associations, a lot of the newer developments have homeowners associations. They have rules about parking cars and trash cans and what you can and can’t do with your property. So a lot of people don’t like those rules and then there’s like, you go, well, there’s some look around, you don’t have abandoned cars. You don’t have weeds in people’s front yards next to you. We feel like sometimes the homeowners association rules keep your home value higher.

Tego:

Yeah. I don’t have any data to back this up. I could figure it out and look at it. But I would say that neighborhoods with homeowners association have better price appreciation and hold their values better than, than, than ones that don’t. And, and, you know, the, the thing with hos is they have a governing body. And for the most part, they keep the neighborhood looking good. There’s some sort of organization that’s in charge in charge, and there’s going to be rules that have to be followed. And, and so the flip side of that is you have people that are very frustrated because they want to park their car out in front of their house and they’re not allowed.

Tracy:

It depends every, every neighborhood has different rules, right? So one of the things that comes to mind Tegois when people are parking the cars on their front lawn, right. You know, they have three teenage children each with a car and they’re pulling in the driveway and they’re pulling off to the right and they’re parked on the road. You know, what would be a front yard? And, you know, that’s the type of thing when I’m showing a house and I’m looking at the one next door with some buyers, they’re going to notice that and go, huh, this is maybe not what I want. And sometimes people say, I never want to live in an HOA neighborhood. And once we start looking at houses, they change their mind. And they say, I want to live in an HOA. Going back to one of the things you just said, I think are some parts of our town are very different. Like the Valley not having an HOA in the Valley is probably not going to harm your price appreciation, right. Or North Albuquerque acres. Right. We’re talking about neighborhoods. Like we were just talking about the Cabazon house. That’s going to be open this week and Southern Rio Rancho, and Cabazon has an HOA for most neighborhoods within it. But this one corner, the Northwest corner of Cabazon does not have an HOA. Got it. And it was part of the main development, but there’s no HOA, there is a public improvement district, but that’s completely different.

Tego:

And just to wrap this conversation, Tracy, I think the thing is, is I think people need to not just do blanket. I don’t want an HOA or do blanket. I must have an HOA look at the pros and cons. And each HOA has different rules, has different CCNRs, you know, covenants conditions and restrictions on, you know, what can happen there. The way it’s governed, the way it’s the financing is handled, all of that stuff matters. And that is a contingency in the purchase agreement.

Tracy:

Right? All of that needs to be disclosed. So you can look at what the HOA is all about and make sure you’re comfortable with it. So, and HOA is around the country. Typically people think of, you know, maybe it includes a country club or a swimming pool or a gated area, but you know, those vary too.