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HOAs 101: What They Do—and Why It Matters

[00:00:00] One of the questions that I get asked all the time by people is, what about HOAs? I don't like HOAs. and so I thought it would make sense for me to spend a little time talking about HOAs. I'm just gonna get ready here for work while we talk. And I used to do property management. I'm from Minnesota and

I have experience in different HOAs. Never had a really bad experience in Minnesota with HOAs, and I've also lived in rural areas where there wasn't any HOA. but instead of an HOA, they have what's called CCNRs conditions, covenants and restrictions, which also govern. What you can and cannot do in an area.

And [00:01:00] so today I'm not gonna talk about CCNRs 'cause that's like a whole nother layer. but I'm just gonna talk about HOAs because a lot of people, my experience here has been people, especially coming from California, I guess, don't like HOAs. 'cause they've had very bad experiences with HOAs and so. I try to assure them that my experience here in Arizona, dealing with interacting with HOAs has not been negative.

Typically. there are those occasional situations where yes, it is. negative. However, that is very few and far between. So I kind of tell people it depends on the HOA. here [00:02:00] in Cottonwood we don't have a lot of HOAs. we do have, we do have them. but I haven't heard horror stories particularly about any of the HOAs.

So I can't tell you any horror stories, about HOAs in Cottonwood or the Verde Valley. I do know there are some, so to speak, horror stories. In Sedona. But again, I'm not gonna go into detail, about any specific HOA at this point. I'm just gonna talk about in general, HOAs. now, keep in mind, remember I talked about covenants, CCNR covenants, conditions and restrictions are what the HOA.

Enforces [00:03:00] manages overseas. That's where they get their directions from, I guess is the best way to put it. So it's not like the HOA is making things up as they go. The HOA boards cannot just change the CCNRs just because somebody doesn't like something. it takes, a vote of the current homeowners.

And there's a certain percentage that need to agree to the change, and it's a pretty high percentage. And occasionally it's not a hundred percent, I don't think, but it's a pretty high percent. It has to be like 75 to 80% of the community agree with the change before the change is done. And so any kind of CCNR change.

It needs to be something that before the board were to put that out there for a vote, they would wanna be [00:04:00] pretty confident. 'cause it's expensive, it's timely, it's, you know, there's all the details of how you're supposed to do it. so it's not like you can just change the CCNRs. So the HOA board follows the CCNRs now.

Some boards are more strict about enforcing CCNRs, and I think the one thing that's important is consistency in the enforcement of CCNRs. That you as an HOA, can get yourself in legal trouble if you are not consistently and Across the board applying cc, the, the HOA CCNRs. So you can't just decide, well, I don't like what this person's doing, and we're gonna say you can't and we're gonna, you know, fine you or whatever.

[00:05:00] you have to apply the CCNRs across the board consistently and. Not based on individual preferences. So people that are looking at, buyers that are looking at moving into an HOA, should with their agent's assistance, probably look a little bit into that HOA's You know, guidelines, CCNR and things before you put in an offer.

Because once you're in that process, you know, it's kind of like, well, you're semi committed and obviously you like the house or you wouldn't have put in the offer. So if you fall in love with the house and then find out once you're reading the CCNR. That you don't like the architectural guidelines, you don't like the HOA CCNRs because they're too restrictive or whatever.

You're kind of [00:06:00] in a tight spot because it's like, I love the house, but I don't like the CCNRs. I don't like the limitations that this HOA is gonna put on me as a person. And. That's your agent's responsibility to help you kind of assess that before you put in an offer. But if it looks pretty good, you know, like, okay, we've looked into it and things look pretty good, then you proceed.

And the HOAs here I have found really vary on what they do and how they enforce and how strict they are or not. I used to live in an HOA in Dewey and they had CCNRs, they had HOA board and everything. But at the time that I lived there, they were not really strict at [00:07:00] enforcing. Color guidelines, applications to do exterior work, that kind of thing.

People were kind of just doing it and then asking for forgiveness later. I wouldn't recommend that. I really wouldn't. Sometimes it's okay to do that if it's a very minor thing. I read the CCNRs here, the architectural guidelines, which I am on the architecture committee and the board here in. The HOA I live in and they are pretty restrictive actually, in many ways.

And this is not a community that's for everybody. I admit that. I'm not sure I would've bought in here if I'd known how restrictive the, CCNRs were and the architectural guidelines, it's not really the CCNRs, it's the architectural guidelines. I tend to be a person. I'm just gonna look on there.

I [00:08:00] like color, I like, you know, bold colors and things like that. I mean, I'm not gonna paint my house flamingo pink, but I do like a little bit of color on accent, you know, like pop outs and things. Well, in this CCNR you can't do that. the most you can do is paint your, your front door a Bright color, and we have all those which you can pick and choose from.

So you really need to work with your agent in regards to HOAs because. Like I said, the one I came from was very lenient. I don't even know what their architectural guidelines exactly were. We painted our house. I picked out the colors. We didn't look at any architectural color guidelines. Here where I live now, you cannot paint your house without looking at the color schemes that have been approved and running it past the architectural committee.

And there's [00:09:00] only so much you can do. There's only so many choices, and so you cannot go off the rails and paint your house a different color. but they also HOA CCNR address, you know, the common area home improvements, anything you can do on the exterior of your home or the property that the house sits on is what the CCNRs basically address.

that includes, you know, parking on the street, parking in the driveway, again, painting the house, landscaping. And then also the CCNRs address, the common areas because the HOA is responsible to maintain the common areas. some HOAs have a lot of common area parks, things like that. And so in that, clubhouses and things, so their HOA fees are typically a lot higher because those are amenities that are available to you as a community member.[00:10:00]

And if you're living in that community, obviously you want it to be nice, you want it to be maintained. And so you're not gonna be living next door to a person who has, you know, five cars, a boat, an rv. And junk sitting in the yard. In the backyard. Um, where I live, there is a, property just down the street, literally butts up to our HOA and I'm pretty sure it's a hoarder house, I'm pretty sure.

'cause there is no, HOA overseeing what they're doing now, the city does, but it has to be pretty extreme. And complaints from neighbors. Before the city will get involved. But they have, sorry, I put my lips, ah,

it's a white woman issue. When you get older, you have no lips. that's how [00:11:00] you make lips. they have a ton of RVs, boat, all kinds of stuff parked. Behind their house and it's got some fencing, so you kind of can't really see how bad it's, but I've done some aerial like video and scene that it looks pretty sketchy and they don't maintain their house.

But there's, you know, nothing that, there's no HOA to call them on it. Here in HOA, if your heart's house has peeling paint, your yard is looking nasty. You've got cars collecting that aren't running. The HOA is gonna call you out on it. They're gonna say, Hey, you need to paint your house. You need to mow your yard, rake up the leaves.

You need to get that car that's been sitting there for six months out of there. Either it needs to be running or it needs to go. Typically that stuff is picked up by someone who drives around the HOA, [00:12:00] looking at what's going on. so HOAs are good and bad, and there's, there's, there's negatives to living in communities where there are no HOAs.

So we'll talk about that in another video, but my experience has been. It really depends on the HOA board. It depends on the CCNRs for that HOA and what you can and cannot live with. What are your expectations? So if you are interested in knowing more about HOAs and living here in the Cottonwood Verde Valley area, please check out my other videos.

I'm gonna be doing a whole series about HOA CCNRs. property owner associations. So kind of delving into this topic because it's a big issue for people, and I wanna make sure that people feel informed and that I'm here as a resource to answer questions.