Homeowners Association

What Monica N said.

When we bought a house, we deliberately sought out a neighborhood without an HOA.

Our HOA is great, very lax. The things that they insist on, and which I'm happy about, are no trashcans viewable from the front yard, if you have a wrought iron gate in which you can see into the back yard, you can't have a bunch of junk visible from the front of the property and you may not parking RV's on the street or in the driveway. I agree with these things, I think it does make the neighborhood look nicer, so I have no problem w/ it.

We do have friends, however, that have nightmare HOA's. Seems like they can't even sneeze on their property w/out being reported. So I'd do some legwork about this potential HOA and see what it's really like from the people that already live there. Some HOA's have stringent rules, but the neighbors would be able to give you a better feel for what is enforced and what is ultimately not. That being said, if stringent rules ARE in place but not enforced currently, they could be in the future.

Make sure you know ALL the rules. Some HOA determine what color your house can be, how long your lawn can be, whether or not your garage door can be open during the day - they can determine EVERYTHING regarding the outside of your home.

While this presents a wonderful view for anyone driving through the neighborhood I would not want to live under these restrictions.

JMO

We pay $750 a year, covers the clubhouse, community pool, common area landscaping, common area lighting.
The fee for yours sounds reasonable on the surface. The rules/guidelines they have in place are there for a reason.
Get a copy of it if you can.
I had friends that lived in a neighborhood that you COULD NOT park a car in the driveway, all cars had to be in the garage.
I've seen some where exterior finishes of the house had to be a certain percent, 80% brick etc. Colors can be dictated, how often your yard is mowed. But like I said, all this is for good reason, IMO.

I live in a neighberhood with an HOA and I prefer them. There are a lot of neighberhoods around us with campers in the front yard and broken down cars everywhere and there will be a bright pink house next to a brown house. Yes, they can be sticklers we got a letter once about a couple of dead tree branches that I swear they must have really been inspecting the tree to see them, but we just laughed it off and cut them off the tree. It depends on the HOA though. Our old HOA required us to paint the house every 5 years, the one we have now does not require it. So really look into their rules etc. The price does not seem too bad. Good luck!

Read the fine print on the by-laws for the association. I would do this as soon as you can, to make sure you understand what is expected of you. Some Homeowners' Associations have really strict rules, down to the color you can use on the outside of the house. Specifications for a front door. Specifications on trees on your lot. Can you have a dog? If so, does the dog house have to be a specific size if it is an outdoor dog? If you want a satellite dish, are there restrictions as to where you can place it, or does it have to be approved by the homeowners' association? If you have a boat or camper, can it be kept on the property? And yes, these are all real issues that I saw happen in Bloomington Indiana.
There are advantages as well. The same rules that apply to you also apply to your neighbors. Your neighbor isn't going to be able to quit mowing his yard or let the outside of his home get trashy. As I started out by saying, read the fine print. As long as you know exactly what the rules are, and you can live with those, you should be just fine.

Our neighborhood has a mandatory HOA. We pay $400 per year which basically pays for maintaining the pool, playgrounds, landscaping at entrances,etc.

Some HOA's can be a pain in the rear. In the beginning, we has a President who actually thought he was ruler of the neighborhoood. Some things seem unreasonable.... approval to paint your home, paint your fence if you have one and replace your roof. I understand the basic need in order to keep things consistant within the neighborhood but some things can go too far. Example, when we were going to pain our home, they would not approve it because I would not submit a paint swatch to the President. We were painting it the SAME color as it was when we built the home. Same goes for the roof when we upgraded it, they wanted to see the shingles and I flat out said no. I told them we were going to put polka dotted shingles and have a zebra striped trim. If this is the worst we have it is not too bad.

BUT, in some areas near us, the HOA's are going nuts, even foreclosing on people, people who are out of the country serving our country. THAT is going too far. There have been some new rules put in place that limits what the HOA can actually enforce.

Bottom line.... the pro is your community maintains value and consistancy with the upkeep of homes, etc. The con is if you get a rogue leader who wants to be the police, judge and jury.

You have to decide what is best for you. $960 a yrs sounds high to me but I don't know how many homes are in your community. I know nothing about the water treatment facility but I would expect they are held to the same standards that most cities are held as far as the quality, etc.

Good luck.

Ours is about $450 per year. We have had a couple of run ins with ours. Our neighborhood has several of the original homeowners and they are now retired. Some will walk the neighborhood measuring the lawn. I kid you not!!! We had to submit paint colors and information regarding the replacement windows we wanted to put in. That had to be "approved" by the board. All in all, I am happy with our HOA. Our fees cover clubhouse, pool, tennis counts, playground, mowing and landscaping of the boulevard, trash removal (2 times a week), and security.

We live rural with no HOA but I know they can raise the price on these from time to time. However this one sounds very reasonable. We looked at a home recently with $150 a month plus $450 per year. Two different ones we saw were about this same price, maybe one was $430 a year and $175 a month. This is cheaper but be sure you know what you're getting for that and hope they don't raise it too soon.

There are homeowners associations that take care of community maintenance such as you've described and then there are other associations that have rules such as getting approval before you paint your house.

Homeowners associations that take care of the community are generally pretty benign and nice to have. If your overall costs will be affordable breaking the 960/year down by month (80.00/mo) then I say I'd probably not be too worried...on the other hand if you have to obey rules like not flying flags, then I take serious issue with that and I'm not a big fan.

Agree with T.F. The pros: requires homes to be maintained, keeps up the neighborhood, keeps up property values, affordable way to have amenities and/or provides services that are more expensive to contract.

I'm assuming that you get a lot of snow in Lincoln, NE? What else do you get besides snow removal? Are there common areas (clubhouse, pool, park) or other services (lawncare, trash pick-up) included in that? $960 may be a great bargain ($80/month) depending on what you get. I pay appx $60/month for front lawn care (VERY small lot), tree trimming, community pool, clubhouse, tennis court, pond, some private streets, security service in the evenings. Snow removal in TX isn't an issue :-) I've heard other associations in our area charge a few hundred dollars per month for similar.

The cons: the HOA board tends to be made up of people with too much time on their hands, may have stringent requirements on your home's appearance and decorations (some even prohibit flying a flag), some by-laws state that if you don't pay your dues the HOA can foreclose on your home, the HOA can add a special assessment (an additional one-time fee )if a financial need arises for some major project, dues may increase.

Definitely take a look at the by-laws prior to making a decision to see if there are any red flags. I've been in an HOA for the past 14 years, and it has worked out pretty well.