“Living on the nicest plot of land you can afford.”

What some people in the comments above are describing as “neighborhood,” I would attribute more to the plot of land. Views, acreage, etc.

As a former city planner…. regulations largely rely on voluntary compliance of law abiding citizens and otherwise are only as effective as random enforcement. No city has an abundance of $ for enforcement, and we’ll see how that survives budget cuts . Enforcement actions sometimes ensue from flagrant visible violations, particularly of health safety and welfare issues which governments most care about, but in the vast majority of cases, it’s neighbors contacting local government and turning in their neighbor for either a legit concern to an absolutely pissy personal grudge. In certain sad cases the private sector “enforces” in the form of insurance companies balking at claims. HOAs are as effective as the people in that community, how much they are willing to pay for upkeep expenses or to defer maintenance, and the mental health of people who serve on the boards.

Unfortunately, there’s no title report equivalent of a neighborhood mental health report.

I lived in FL most of my life so I can definitely vouch for our “specialness.” Our neighborhood had an HOA whose members had varying levels of craziness. My favorite incident was when a lady on one of the prime corner lots decided to construct what appeared to be a mini golf course in the yard. There were giant wooden cut outs, brightly colored astroturf patches, and more than a comfortable amount of garden gnomes. I was a kid and thought it was the coolest thing ever and couldn’t comprehend my parents’ negative reaction. I can totally see now how something like that might scare away potential buyers or at least make them run the address through the sex offenders registry!
On the flip side, I remember my parents battling with the HOA about moving our mailbox 2 inches further back into our yard and making sure to repaint it the approved shade of brown.
An HOA is good in theory to keep up the common areas (like our neighborhood had a clubhouse with a pool) but it’s the crazy people that are in your front yard measuring the height of your grass and holding a color swatch up to your mailbox that make people think twice about moving into those neighborhoods.

3rd house we bought: new small home in large planned development east of Issaquah. Great neighbors, tons of community involvement, great parks and trails, retail within walking distance. I could live there without a car. The schools stink, though. I was back there again last week and took a walk while waiting for my kid to finish a play date. Of the people I encountered, 8 of 8 said hello. HOA pretty active but we survived unscathed.

Current house: smallest house in swank development of McMansions on the Eastside. Very strict HOA and any day we expect to hear from them about the sorry state of our yard. (Gardening’s not our thing and we’ve got no money to pay a gardener right now.) Rudest people you’ll ever meet, they don’t want anything to do with us peons in the tiny house. I take my life into my hands each day just walking across the street to the mailbox, as I could be run over by a Mercedes or Lexus SUV. If I dared to take a walk here, I’d say 0 of 8 people would acknowledge my existence. Hate the place and looking forward to moving, whether by selling or foreclosure remains to be seen.

So I’d have to vote for neighborhood being the most important thing, your house can be remodeled but your neighborhood cannot.

You guys will be regretting that non-conformity when neighbors start painting their houses colors you don’t like and parking older cars than yours (or, God forbid, even a boat!) in the driveway. I constantly have nightmares of people not being the same as me and having the nerve to show it on their own property.

You’re being sarcastic, right?

Now, let’s say you talk about Florida and its very “special” residents; busy intersection of I-4 and I-75 ; private citizen expressing his rights.

http://www.florida-scv.org/Camp1360/Tampa_Flag1.jpg

By the way; I too, take the mediocre house in the safe, nice neighborhood (with good schools).

I suppose if you want to live in an neighborhood that emphasizes conformity and uniformity, then HOAs are a good thing. Personally, I prefer places that nurture creativity and eccentricity.

Me too. Life isn’t meant to be beige.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20090412/news/304129978

Someone else mentioned it, but it was basically a vessel for stay at home moms to feel important.

I don’t want to work for my house, I want my house to work for me.

My mother did have her house painted purple, and she is a previous Seattle Poet Laurette.

You seen, the problem with HOAs are not the HOAs themselves, but what they do to the small, small people who need power to feel OK. And those people, needless to say, are everywhere.

No thanks.

Kary, where did you come up with data to prove this tidbit “There are a few stories of bad HOAs, but they are the exception. ” How do you know they are the EXCEPTION?

Mukoh, this made me laugh “This whole non conformity that reeks through a lot of times is exactly what HOAs are there to prevent.” yeah who wants non conformity we should all be just a like who cares about being individual.

Count me out on the HOA.

One of the funniest (and possibly the most notorious) HOA a**-kickings ever…truly one of a kind.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1908540/king_of_hancock_park/

HOAs also maintain rules such as a neighbor is not going to park 5 cars in their driveway for months on end fixing them. Do you want that in your neighborhood?

This whole non conformity that reeks through a lot of times is exactly what HOAs are there to prevent.

Now for the answer to the poll: my weighting would be 70% neighborhood / 30% quality of home. So I wouldn’t by a dump in the perfect neighborhood, nor would I buy the perfect home at the expense of living 30+ miles from work. But I would be a little more flexible on the house quality in order to have a good neighborhood (i.e. close to work and good schools, quiet but convenient, variety of construction, no cookie cutter homes and no HOA).

Ie. I’d take a great house in Bothell over a dumpy house in Queen Anne, but wouldn’t take a great house in So. Seattle over a bad house in Queene Anne.

If there was a single adequately sized SFH on Mercer Island for sale right now that I could afford, I’d buy it, even though that same money would probably buy something more than twice as big and with much nicer trim elsewhere in the area. There isn’t, so I’m looking in the neighborhoods next on my list. I’ll take a modest home in a great neighborhood every time over a swank pad in a mediocre area.

My family still lives in that neighborhood cause its home, this place is bliss and I am thankfull every day we can relax in a quiet area, walk the bluff on a nice day with the dogs. You can’t put a value on it to me. If you told me I paid 100k extra to have those features, I would say npo problem its worth it. So that’s my answer.

Now not to say magnollia is perfect, there are certainly people here who would fit into my old neighborhood but they are few and far between rather than the norm.

By Ben @ 4:

Kary – some HOA can make life hell for people. A good neighborhood should not need one.

There are a few stories of bad HOAs, but they are the exception. Many of the bad stories are the result of people moving in and then not liking the existing rules, so I disregard those entirely.

I agree a neighborhood SHOULD not need one, but unfortunately some people are rather messy and/or inconsiderate of their neighbors. Seattle now has more regulations, but I’m not sure how well they work in practice. Before they did next to nothing.

The problem comes in when you’re forced to either accept HOA terms or live 50 miles out in the boondocks. We don’t have that problem here in King County, necessarily, but there are entire states — Arizona comes to mind — where almost all residential real estate within driving distance of a city is HOA-encumbered. If you want to live in Arizona and you’re not a born desert-dweller, you have essentially no property rights other than the right to assume the financial risks of “ownership.”

Many, if not most, people are fine with that. Not me. Every once in awhile, when I find myself driving through upper Queen Anne, I make it a point to cruise past this place just to remind myself how nice it is when every house in your neighborhood isn’t exactly the same as every other house.

I’d like to think that if I lived next door to that guy, I could probably put up a ham radio antenna or leave my garage door open all day Sunday without catching any grief from him. He could expect the same from me. That’s a neighborhood. HOAs are for ant colonies.

I’m betting that prices will be flat at best for a long while, so we’ll go with a house where we can see our family today and ten years from now,with teenagers. We looked at plenty of houses in nicer neighborhoods, but the truth is, anything we can afford will be a bit tight now and probably intractable with 3 teenagers…

If I’m wrong and we hit rampant inflation with RE partiicipating, my guess is that we’d be able to sell even in a mediocre neighborhood….

I disagree on HOA. CCNRs are a good way to keep the neighborhood in check and looking good instead of being decrepit.

Without a HOA you’re pretty much looking at litigation to enforce, but that’s better than nothing I guess.

Neighborhood, definitely. But “nicest” didn’t mean most expensive and upscale. It means no HOA so we can paint our house the color we want and put up a basketball hoop. .

I had no trouble getting my paint color approved, and my neighbor has a basketball hoop. But I have seen listings that were hard to sell because a neighbor painted their house purple. Since I have no desire to paint my house purple, I’d rather have the protection from that than the freedom to do that.

Kary – some HOA can make life hell for people. A good neighborhood should not need one.

There are a few stories of bad HOAs, but they are the exception. Many of the bad stories are the result of people moving in and then not liking the existing rules, so I disregard those entirely.

I agree a neighborhood SHOULD not need one, but unfortunately some people are rather messy and/or inconsiderate of their neighbors. Seattle now has more regulations, but I’m not sure how well they work in practice. Before they did next to nothing.

On the other hand, I would just like a house that meets my needs. Not the “nicest house I can afford”. I’d move from renting apartments to a condo near downtown resources, but I need a garage for a pile of junk I’ve got, an air compressor and a small pile of T-cylinders of oxygen, helium, argon and air (which I don’t currently have, but the major attraction to owning a house would be having enough room in a garage).

So, I don’t want the nicest house I can afford, and I don’t want the nicest location I can afford.

I suppose if I was less picky I could find a place in a seedy area to live in and build a really nice house there. But then my wife and kid could never leave the house and I would constantly worry about security.

Kary – some HOA can make life hell for people. A good neighborhood should not need one.

I already have a nice neighborhood. Put me in this Condo on top of the 15th floor (secure building) and you can put me in a neighborhood with bad neighbors. I just won’t come out.

Lock me in ….like in the movie Quarantine—————–not with those neighbors though….

Floor 15: ME–penthouse style
Floor 14: Safeway
13: Thai Kitchen
12: Wendy’s
11: Dicks
10: Pagliacci
9: El Pollo Loco
8: Boston Market
7: Galaxy Cinema
6: Casino–Peppermill style like in Reno
5: Swensens Ice Cream
4: Library
3: Sports Bar
2: Togo’s/Port of Subs
1: Gym with pool, track, Spa

(no particular order)

Happy Easter to all!

Your neighbors do affect you–something I learned the hard way. When we were looking two years ago, a big plus was a neighborhood that had a strong functioning HOA. City government simply doesn’t do enough around here to keep bad owners in line.

Also, I’m just not that into houses. So getting the nicest house just isn’t that big of a priority, if by nice you mean more expensive, stainless appliances, granite counters, etc. However, it you mean nicest design, that makes it a bit tougher. For example, we had a listing in the Nottingham area of Edmonds that was a fantastic design that was the result of at least one major remodel. I called it a split-level rambler–it was a very unique house, but the design really worked. I’ve never had buyers linger in an open house the way they lingered there. Anyway, something like that, or a nicely preserved 1910 larger home would have some appeal. But mainly it’s neighborhood.