In Boston, there is a real problem of Chinese real estate companies buying up properties and then not living them. There is a luxury skyscraper downtown with just a little of 50% capacity.
My neighborhood is dealing with this. At least seven houses were bought by either a Chinese family or company. One of the houses sat vacant for over a year (power company even removed the meter) and the rest had Chinese families move in to them. In a case where having a HOA is good...none of them do anything to maintain their yards except when forced to do so after multiple fines from the HOA. I'm talking, grass waist high, weeds, etc.
This is the core of the problem. Housing policy is being used to squeeze the younger generation to finance the retirement of the older generation.
I know University of Iowa used to/still has a similar issue. Upper wealthy families from China who's kids would get accepted to Iowa would show up with a 150k car. Some of those cars got basically ditched after the student graduated. Back when I sold luxury cars, pre-2009, any black/black luxury car, I'd get a call from out of state about selling for cash, and shipping(basically putting it onto a ship headed for Beijing) didn't matter the price. Mercedes/Porsche has routine notices that selling cars for export was cause for de-certifying the dealership. I still routinely see a lambo/ferrarri/ G Wagon on I-80 heading to Iowa City...
Why the fuck are we letting Chinese people/ companies (or any foreigners, for that matter) own property in this country? Because it doesn't work the other way around.
I agree completely. But money, that’s why. People would (and do) sell their children for a buck, no one is going to think twice about selling away the country an acre at a time.
Same reason the wealthy get to have accounts in the Caribbean/Switzerland. Money talks, and you can shuffle it through different entities until it pops out legit. I'm sure any Ghost Apartments in NYC are held under an innocuous holding Co., which is owned by some other Shell Corp, etc, etc. If our Wealthy get to hide their money, you don't think other countries Wealthy do the same?
Finally closed on our house Tuesday. The listing agent was a fucking asshole, and I'm glad I never had to meet him face to face. I feel like I "lost" in terms of negotiating...but we ended up paying less in closing costs due to our bank forgetting to charge a required fee for extending our credit lock. But they knew we were waiting for so long, they ate the cost. So that makes me feel better. And ultimately, we have a house, with a yard. That makes me happy.
Congrats! Really glad to hear it! I hope you put the BS you had to endure behind you quickly and fully enjoy your new home!
We get to move in over the next month and I’m already excited about all the upgrading/personalization I can do. I’m sure I’ll be asking questions on here a lot too!
I'm already imagining your wallet coming out of this purchase like the lone soldier fighting on after a war! Congratulations on the big buy!
I can't recall if anyone mentioned it in this thread and I'm to lazy to scroll through and check, but my new job with a property management firm has reinforced my belief that HOA's are the worst thing ever. You're basically paying huge sums of money to have someone dictate how you run your own home. Daily I get to deal with people that fell in love with a house despite it being in an HOA and bought it. Usually quite quickly they come to regret their hastiness and failure to read the novel that is their CC&R's. Put in rocks that are the wrong color? Violation! Paint your front door without submitting an Architectural form and having it approved? Violation! Plant a bush of a type not approved by the HOA? Violation! Car drips a little oil in the driveway? (If you're allowed to park in your driveway) Violation! Put out your trash cans an hour early? Violation! Curtains are of a type not approved by the HOA? Violation!...and on and on and on. An HOA can and will ruin your life and there is usually nothing you can do about it. You can get a lawyer and try to fight them, but the CC&R's were written by a team of lawyers and most HOA's have a management company with their own team of lawyers. Unless you've always dreamed of living in a complete and total fascist society just pass on any place with an HOA.
We don’t have them here (that I know of) but I find them fascinating because they seem to be frequent in the States yet I have never heard anything good about them, from anybody, ever. They seem to exclusively attract people to their head table that just wallow in sociopathy. I cannot imagine having to tolerate people like that even once, much less over and over again as they pry into my life. That’s far too much bullshit just to have every property around me be aesthetically pleasing, I already live in a clean (but boring) city. I cannot relate to HOA stories whatsoever, yet they give me a sincere anxiety hearing them because of how frustrating they are. It’s crazy.
Horse shit. I pay $200 a year. I get access to a pool, 5 parks and three fishing ponds. And my neighbor that wants to have a junk car in his front yard and other obnoxious things? Well they keep him in check too. All of these things make the fact that I can’t paint my house like a scene from Heavy Metal to be worth it.
I can see why you or others would like having those things like most would, if you live in a place where you have to pay extra to get that. But here you don’t for the most part. That’s why I can’t relate. I could see in a place like Baltimore having HOAs make sense, because that city is a gigantic anus and you wouldn’t want Camden freaks loping around your home.
There are times I wish I had an HOA to keep my white trash neighbors in check. The amount of people living in trailers in the driveways, work trucks parked all over the place, and terribly kept yards keeps the place from reaching its full potential.
My first house had an HOA and I’ll never be a part of one again, I got a fine the day I moved in, for a moving truck being parked in the driveway….. Got another one for a phone book being left on our front porch for two days, we were on vacation… Another fine for leaving my garage door open past 8 PM Yet another for my mulch not being a pre approved color and not being purchased from a pre approved vendor HOA’s are a fucking nightmare, our neighbor got foreclosed on because he didn’t pay his HOA dues, his mortgage was current, he was just past due on HOA dues. Anything with an HOA is a hard pass for me, I’ll take trailers and work trucks any day.