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The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

nytimes.com

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Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#41

Post by lazyasciiart »

magduf wrote: post #24
WorldMaker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

54 people couldn't pay the bare modicum of attention to their HOA's budget to stop them from spending on meals and vacations that have nothing to do with the HOA's role?

I've lived in HOA neighborhoods before; the power any individual resident has over the HOA is nearly nil. You'd basically have to run around to all the neighbors and convince them to vote for someone else at the next board election; it's just like regular government politics that way.

Yes, that's a pretty bare modicum of effort.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#42

Post by notJim »

nimbius wrote: post #5

a major point people dont consider is the HOA. Speaking from experience of a friend who was a plumber for one of these condo complexes: In a condo, if an HOA is required to fix plumbing or landscaping, paint, or roofing, then it comes out of the CAM fees paid by the residents. However, if the HOA does NOT pay for that work, or tries to stiff the construction firm they hire, the construction company can take out a lie…

It's also just the cost. A condo is appealing to me because they're cheaper and I don't need a big place, but when you add in the HOA fees (SFH don't have HOAs around here), they start to look pretty close in price.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#43

Post by matt4077 »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #25

Granted I only skimmed the article, but it seemed rather myopic to me. Why is the "dream home" assumed to be in an urban/suburban area? Why not in a small town or rural area? In January 2018, we moved back from Charlottesville, VA (which itself isn't even "urban") to Harrison, AR. I was able to buy a five bedroom, two bath home on a half acre in a quiet neighborhood for under $125k. My wife and I are beginning to put…

Almost by definition, people prefer to live in dense areas.

In terms of prescriptive advice, high-density housing reduces urban sprawl. If you can convince a third of suburbia to change to denser housing, commute times for everyone would be cut in half. Vast swaths of land could also return to farmland or nature preserves.

So even people who personally prefer to live "just outside the city" should advocate for denser housing. When the city builds up, everything moves towards the center.

I just measured the distance from city centre to the countryside for two cities of about equal size:

Hamburg (Pop 1.5 mil): 8mi

Houston (Pop 1.8 mil): 22mi

(I chose these because LA and Chicago have coastal layouts which aren't comparable. They also connect directly to other urban areas which for the purposes of this exercise should be considered as "farmland". Or you could add their respective populations which would further amplify the difference)

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#44

Post by lazyasciiart »

superkuh wrote: post #37
madengr wrote: post #21

Screw condos. I’ll take a home where I can put up ham radio antennas and shoot guns, without pesky neighbors.

You're not wrong and this isn't just a throwaway sentiment. Yours is an actual realistic criticism of the ideas of the article despite what the urbanites think.

"The urbanites" are 80% of America. "I personally don't want it" is actually a pretty vacuous criticism of a proposal that most people should do something.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#45

Post by castlecrasher2 »

>This is the New American Home for 2018. It’s a sprawling monstrosity of more than 10,690 feet (the lot encompasses 65,340 square feet).

No, this is an exaggeration for the sake of a highly slanted opinion piece. The average size of a new house in the US is about 2500 sq ft if I remember correctly.

>Does anyone need 10,000 square feet to live in?

Does anyone want to put up with petulant condo associations/HOA squabbles? Besides, if someone wants to pay housekeeping to clean it or spend half their week cleaning that's their business.

>Enter the Green New Deal

oh so this is just a thinly disguised anti-rich opinion piece

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#46

Post by dragonwriter »

criddell wrote: post #33
nimbius wrote: post #5

a major point people dont consider is the HOA. Speaking from experience of a friend who was a plumber for one of these condo complexes: In a condo, if an HOA is required to fix plumbing or landscaping, paint, or roofing, then it comes out of the CAM fees paid by the residents. However, if the HOA does NOT pay for that work, or tries to stiff the construction firm they hire, the construction company can take out a lie…

You're talking about the HOA as if they are a third party. Isn't the HOA just the group of condo owners? Who were the two parties in the grisly court battle?

> You're talking about the HOA as if they are a third party. Isn't the HOA just the group of condo owners?

No, in the same way that a corporation is not just the group of stockholders; it's a distinct legal entity operationally controlled by it's own management (either employees or a contracted management firm), who is accountable to a board, who is normally accountable by election to the condo owners. Owners, or groups of owners, suing HOAs are just like shareholders suing corporations, it's not an uncommon thing.

Also, lots of HOAs are actually structured to be effectively controlled by the original developer until certain time and/or unit sales triggers move them out of a privileged role, and may have rules set in place during that time that place high procedural bars on changes that would provide effective control to the actual homeowners even if the homeowners have nominal control.

HOAs are a hotbed of principal-agent problems.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#48

Post by yostrovs »

nachiketkumar wrote: post #31
helen___keller wrote: post #13

Personally I'm a fan of tightly packed townhomes (or, SFH packed with just a few inches between them, as seen in some places), but I think an important step towards the walkable urbanism the authors want is simply to remove unnecessary restrictions on housing. Like, I get that some people want big lawns and backyards but I don't get why this needs to be the only housing that's legal in the majority of all suburbs in…

Calling suburban homeowners grass farmers is an insult to real grass farmers like Joel Salatin and Gabe Brown ;).

Indeed, particularly in light of how much criticism these gentlemen cast at the useless, counterproductive front lawns of America's suburbia.

Re: The New ‘Dream Home’ Should Be a Condo

#49

Post by danans »

nimbius wrote: post #5

a major point people dont consider is the HOA. Speaking from experience of a friend who was a plumber for one of these condo complexes: In a condo, if an HOA is required to fix plumbing or landscaping, paint, or roofing, then it comes out of the CAM fees paid by the residents. However, if the HOA does NOT pay for that work, or tries to stiff the construction firm they hire, the construction company can take out a lie…

HOAs are not restricted to condos. Many newer SFHs are governed by neighborhood HOAs also, and they are famous for putting onerous restrictions on residents.

Also, not all condo HOAs are a mess like you describe. I'm part of a 3 unit HOA on subdivided infill lot. It's dense, but no shared walls or structures. The low HOA fee covers the shared insurance policy and nothing more. Within my exclusive use area I'm free to do anything reasonable with landscaping, etc. Only structural changes to my unit require HOA approval

The dysfunction of some HOAs is more a function of the misplaced priorities of the members, as in the example you gave, not with the idea of shared ownership itself.

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