11/01/2022
ARE INVESTORS AFFECTING HOA COMMUNITIES?
By Harvella Jones
2022....The answer to that question is a resounding yes! You are probably asking yourself—How is that possible? Let me start with a personal account of what is happening to me basically every day and that is each and every day, I either get a phone call, a text, an email or a specific letter from an investor asking me if I want to sell my house for cash. The first thing that comes to my mind is why would they contact me since I have never posted an ad or contacted a real estate agent stating I wanted to sell my house. Apparently, the new way to obtain business is to solicit unsuspecting, disinterested homeowners after driving through their neighborhoods collecting addresses off their houses.
So how do these cash purchases affect our HOA communities ran by our neighbors we vote for to run our communities. Here’s how: (1) generally the investor is not interested in the HOA government structure that exists in the sub division they are investing in; therefore, they are not shy about using their newly purchased homes to setup “group homes” or renting to renters as opposed to selling to homeowners who would be compassionate about the aesthetics of their community and willing to serve on the HOA boards and keep an eye on the continual good health of the community they have personally invested in; (2) traditionally, HOA’s (Homeowner Associations) have great difficulty in getting a quorum to conduct business; therefore, many HOA’s across the country are operating half staff and without owner quorum approval. It gets much worse when investors purchase your house and replace the occupants with people renting or living in group homes. The investors become the voting power for that property and generally tend to vote opposite from what you are looking forward to or agreed to when you purchased your property. Hence, the neighborhood becomes plagued with dwellers who have no emotional attachment to the property and bring in many bad social behaviors and problems for the owners to deal with but unable to change via quorum held meetings. The next thing you know, your property rights have eroded and you are wondering what happened until you realize, you are surrounded by renters.
The best advice that can be given to you if you care about the continual control of your community from your house instead of a rented house, where the owners have to be chased down to get a vote cast and the proxy being held by the forever-in-office board member, is when the investors call, email, text, or write you regarding selling your house, just say, “’NOPE’”.
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