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Comment by valuearb | Hacker News Reader

This type of regulation should be the province of HOAs, which have covenants that home owners agree to when buying their homes. It shouldn't be part of state law, and this one sounds particularly over-reaching. Basic property rights should dictate that "nuisance" be clearly defined in a very limited way.

And she has an entire acre, at least 4x larger than the typical lot size. At what size does her property become a "farm"?

I live in Arizona and have a lawn. It's expensive to upkeep and requires a ton of water. Many homes in my neighborhood have "natural" landscaping, basically rocks and cactus. I would too if I didn't have kids and a big dog. Natural is much more environmentally sound, and should be encouraged, not fined.

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HOAs are the height of absurdity pertaining to land ownership, I will never understand why someone would volunteer to pay a monthly fee (basically a tax) to have a group of bozos tell you what you can and can't do with your own property.

If the rules imposed by even a mild HOA were put in place by a local government there would be protests 24/7.

You don't have to spend too much time wondering, since its prima facia self-evident.

HOA's exist because they work out financially better than the alternatives. HOA's may not be for you, but for those that like higher property values, they are an acceptable trade-off.

Do they really? That's the line I kept hearing when I was searching for my home but it seemed they were overly inflated, and buyers were drifting away from the silly harassment and pain of HOAs.

Id say the evidence is clear: if you want to truly own your home, don't buy in an HOA. If you want others to make decisions for you, dictate how your home will look, and monitor you like a police force, then choose an HOA.

"if you want to truly own your home"

Property tax?

I'm not here to extoll the joys of paying and dealing with an HOA, they can be a hassle - I know it.

However, consider the alternatives: Move out to unincorporated land, build your 5 acre dream home, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Watch as a dump and trailer park open next door...consider what your options are.

Property tax is nothing more than the government exerting control over your home. You'll never truly own your home with a property tax, point taken. You appeared to argue in favor of HOAs with tired lines of financial stability, with no evidence. Anyone or anything that has the power to take away your property and home is, IMHO, a mortal threat that should be removed.

>However, consider the alternatives: Move out to unincorporated land, build your 5 acre dream home, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Watch as a dump and trailer park open next door...consider what your options are.

Plenty of incorporated land in the US without HOAs. While some parts of the country can't seem to exist without them, much of the country (including where you have really nice homes) do not have them. No trailer parks next door - they can't afford the land.

Hell up here in the PNW house prices will be high regardless of what's next door. In Portland there could be a junkie house and your house still be valued over 600k+

These are the problems deed restrictions take care of, not HOAs.

>ou don't have to spend too much time wondering, since its prima facia self-evident.

You should know: When you say something is self-evident, you will be called out on it.

>HOA's exist because they work out financially better than the alternatives.

Definitely not self-evident. I've talked to real estate agents who do not agree that it affects house values. My neighborhood has no HOA. Lots of non-ideal lawns her. One block south of us they do have an HOA. Very neat lawns, and houses all properly painted. Those houses do not sell for more.

Perhaps it does impact the price of the house, but I'd wager it is a miniscule effect compared to all other factors (size, neighborhood amenities, schools, etc).

I find that most people who make the claim about property values use it as a post-hoc justification to wanting to enforce a certain aesthetic on others.

Out of all the private gated communities in US with houses >$1M - what percentage of those have HOA's?

Point being, the impact on a $200K house may be negligible if its HOA or not - however once you move into >$1M home values they would be almost exclusively HOA. This is the self-evident part of the argument.

>Point being, the impact on a $200K house may be negligible if its HOA or not - however once you move into >$1M home values they would be almost exclusively HOA. This is the self-evident part of the argument.

What percentage of HOA's are for >$1M houses? A small minority.

In my town, all the >$1M houses on sale right now have no HOA, BTW.

It wouldn't surprise me if nationally, HOAs are more correlated at the middle price range. Around 1 M most people don't like being told what to do. At the next level, sure, they probably exist just to pay for fancy country clubs or something.

HOA's exist because they work out financially better than the alternatives

Of course financially they work out better than the alternatives, a bunch of volunteer obsessives straight out of Wikipedia is cheaper than an array of trained bureaucrats following due process.

Some people won't go near Wikipedia and HOAs. It's a quality of life issue as well. It starts with the architectural regulations, which are always 10 years behind the current fashion, and continues with the position of your basketball hoop. You hear the HOA apologists talk as if towns didn't manage to get on top of nuisance properties.

HOA. All the oppression of government, and none of the due process.

It depends on your HOA.

Ours only exists to pool funds to split snowplowing in the winter and eventually resurface our private drive. Everything is run as a direct/pure democracy in the annual meeting, which is easy when there are 15 of us and nothing to talk about except snowplowing, resurfacing, whether we want to change the dues, who has new kids/grandkids/pets/jobs/lawn tractors, and who brought the best cookies this year.

There are no HOA rules above those already in place by the township, state, and federal governments. I can safely say that this status is unlikely to result in 24/7 protests.

HOA fees pay for community upkeep as well, like a community park or pool or splashpad.

While sometimes HOA rules can get a bit ridiculous, are you really saying you can't understand why someone would want to pay a tax in order to allow a governing body to enforce a common set of rules (and provide for public spaces)?

Some HOAs are bad, but to color them all as useless is surprisingly ignorant. They exist for a reason and it's why they are so ubiquitous. If your neighbor painted their house in bright yellow or keeps a busted down car in the lawn, which will affect your own property value, then you might see why HOAs exist.

> I will never understand why someone would volunteer to pay a monthly fee (basically a tax) to have a group of bozos tell you what you can and can't do with your own property.

Really? Are you being honest?? You really don't understand???

It's so you can tell your neighbors what they can and can't do with their own property. You give up your own freedom too, of course, but no one joins an HOA because they're worried how their own lawn might now.

>This type of regulation should be the province of HOAs, which have covenants that home owners agree to when buying their homes.

While we both agree with the problem this person is having, I'm the opposite of you with regards to your statement. HOAs can have a lot more power with a lot less oversight. If one is going to have these kinds of rules, they should be in the city/state rules or not at all.

The "agree to when buying their homes" is a faulty way of looking at it. You also agree to laws of the city/state you live in. No one is preventing you from leaving if you don't like it.

At what size does her property become a "farm"?

Even under the loosest definitions of the word "farm", she would need a few multiples of her current acreage to qualify. An acre means you can have a large garden.

> At what size does her property become a "farm"?

When it is zoned for agriculture.

At what size does her property become a "farm"?

Size doesn't have much to do with it, and neither does a barn in any way: It more matters on zoning and location.

Had a friend looking for a place with space for horses: Even a horse barn didn't mean she could keep them there. Same for my parents when they bought a hobby farm. One seemed perfect - 10+ acres, but the HOA where the house and barn sat didn't allow for the farm animals.

An acre is not a farm.

In parts of the world and acre certainly could be a very productive farm.

An example in North America - "With only 1½ acres cultivated in permanent beds, the farm grosses more than 100 000$ per acre with operating margins of about 60 per cent, enough to financially sustain his family." http://www.themarketgardener.com/

You missed the line right above that:

"an internationally recognized 10-acre micro-farm"

Even 10 acres is considered "micro". Also, that's 1.5 acres of cultivated permanent beds on 10 acres.

For a 1 acre farm, where are the homestead, barns, equipment(tractors, tillers, etc), animals, etc located? All of that takes up space, which can't be used for growing. You need more than a single acre to actually have an acre of growing area.

As a grain farmer, one of the farms I work is only 3 acres. The answer to your question is simple: You keep them at another farm.

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