Many advise against buying the first house you look at; we did. Our friend alerted us to new construction in a great location. I entered the address into the GPS (yes, it was that long ago) and off we went, except it didn’t take us to the place in question. This neighborhood was so new that the years-old GPS had no record of its existence. As the crafty engineer, I pulled over and reasoned through where this location should be and, after a few minutes, found the address. We toured the model; it’d end up being our new home.
However, we didn’t know it at the time. We liked the location, but the builder priced it out of our comfortable price range. Initially, we found Linda, a real estate agent with whom we had great rapport. She ended up driving us into neighborhoods, showing us many homes. That first neighborhood had only built homes for about half the lots so far, so we even toyed with the idea of building our new home.
As we sat in Linda’s office one evening, contemplating the perplexing array of options when building a new house, like drawer pulls. She pragmatically points to the house we had initially toured, and asks, “What about the model?” We responded with, “It’s out of our price range.” She suggested that we can always make an offer.
Our house, in the middle of our street
We took that advice to heart. After reviewing other homes in the neighborhood and their selling prices, we arrived at a figure. We lowballed them. Linda curiously asked how we came up with that figure. Ever the pragmatist, she asked what we needed for the house. We made a list and amended our offer. After a few rounds of negotiations, we got most of the upgrades we wanted and got the house for over 10% off the asking price.
The day we got the keys to the house, we entered what would be our new home. We were both giddy with excitement. I queued up the song, “Our House” from Madness. We hopped and danced like children in our kitchen as we took that step into melding our lives together. It’s a celebration that I remember vividly to this day.
That initial high gave way to the pragmatic elements of moving. We each started to pack our things and arrange for a host of services to change our mailing addresses. I discovered that while the builder ran Ethernet cable from a centralized location to a location in practically every room, they didn’t connect any of it. They just ran the cable and snipped it. I spent a week wiring the cables appropriately.
Becoming President
The builder ran the community during its early stages. They established guidelines that we all needed to abide by. However, once we reached a certain occupancy, they relinquished control of the association to the homeowners. While I know many have nightmare stories about their respective HOAs (homeowners’ associations), we have no complaints about ours. I became an early, if not the first, HOA president of our community. While this sounds prestigious, it was not. A good HOA is one where you’d barely notice.
While each homeowner had their patch of land, we also collectively managed the common area. This area includes fencing, the cul-de-sac, some wetlands, etc. Naturally, anything we needed to maintain, we also needed to budget for. Our modest community has three roads. The main one serves as the entrance to the community; the remaining two roads run off this main road. The main road is maintained by our city; any potholes or other damage (or regular maintenance) we needn’t worry about. The other two roads were our responsibility to maintain.
The only request we had? We wanted the main road to be plowed when it snows. Our community empties into a pretty busy road at a slight decline. For everyone’s safety, we suggested that the main road be plowed to minimize the likelihood of accidents. While the association didn’t outright say “no”, they did suggest that we evaluate on a case-by-case basis.
I relinquished my role as president after a year or two. Nonetheless, I continued to attend the HOA meetings, which were generally a non-event.
The roads less traveled
As a responsible HOA, we needed to budget for the maintenance of those two side roads. Some HOAs manage poorly and end up with large special assessments. However, as you might imagine, no one in our modestly-sized community possessed a deep understanding of urban planning. Some of the questions that crossed my mind:
- How frequently do these roads need to be maintained?
- How much does it cost to maintain these roads?
- What affects the price of maintenance?
- How do we look for a contractor to do this work?
- How do we know if we’re getting a fair deal?
Admittedly, I’m a test engineer, and my mind wanders to all the possibilities that may ultimately affect this figure and what may ultimately go wrong.
However, another thought crossed my mind: shouldn’t we maintain the side roads in the same way that our main road is maintained? This means that we would maintain them on the same schedule. We would use similar materials and possibly even use the same contractor. Sure, some details will be subtly different, but much of it will be similar.
What is ultimately easier?
If we ultimately want the side roads to be done in the same way as the main road, then we can inquire about how that’s all done. The local government manages and maintains the main road to our community. There must be someone in the local government able to answer these questions. Say that we have contacted the right person, and we’re getting everything scheduled. We’re getting everything done at the same time, with the same contractors. Do we (the HOA) pay them ourselves? Do we get the same level of service as the local government?
Perhaps the better approach is for the HOA to pay the city and continue to get these roads done on our behalf; the contractor won’t see a difference, and the job will be done consistently. What if a part of the road needs repair? What if the newly laid-out asphalt starts to crack? Does it make a difference if it occurs on our main street or one of our side streets?
Read my lips, one new tax
As I thought about this, do you know what solution is the easiest? Just tax us and take over the work. Road maintenance is not something that HOA officers aspire to manage. It would all ultimately be easier to eliminate the expense from our HOA reserves and simply pay that money to the city in the form of taxes.
I understand that the “smaller government” people are mentally screaming, “less taxes”. However, do you want the burden of evaluating every single minute detail of the construction? Is one material better than another? Perhaps one is less prone to damage upon freezing. Do you want to spend your time evaluating the likelihood of a prolonged freeze based on decades of tabulated historical weather data?
Or do you think that the city has adequately done its job on all other roads? If so, why not extend that contract to include your two other roads? Just think about the amount of grief you’d save yourself in the long run.