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I know quite a few people who came back after a regretful Florida move. I also know people that wanted to come back but couldn't because they financially shot themselves in the foot by moving to Florida. And lastly, I know people planning to move to Florida that will want to move back sooner than later.
Florida's not as bad as they make it out, but I do miss the season's in NY and the fact that you can move into a neighborhood where every house doesn't look exactly the same and is governed by an hoa!---and talk about "dirty politics" and "fake news". It's out of control!
You'd be surprised how hard it is to find places in the Carolinas and points south that are NOT in an HOA. It's way different than here when it comes to the whole HOA/not HOA thing.
About 10 years ago I looked into the whole Maybe Retiring Down South Makes Sense thing and was really surprised that almost all the houses that met our other criteria turned out to be in HOAs. We would want suburbia but on more property (like 1 acre) and with a larger house for the money and of course lower taxes, LOL. Also fairly recent construction (not older than say 1980, and this was in the early 2000s.) Public water is an absolute written in stone MUST for us. And as soon as we said that, whammo! every single realtor said "Well, to get those things you will pretty much have to buy in an HOA." And because ever living in an HOA falls into the It'll Be a Cold Day In H**l category, that effectively eliminated most of the housing stock in any town/area we'd have wanted to live in.
One of the many reasons we decided we would never be happy anywhere south of New Jersey. (if even that, lol)
My parents have lived in an HOA home in Nevada for 17 years since retirement in Huntington, and my in-laws have been in an HOA gated 55+ community in Medford for the past five.
Neither of them have had any complaints about their HOAs, at all ...ever.
Why?
...because the follow the rules!
The only people who complain about HOA "Iis people breaking the rules and doing things that they want to do.
It's "all about me and what I want to do!"
"I want what I want and dont care about my neighbors!"
"Me me me me me ME!"
Those are the people who pissnmoan about HOAs.
My father loves it. He says every time one of the neighborhood crazies tries to do something inconsiderate they get slapped down by the HOA! No bs to deal with!
He once parked his car overnight on the street and got a warning letter. Did he rant and rave? No, he pulled his car onto his driveway and fixed the issue.
How many posts on this forum are about "my neighbor does this and that, whats the town code and what should I do?". Well, the HOA solves that problem for you!
Funny that people who hate HOAs generally end up living in towns/villages where the government ends up acting as the HOA. Unless they can't afford that and then we end up with threads "my neighbor is doing this that and the other thing and won't stop what should I do". If you live in a town willing and able to enforce rules, you don't end up with those problems because people who don't want to be good neighbors aren't attracted to those towns and villages. Location government enforcement vs. HOA? It's the same thing, different name. With an HOA, you actually can better control the type of environment you want to live in within a town. Drive through my neighborhood and you'll immediately see that it's pretty live and let live, unless you really push it. Drive through my parents', you'll see every rule that there exists and that it's strictly enforced.
If you had a realtor who told you that you have to buy in an HOA to get what you want, and left it at that, you had a really lazy realtor. I just found exactly what you were looking for in 5 minutes.
The only people who complain about HOA "Iis people breaking the rules and doing things that they want to do.
It's "all about me and what I want to do!"
"I want what I want and dont care about my neighbors!"
"Me me me me me ME!"
Those are the people who pissnmoan about HOAs.
Of course the question re: HOA living is whether one thinks The Rules are reasonable or not. One person's "reasonable" rule is another's "intrusive overreach."
For example: I don't want some clique-y board of HOA directors telling me that I can only plant flowers or a shrub on certain specific parts of the piece of land that I own, and nowhere else on my property. That, IMHO, is unreasonable. For Pete's sake, I would be wanting to plant something like a 3-foot-tall azalea, not a freakin' 30 ft tall redwood tree with the attitude of "who cares if it ends up crashing onto my neighbor's house, I want a redwood and I can do whatever the bleep I want on my own property, so there." Yet to an HOA there's no difference between the azalea and the redwood. IMHO that's ridiculous.
I don't want to be told that if someone comes to visit me they cannot park their car in my driveway, or that I'm not allowed to wash my own car in my own driveway in front of my own house. (the above example from the HOA rules of two friends, one in CA and the other in NC)
Look, I get the conformity/Big Brother aspect of HOAs and if that's the kind of environment that appeals to some people, that's fine. They are willing to give up an extra measure of individual freedom in exchange for what they see as "safety" (from whatever they regard as unacceptable or threatening.)
But just because someone else thinks that the loss of those rights/freedoms is not worth that 'gain', does NOT mean that they are self-centered b*****s just one step removed from an invading Mongol horde either. Or that they are championing the freedom to be as obnoxious and annoying as possible. It just means that they think the HOA-life tradeoff of certain freedoms for "protection" (from whatever, all the time) is not worth it.
To say that everyone who does not want to live in the "Stepford" environment of an HOA is a some kind of selfish, uncivilized lout is painting with way too broad a brush.
Every time I go back to Long Island it roughly looks the same.
I peek around, see the same stuff as I see at most other suburbs in the country- and can't help but constantly wonder how the housing market hasn't crashed or how people can afford through the roof pricing and taxes for below-average properties.
The roads are just as congested.
The LIRR looks like it did 15 years ago, just with much higher price tags.
NYC seems more attractive all the time, LI does not.
Most people have very nice cars in the driveways at least.
I can't help but recognize my friends who live there have a solid reliance on family for financial or emotional support.
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