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Your Friendly Community Stalker- The HOA
13 Plays1 month ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re covering what Nevada HOA's can look like. How West Coast Home Owner Associations can sometimes get a little intense compared to maybe states or cities on the East Coast. We also share some of our favorite stories that we've gotten over the years related to HOA"s.
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Hi, everyone. Welcome back. This is Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. I am Ireland, and this is Jenny. That's correct. Jenny McKenna, owner, broker of McKenna Property Management.
00:00:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
Woo-woo! How are you doing today?
What are HOAs and Why Are They Common in Las Vegas?
00:00:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
I'm doing good. I had an interesting thing that happened yesterday. Okay. And I think we should talk about it because it's just kind of one of those things that if you're not there, you think it's like a joke. so You kind have to, you're looking around going, really? People take time to complain about this stuff. So let me just kind of let you know.
00:00:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
HOAs are a real thing, especially here in Las Vegas. What does HOA stand for? Well, i was going to you tell everybody. What is an HOA and why are they so prevalent here in Las Vegas? Well, HOA stands for a Homeowners Association.
The Role of HOAs in Neighborhood Aesthetics and Integrity
00:01:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it's basically a group of people who oversee and manage your neighborhood or your community that you live in. And they do vary by degree or by level of involvement. So we have some neighborhoods that are no HOA neighborhoods here in Vegas.
00:01:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
We have some that, you know, doesn't have a gate or doesn't have a community pool or doesn't have a community park. So it's pretty just standard, you know, keeping up.
00:01:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then you have the ones that are fully gated, have the community pool, have the community gym. And so if you do live in a place where you're receiving any kind of community benefits, you most likely have an HOA with what you're getting.
00:01:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. And from a lot of people that are coming from the East Coast, when they moved to Las Vegas, they find this homeowners association thing very strange because this is something that is more, ah let's call it modern. And because Vegas is more of a modern state in the United States, we took on that attitude of let's regulate. That's really what it
Challenges with HOA Regulations and Resident Tensions
00:02:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
comes down to. They want to regulate how the houses look, the color scheme.
00:02:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
they If it's a gated community, they want the the roads to be private. um So yeah, I really think HOA just equals regulation. Regulation can be good.
00:02:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
i I actually have most of my rentals in an HOA because as an investor, I want to make sure that my property always looks good and that my neighbor's properties look good.
00:02:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
If you drive through a couple older neighborhoods and we're talking older, like, I don't know, 1970, we say 1970 is being older and everybody's like, what? That's not older. But here in Nevada, here in Las Vegas, yes, it is.
00:02:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
If you drive through like a 1970s neighborhood with no HOA, you might find this house and this house had taken care of their lawn, They've painted their exterior there.
00:03:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
They kept their roof up, but then boom, right next door, there's a fuchsia pink house. And then you've got another one that decided that they wanted to park four cars in the front yard. And that's their front yard.
00:03:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
But if you live in an HOA, it will regulate what you can and cannot do with your front yard, what trees you can plant so that the roots don't um go into somebody else's yard and cause problems. i They won't let you paint a fuchsia pink house when the color scheme is more neutral.
00:03:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
They won't let somebody um have a roof that is deteriorating. They're going to make you as a homeowner fix all that so the integrity of the neighborhood is good. So that's the good part of HOAs.
00:03:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
But in property management, we tend to see the negative part of HOAs. And why is that? Well, there's just negatives in HOAs in general. You can sometimes have a community that's really harsh.
00:04:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
You can sometimes have rules and regulations that are really harsh. These communities and these HOAs are also being ran by a board and then sometimes also being ran by an HOA management company. So there's also a human level to it um You know, people get power trips. People love the controls. could get power trips. Let's just say they are always on a power trip is my experience when they are on an HOA board.
00:04:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
yeah For the most part, they are probably retired or part-time or they have the ability that they can, you know, put their time in an HOA board.
00:04:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
And boy, the minute you give them that that title, they decide that they need to keep all their neighbors in line. And if there is a rule, which a lot of HOAs, in fact, I think almost every HOA has a rule about trash cans.
00:05:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Which is what? That, well, so most of the time there's a time frame of you can put the trash cans out 12 hours before the trash day, but then they also have to be brought in 12 hours after the trash day. So you're just given a limited window of putting out when the trash is coming to get picked up.
00:05:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
So my neighborhood trash comes Friday morning. So we put our trash cans out Thursday, Thursday night whenever I get home from work. But if my trash cans are out on Saturday, what could happen?
00:05:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
You could get a violation. And what does that look like? It's a letter mailed to you. It's a nasty letter mailed to us. So under the property management world, we get this letter, this violation stating that our resident is leaving the trash cans out for an hour longer than they're supposed to, or for a day longer than whatever the violation is.
00:06:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then us as property managers, we have to be the bearer of bad news. And how do you like to get a call Ireland when your property manager calls you up and says, Hey, Ireland, um,
00:06:11
Irelynn Zurflueh
You lift your trash cans out for an extra couple hours on Saturday.
Personal Experiences and Humor in HOA Interactions
00:06:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
Ireland doesn't get HOA violations. Let me just clarify real quick. I've never had a property manager call me and tell me that I have an HOA violation.
00:06:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
I will say though, when I first moved into town, A mass letter went out saying, hey, reminder, keep your dogs on a leash and pick up after your dogs in the community.
00:06:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
But they don't tell you when it's mass reminders. So it feels like it's only coming to you. um i actually wrote them back and I told them that if they have photos of the poop that have been left out, I'll then take photos of my dog's poop and we'll compare the sizes because I was making a point that I always pick it up.
00:06:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then that's when they said it was a bulk. I think we're seeing a very good image of what a resident feels like when you get that call, whether it be mass, whether it be individual, whatever. You get very defensive.
00:07:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, I guess. Well, I guess I got one because they said that my outdoor furniture wasn't actually outdoor furniture. And they asked for proof, but I had bought it off of Facebook Marketplace. I didn't have proof. i had to throw my furniture away.
00:07:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
And yeah i if I recall, you weren't too happy about that. Well, I threw it away in the dumpster and I'm not supposed to put bulk stuff in the dumpster. So I'm just glad I didn't get a violation for that, I guess. So I think what we're kind of saying is there are a lot of opportunities for violations because there's a lot of CCNRs, the Covenants Codes and Restrictions.
00:07:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that R for restrictions is exactly what it is. They're not going to let you have non-outdoor furniture on a balcony or on a courtyard.
00:07:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
um They're going to deem that as as you know ugly as sight. Even if the if it's beautiful furniture, if it's not considered outdoor furniture, they're not going to allow it. They don't allow you to do big pieces of furniture in the community dumpster. You could get cited for that.
00:08:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
um So yeah, let's go back to the fact that we get this HOA violation as a property manager. We're protecting our owner's investment. We definitely don't want the owner to get fined because if your violation doesn't get corrected, they are going to fine you.
00:08:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, you get your first warning, your second warning, and then usually by the third, you either have to go to a hearing where they then determine the fine or they fine you right away.
00:08:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
But sometimes if you're a repeat offender, we have people who speed in the community or we have people who play music loud, people who also have multiple animal disturbances. The HOA will then contact us and say this is the third time with the same disturbance.
00:08:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
If it happens again, you won't receive any more warnings. It'll be an immediate fine. And Ireland, give us an idea of what those fines are. what the amount of money it is.
00:09:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
For the small ones, they're usually $100 every time it happens. So we had someone who got that warning and then they continued to speed four more different times.
00:09:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so it was $400. It was $100 per fine. So the smaller ones usually are $100 a piece. um And then we also have certain ones where specifically landscaping, this is a big one, or the exterior paint, they'll then tell you that you have a deadline.
00:09:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
And for every week that you fail to meet that deadline, you're then charged $100 every week. Per week. So that one can be you know six weeks to resolve, 600 bucks.
00:09:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
So those that's how most of them build up. They're usually smaller amounts, but but they are continuous and that's where they build and they build. And they automatically assess your homeowner bill. So you could, it could be, you know, if a homeowner is getting assessed, let's say for six weeks and they just really didn't pay attention to their homeowner portal and they look on it one day and they're like, Oh my gosh, $600.
00:10:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
They are freaking out. And so for us as property managers, we have to be very, very careful. that those violations are closed and that we've got something in writing from the HOA that says it is closed.
Extreme HOA Cases and Understanding Penalties
00:10:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because if you don't have it in writing, they can come back and say, nope, we never closed that violation. And it is like an act of Congress to get those fines removed, even if it's not at the fault of us, the resident or the owner. Yeah.
00:10:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
The biggest fine we saw that I can recall is the illegal camper that was in the driveway. Remember that one? Yeah. So we had a resident that had this little pop-up camper, super cute.
00:10:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
um She parked it on the side of her driveway, but that's not allowed in this particular community. So she continued to get notices and then told us, I believe, that she removed it.
00:11:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think if I remember clearly, her defense was that she would she had it stored in another location, but when she would go camping, she would put it in front of the house just to pack it up.
00:11:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
But what the HOA had was proof that it was sitting there for multiple days at a time. So if this story that she told is accurate, she may have had a separate storage, but she was fiddle-farting around with,
00:11:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
loading and unloading it for too many days. And when we followed up with it, she gave us the story that made us feel like the violation was closed. So we report violation closed. Well, then we got a massive bill.
00:11:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think it was like $16,000 or something. Yes. 16. It was, of course, um over a couple of years span. Yeah. But $16,000 in fine.
00:12:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it would break down. the exact day that they saw the camper there. And then for this specific find, she was getting charged $100 for every day the camper was there.
00:12:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
And usually it would be there for about three to five days at a time. and then And then you would see on the ledger that would there'd be a gap. And then all of a sudden it came up again for like another four days. And then and it it built to be about At least $16,000. It might have been even more. I can't remember.
00:12:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think it was, yeah, it was definitely close to $17,000. So it was $16,000 and change. And she had to pay it. And we allowed her to talk to the HOA and negotiate whatever she could negotiate. But when it actually came to pain, it was a very large fine. Yeah.
00:12:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
and And I just think that you got to be careful. Know what the rules and the restrictions are. Whenever you buy a property, whether it be an investment property or your own property, it's not that the rules are really hard to live by. i don't think any of them are hard to live by, but you got to know them.
00:13:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because if you decide that you're going to not live by them, it can cost you a lot of money.
Investor Tips for Navigating HOA Rules
00:13:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
Absolutely. Absolutely. And um most realtors are really, especially if they're working with investors, do already know this little piece of tidbit, but it's always good to check.
00:13:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
There are actually some communities that do not allow ah rentals, don't allow short-term or long-term. They have to be owned and be lived in by the owner. So if you are looking to invest and you are looking to grow your portfolio, make sure you're checking the CC&Rs.
00:13:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
And make sure that the HOA will allow you to have a rental because we've also ran into that issue where we've gotten grandfathered in, but there have been some people who have bought in that same community thinking they can rent it out and they can't.
00:13:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
I remember the day we came in and we were excited because we found a fantastic resident for this beautiful property and they were perfect. We were all excited. Oh, perfect. going perfect for this property.
00:14:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
We gave them the keys. Then we went to register the new resident at the HOA so that they would know the gate code and all that kind of stuff. And we were told, cannot rent the property properly.
00:14:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
We called the realtor that sold it to the client and said, ah we're in trouble here. We have a lease. We've given keys. This is going to be a massive, massive fine if you continue with this.
00:14:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
That was an absolute, that was a mess. We actually, just this week, we ran an application stated that their reason for leaving was because the HOA doesn't allow rentals in the community. yeah So they also, it sometimes it does happen sometimes where,
00:14:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
They'll find out that it's a rental and then they'll just come in with that little singular rule that's in the CC&Rs. And then it's like, oh what do what do we do from there? We can't have it be a rental anymore. And if I'm a buyer, I'll read the CC&Rs, but there's a lot. There's a lot in the CC&Rs and that can get overwhelming.
00:15:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
What I would do if I'm an investor and I want to rent this property, i would cull. the HOA and say, hi, I'm thinking about buying 123 Elm Street. It's in your community.
00:15:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
I want to make sure that I'm not going to have a problem renting this out. Take down the person's name that you talked to, the date you talked to, the time you talked to them. And I would keep that in my file yeah because if that is going to be something you want to do as an investment property, do not mess around with an HOA that says no rental or has rental restrictions. Yeah.
00:15:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
Always check that you can rent it out as an investment. Always check if there's a master and sub HOA because there are some communities that have two HOAs and we ran into the problem where an owner is paying one and thinks they're all good.
00:15:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
And in the background, their sub HOA is finding them $100 every month because they're $5,000 behind on their assessment fees. So always check if there's a sub HOA. And anyway have the opportunity to possibly foreclosing on that property because they have so much power. HOAs are actually more powerful than a mortgage an actual mortgage or a lender on that property. Yeah. So check. HOA can lien your house if they want to. Oh, yeah.
00:16:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's very possible. So always check the if you have two. And then the third thing, which is my last piece of advice, would be make sure that their mail is either coming directly to where you want it, whether it's your property manager or whether it's your personal address.
00:16:32
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because we have ran into all of a sudden there's like $1,000 worth of fines and we ask for proof that it was being told to us that this was in communication. And the address that the HOA still has registered that rental address So all of the mail wasn't going to the proper owner or the proper people at the management company.
00:16:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
So always make sure you're up to date with what they have as your contact information because that's another way it things build up without you knowing anything. I like to say rule of thumb every six months, call the HOA, make sure they got all your proper information because HOAs get managed by different
Humor in HOA Meetings and Creative Rule Circumvention
00:17:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
people. So it gets transferred.
00:17:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
And if that transfer of the address doesn't get done right, or, you know, if something got transferred over that you had already fought and cleared up, you want to make sure that, you know, all that is taken care of. So every six months, you just call the HOA.
00:17:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
on your investment properties and say, Hey, I just want to make sure I'm good on assessments. Are there any outstanding violations? Um, do you have my proper mailing address and just make sure you're protecting your investment property.
00:17:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
But all this was brought up today because I had the privilege of actually going to HOA meeting. um I was going to be, there was uh,
00:17:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
an executive ah meeting after the normal meeting. And I got to hear the normal meeting. Ireland, it is like a comedy. They open it up and they say, okay, we have our board.
00:18:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
We can now have ah our HOA meeting, all the owners that are present. We would like to hear from you what's going on. we We heard That the landscaper blew some leaves by the front door of one of the this homeowner, and she was mad. She would not stop talking.
00:18:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
There was another woman that said that in the hallway, ah it's just too hot. And they need to get the temperature of that hallway to at least 72 because she's paying more AC because the hallway is just too hot.
00:18:42
Irelynn Zurflueh
Then the best one was a woman that got stuck on the elevator. And the story she told was ridiculous. It was like a comedy of airs.
00:18:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
So she told all of us what happened and what is the HOA going to do about it? And the HOA, I think handled it pretty well. They're like, look, this is what we've spent in the last year, which happened to be about a hundred thousand dollars because they're updating all the elevators.
00:19:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
um So overall, the meeting was good. But the the the, let's say the things that people were frustrated with, I almost had to just laugh because I'm like, they're so small in the world problems. You know what I mean?
00:19:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
But that's what that's what it was yesterday. And I got to witness it firsthand. I have no idea if this story is true or not because I heard about it online. But Somebody asked like what the funniest story was and they said that this specific owner wanted to plant sunflowers in his front yard, but the HOA wasn't allowing it.
00:19:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
But when you actually looked into the CCNRs, it was like itemized by plant. It didn't just say can't plant in the front yard. It was like these are all the things you can't plant and sunflowers was included on the list.
00:19:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
But what wasn't included on the list was corn. corn stockings and so this owner as a form of petty revenge planted all this corn and it's in their front yard and when the HOA tried to cite him he was like no this isn't in your big fat laundry list of plants I can't plant and according to this story that I heard he got to plant his sunflowers if they, if he removed the corn, you remove the corn.
00:20:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
So who knows how true that is, but I did. That made me chuckle when I saw that. And so, and I feel like that also goes to show that everyone experiences problems with the HOA. If someone's going out of their way to plant corn yes to prove a point.
00:20:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, I mean, yeah, the, the energy level of that meeting last night was anger, frustration You know, nobody was there going, Oh, I'm coming to an HOA meeting and it's going to be fun.
Professional Management and Listener Engagement with HOAs
00:21:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
They were going there because they were pissed about something.
00:21:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
They want something changed. They want answers. Their email didn't get answered. It was like contention. And, um, You know ah it is what it is. HOAs are what it is. If you're buying property in Las Vegas, you're definitely going to probably have to contend with it.
00:21:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
My recommendation is hire a professional management company. They'll take care a lot of that for you. If you want to do management on your own for your investment properties, check your HOA just to make sure that they're not getting away with things that...
00:21:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
that that you're going to end up having to pay for. Yeah. If you guys have any really funny stories about HOAs, feel free to send them in. And if you have any more questions about your HOA, because this made you feel like you're a little, you don't know what's going on, then feel free to give us a call. We can always help you out.
00:21:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we'll see you guys next week. Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Ireland. Yeah.