Go hug your volunteer HOA board members

I posted an earlier story to recognize the positive side of HOAs and how homeowners are part of the solution as well. To add to this, here is additional insight form a volunteer HOA board member.

To be frank, most homeowners are just simply lazy when it comes to their HOA. Usually their only interaction with the HOA is when they complain about something or get a letter stating they need to address an issue. They pay their HOA dues and believe all should be perfect. What they don’t realize is most HOAs are headed by a group of volunteers working to keep the best interest of all spending decent amount of their time doing so. Moreover, this volunteer HOA board is typically making considerable efforts to minimize costs to all even if the HOA has a management company to assist in these efforts.

Most homeowners also don’t realize if everything was handed over to management company and the HOA board removed, the HOA dues would likely double. HOA boards and HOA management companies are made-up of people, and people (including homeowners) are not perfect so not everything always goes as planned.

All homeowners have a part in ensuring their subdivision is a great place, not just the volunteer HOA board. It’s not enough to just pay your assessment and they complain about something when it’s not to your liking. It’s easy to complain, anyone can do that. What takes a bit more effort is to identify a concern and then contemplate at least one possible solution. Complaining about something is just that, complaining. But identifying an issue with a thought on how to fix it, is expressing a genuine concern.

In summary, most homeowners have no idea the day-to-day efforts volunteer HOA board members deal with. And before you complain about something HOA related, you may want to stand in their shoes first.