Reno Diary #13: I Close on the House and Kiss the HOA Good-bye
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My first thought when I woke that morning was, “Today I close on the house.”
My second thought was, “Tonight I get to kiss the HOA good-bye.”
As I went through my morning routine, I realized I felt more excitement and gratification about bidding the HOA farewell than I did about the legal ownership of the house moving from the owners to me.
Sitting down for a morning cup of coffee, I wondered why I wasn’t more excited about the closing.
I thought back to when I first saw a sad, woefully neglected house.
Abandoned because the cost of decades of neglect finally caught up with the owners, whose reaction was to walk away and leave their mess for someone else to clean up.
That day I walked in the front door and saw what the house could be.
After that, the house was mine. The home closing was just a formality.
Today I would start saving my house.
Closing on the House
I have owned homes in three states—Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Oregon. In Pennsylvania and Maryland, my house closings were done in face-to-face meetings with the seller, presided over by a settlement/title representative.
I found these closings to be slightly weird and slightly adversarial. Sitting across the table, looking at the seller, I would want to ask them questions like, “Why did you install that ugly shag carpeting on the main floor?” or “Did the paneling you used in the basement fall off a truck?”
I always managed to behave myself, though.
When I moved to Portland, and bought my condo, I was surprised to learn that closing on a home was a very different experience than I was used to.
In Oregon, residential closings don’t happen at a meeting. They happen when all the paperwork is signed, the funds are in escrow, and the deed and financing documents have been recorded.
All I needed to do as the buyer was sign approximately 47 million documents.
For the condo closing, I went to the title company’s offices. For this closing, because I was simultaneously working full time, gearing up for the reno, and going through the process of cutting ties with the HOA, I decided to cut myself some slack and have the notary and the 47 million closing documents come to me.
I did wish, though, that I had been able to look the owners in the eye and ask them a few questions.
But it was probably better for me to do my part for the closing as a solo performer.
Meeting the Final Renovation Team Member
At noon I printed out a copy of my reno execution schedule and headed to the house (my house now). I had two objectives: to officially get the house keys from my real estate agent and meet his handyman, who was taking on the pivotal jack-of-all-trades role in my reno.
My real estate agent had a huge box of artisan frosted sugar cookies for me, a fabulous chef’s knife, and the house keys.
Doug the handyman had finished a window installation project the previous day and was ready to get started on my house.
I had already added Doug to my renovation execution schedule. Simply put, his role was to do everything that wasn’t covered by a specialty (like electrical, plumbing, and kitchen cabinet and flooring installation).
Doug and his brother had owned a residential construction business, building homes on spec in the Portland area. After a decade, they disbanded, and Doug leveraged his experience to go out on his own as a builder-jack-of-all-trades.
My real estate agent had already confirmed that Doug had the expertise and experience I wanted. Doug had already confirmed that his calendar was fairly open for the next 60 days so he could step into my reno schedule as needed.
Now that I had closed on the house, it was time to get to work.
Doug and I stood at the kitchen counter to review my reno execution schedule line-by-line.
I wanted to make sure he was comfortable with every project on my list.
I also wanted to make sure that my time estimates for his projects were reasonable.
Finally, I wanted to find out how he wanted to be paid—by the hour or by the project?
Doug was unfazed by the list and thought that the time estimates were reasonable. We went through the list and he provided me with quotes for each project.
I did some mental math gymnastics. His quotes and my estimates were in sync.
I took it as a good sign.
We shook hands and agreed to meet at the house the following morning to get started by demoing the kitchen.
I headed back to the condo to finish prepping for the HOA conference call.
I Say Good-bye to the HOA
The owners were miraculously on time for the conference call. After a few random complaints, I started my annual review presentation.
In previous years, I would have simply reported on the HOA’s end-of-fiscal-year finances, completed property maintenance, and scheduled maintenance for the upcoming year.
This year I decided to add a few more slides to my presentation in response to the question I frequently got from the other owners:
“What are we getting for our money?”
Since none of the owners had participated in managing the property or HOA finances, I decided to give them a crash course in what I had been doing with their money.
Even with a small HOA like ours, managing a property involves hundreds of annual tasks in accordance with a complex industry-standard property maintenance plan running in a 20-year cycle.
That part of the meeting took 30 minutes.
At the end of it, there was a brief silence, broken by an owner who said, “I had no idea that this much went into managing the HOA.”
“Yes,” I said, “and now I have an announcement.”
“Today I closed on a single-family home and will be selling my condo in the fall. Effective immediately, I am stepping down from my HOA Board position.”
This time the silence went on for 30 seconds.
I enjoyed every second.
I finally took pity on the group and said, “Our newest owner is taking over my position. I have started handing off HOA responsibilities to her.”
The other owners took a collective breath.
I continued. “Since the new HOA manager doesn’t work from home, effective immediately, your emails and calls will be responded to within three business days except in true emergencies.”
“The HOA manager is a volunteer position. If you want a property manager that’s immediately available 24/7, you can hire a property management company, but it will cost an additional $150 per month from each unit.”
More silence.
“Any other questions? No?”
I ended the call, got up from my desk, opened a bottle of champagne, and grabbed a cookie from the box given to me by my real estate agent.
Two glasses later, I reluctantly recorked the bottle and put it back in my refrigerator.
Lots to do tomorrow. Time to get on with my life.
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