I only moved out of my last home because of the neighbors. The entire neighborhood, in fact. I had lived in this apartment for over 20 years, and watched as everything around me changed. It became gentrified, they made a lot of adjustments to the area, and eventually it became a high class suburb with an HOA. An HOA is a Homeowner’s Association, and as soon as it started, I wanted to find a new place to live. An HOA gives itself the authority to tell people what they can do on their own property, which smacks of communism to me. Thankfully I have a few friends in the local Jacksonville real estate industry, and they were eager to show me what they had available. Boy howdy was there a lot to choose from! I knew that the local real estate market in NE Florida was robust, but I had no idea how various good homes there were out there. In the last few years the terrible economy has led to various people choosing rental properties over purchasing a Jacksonville home, which really provided me with even more options. Since this was a “buyer’s market” and I was paying currency for my house, I had a lot of leverage. I was courted by several Jax real estate agents, who all wanted to make the sale. Trying to sell a house in Jacksonville must be complicated, because once I established I was paying currency I had people offering me 10 or even 15% discounts off the asking prices. I’ll never have to worry about an HOA again.
