I am a board member of a large association and our finances have been able to survive these troubled times where we have been able to do all needed repairs and renovations to keep the property in good conditions and improving upon its looks from what the builder gave us.

I originally moved to my neighborhood due to the area and all the parks that come to find are all HOA owned. I did not know what a HOA was when I moved in. I got envolved to bring my operations background when I attended my first meetings and had some concerns. I find it fulfilling to help out in the community and try to make it a better place. Since than the HOA has increased services and property maintenances, decrease dues and staying financially stable. While we have had a few increases over the years it is still more than 15% less than what it was when I moved into my home in 2004. We post our monthly balance sheets on our website, meeting minutes and more. I know my fellow board members constantly meet with fellow residents and use the feedback to make decisions.

I have to agree with Justme and some other comments on here that there are a lot of well ran HOA's and when you have 3,000 there will also be some not so well run. There are also others that are struggling do to high foreclosures in the neighborhood at no fault of the board or management. I do caution anyone that wants to generalize as a few bad apples does not mean you should cut down the apple tree. Bad apples can be removed by the homeowners without sacrificing the tree.

Something needs to be done and a one sided conversation is not fair to all.

As prices start to increase on the strip and strong tradeshow rotation with ConExpo, CES and other big shows coming to Vegas now would be a good time for the downtown operators to re open their hotel rooms.

This gives the opportunity to capture the bargain hunting customers that will start to become more difficult to find on the strip.

Focus Group had pipe dreams and unfortunately their final land purchases were not wise business moves due to the costs per acre. I predicted this as I live near Kyle Canyon and was concern on the items they were requesting from density to other agreements with the city.

While it is dissapointing and will further hurt the housing market for a while it might allow better agreements to be made. Currently what I see is Kyle Canyon is significantly reducing its density. The question is the open space requirements and how much will be retained.

Hopefully further reduction in features to these master communities don't continue like the fight that is taking place at Mountains Edge.

This is very true and been proven for years that low taxes alone does not attract businesses. Educated work force, good public safety, and transportation are key parts too.

We need a state leader that recognizes this. While I agree that Charter Schools if ran correctly can make huge strides to making a better education system we at the same time can't take money away from the school systems with vouchers when the school systems have already been cut to the bone.

Properly fund education and than allow vouchers in certain cases to help diversify the education system and school choice.

Gov Elect Sandoval are you listening?

About $2 per truck pass on a home for once a week service with every other week bulk pickup pass. Considering the costs of the truck, fuel, labor, landfill expenses, State payroll taxes, insurance and more I consider us lucky for such a low rate. As I always like lowering my bills, I am unsure if this is where one should or could find additional savings and how the minimal savings would allow one to stimulate the economy or save for retirement.

For recycling the every other week is a pain and the open bins make a mess of the neighborhood on a windy day. I look forward to the one container solution.

Here is what building a community is all about. I give credit to the volunteers, HOA, and city partner funds in helping do this event every year. There is good about the small community leaders working hard for the greater good.

The problem is if the property has not been paid for so long and an HOA sends the account to collections who will be responsible for the collections? The lien is against the property and not the person.

A collections company is a business that has personnel costs, building costs and then to collect they have third party costs of filing the liens with the assessors office, removing a lien at the end, certified mailing costs to the USPS, and more. If we want to limit the value of these services then find a fair place to do it and do it.

To make an HOA that only charges $50 a month in assessments pay these costs the HOA would owe money after collecting $450 on a super priority lean. That does not include the numerous months of other assessments gone unpaid and can't collect under the super priority lean.

If the original opinion stood all of us living in HOA's would see higher assessments to cover a huge jump in bad debt as economically it would not make sense for an HOA to send any property to collections in fear of owing the costs of collections.

Everyone that says HOA's sell off the accounts to collection companies is untrue. What happens is HOA's by state law under NRS 116 can send an account to collections and the cost of collections is on the account holder, not the HOA. Collections works different with HOA's as they are specialized collection companies and not general medical, credit card or other collection companies as the laws are different. All these agencies are based on HOA collections only.

I suggest before making statements totally based on tho
HOA's budgets are based on only revenue from assessments. Then there is a line item for bad debt. If that bad debt line item grows to big it has to be covered by increasing assessments to balance the budget. HOA's must work on balanced budgets as well. Even holding rainy day funds are to a certain level illegal for an HOA to do.

I rarely comment but feel the need to.

The average HOA dues in this town are probably less then $50 a month. At 9 months that is only $450 to collect. I went through what the collection company charges and what the collection company actual costs to file leins and other items. The $450 does not even cover the costs of filing liens, mandatory certified mailings, and releasing lein costs or the additional costs of going through the process all the way to foreclosure. These costs are paid out by a collection company to places like the US mail, assessors office and other services beyond their own.

If an HOA could only collect after even just costs most HOA's would collect nothing on a house that probably went 24 months without paying any dues. If nothing could be collected then who is going to pay? I will tell you everyone that has been good and is continuing to pay their bills as the HOA would have to raise the assessments or cut services that are demanded to keep a property looking good.

With the majority of houses being baught by cash (investor purchases) not allowing collection costs be part of it is going to hurt the average folk and no one else.

Yes there should be caps on the charges a collection company can charge so it does not get stupid in fees but beyond that this is a service that needs to be done otherwise everyone would want services but not pay for them.