"I'm not leaving"
There has been a story circulating over the last couple of weeks about a 28-year-old woman who is being forced out of her home by her HOA. The home is in a senior living community, which requires occupied homes to meet its age restrictions. The HOA board and some motivated residents have been aiming to force the woman out of the home in accordance with those age-restriction rules.
To summarize the various different stories on this..
The Viral Story
HOA Votes Young Woman Out of 55+ Seniors Community For Being 'Too Young' After Inheriting a House
Story sources: Inside Edition via reddit
Bethany, a 28-year-old woman moved into her military veteran father's home in a 55+ community to care for him.
After he passed away in 2023, she inherited the home. Which she says he specifically wanted her to have. The problem was that the HOA rules require occupied homes to meet its age restrictions. So, the HOA told the woman that she could no longer live there because she was too young.
The HOA held a board vote and voted 5-to-0 to force her out.
But she refused to leave.
What began as an inheritance and residency dispute escalated into legal battles. Now the HOA revoked her access to community amenities and proposed a $155,000 special assessment to evict her that would require roughly 155 homeowners to help fund the HOA's legal efforts.
The controversy has divided residents, particularly because some say they support the woman remaining in the home and object to spending thousands of dollars to remove a neighbor who has caused them no problems.
Rules are rules but are they still relavent in this day and age?
"I have a right, and every right to stay in my home," Bethany, the 28-year-old woman, was quoted as telling Inside Edition.
But some residents are insistant that she be removed.
"It's time for her to leave…"
"It's time for her to leave…" one resident, a 74-year-old, was quoted as saying, while her own adult daughter added by wondering why the 28-year-old woman would want to live there.
Meanwhile, angry residents at the board meeting could be seen calling her out for her age and stating that they didn't move to the community to be around young people. This culminated in the 5-0 vote to force her out.
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Really, I imagine this whole meeting going down like the ending of a Survivor episode…
"Bethany, you have been voted out of the retirement community. It's time to bring us your torch."
A reenactment of how the HOA meeting must have gone...
Bethany, the tribe has spoken.
A photo of Bethany, 28, of Jacksonville, Florida, which she shared on her Instagram profile.
I see it all like this…
To a millennial who hasn't been able to purchase a home themselves, inheriting one that is affordable and easy to maintain on a tight budget is like winning the lottery. And I can see why she would be reluctant to just give that up. Really, she should just get a 55-year-old roommate and circumvent the HOA's rule entirely.
But this does highlight some other glaring issues with senior-only living communities when young people are no longer able to enter the property ladder.
I think this story highlights a more concerning trend in real estate ownership and the different stages that owning a home used to take throughout our lives. A trend that has been flipped on its head thanks to, well, everything else that has changed socially and culturally, and of course financially, between generations.
The Circle of Life
When our grandparents graduated high school, in their late teens or early 20s, they bought a 4- to 6-bedroom home. For themselves and for their growing family of 3 to 4 or more children. This, all supported on one salary of a high-school-educated working spouse.
When our parents graduated from university, in their still early or mid to late 20s, they bought a 2-bedroom house for their 1-2 children. With one spouse quitting their career to care for the kids full time. Then, with equity accumulated from that first starter home, they upgraded into a larger family home some time later.
Now, today, take a couple. Two college-educated millennials, on two well-above-average incomes, well into their 30s. No kids. Maybe a dog or a cat. They are only just now considering whether they might be able to afford that 1-to 2-bedroom starter home. That home that their parents bought in their 20s.
Except it's starting to get a bit late in life to start a family. If they want to have a family, a 1-or-2-bedroom home for the next 10 years isn't going to cut it. Maybe, they should just skip the starter home altogether. Stretch the budget into a 3-or-4-bedroom home off the bat. Accepting, with a grimace, that it's going to take another 10 years to pay off the mortgage due to the higher loan and snowballing interest. But that's just the reality of the situation.
Except, when they start looking at properties, they quickly meet the other reality of the situation. It's not just other couples or prospective families that they're competing with for real estate.
A Circle Defied
Now, historically, up until now, real estate has followed a cycle. A circle of life that follows our own: You buy the smaller first home in your early 20s. You upsize into a larger one when you have more equity and need the space for a growing family. You then might upsize or move again when your family grows beyond that or move as your career(s) progress.
Then, the kids move out. Then you retire. Now, you're living on a pension, tighter finances, and a finite supply of money that needs to last you the rest of your life. So you start to look at your large home and wonder if you really need all that space. The maintenance time and cost required present a significant, growing burden. And much of the house is sitting empty even when family comes to visit. So, you sell that big house to the next family, coming into that stage of life, who needs it. And you settle for a smaller place, 2 maybe 3 bedrooms is fine, just as little outside maintenance required as possible, please.
Except this cycle has been defied. Cashed-up Boomers and Gen-Xers don't need to worry about downsizing.
They have ridden the wave of a property market and economy that offered strong wages and investment opportunities. An environment that passively grew their income to a point that their wealth dwarfs that of any previous generations at their age. And eclipses the buying power and earning potential of any younger generations today.
So downsizing is out of the question. It's viewed as a moral and social embarrassment among their peers. Heck, they might even look at upsizing again or look to buy an investment property to grow their wealth even further. They're still just trying to accrue capital like their life depends on it, even though they have more than enough to live off of.
What do they need the extra money for? Who knows, but maybe they're probably planning to bury their cash and investment portfolio with them like a Pharaoh to take it into the afterlife.
So, the entire cycle of buying and selling property. That circle of life itself has been upended.
The Modern Real Estate Struggle for Young First-Home Buyers and Families
Retirees and seniors mingle amid families at open homes. Maybe they're looking to move closer to family, but they're still refusing to consider downsizing. So the price of family homes continues to climb as those same seniors outmuscle families for real estate.
Stressed-out first home buyers and looking-to-upsize but stretched-thin growing families look on in horror as they are out-offered again. Yet another prospective property slips out of their grasp.
Meanwhile, 55+ communities, 60+ units, and other senior living arrangements now languish on the market. Their intended buyers are instead collecting a portfolio of family homes. Affordable real estate within senior communities sits empty, young people would happily move in, but they are barred from even entering the contest there thanks to HOA rules.
See, I think that is the real problem on display here.
The Problem and a Solution
Why are there senior living communities where those under 55 are banned from ownership? Yet there are no family living communities where seniors are similarly banned from ownership?
Maybe we should have HOAs and real estate communities where those who are 55+ are barred from owning real estate. That might actually help to set the cycle, the circle of life, right again.
In fact, let's make this the case for all family-sized or starter homes, or any home within a school district that might be desirable to a growing family.
It is, after all, only fair.
As usual, see some of the responses from an online thread where this story was shared, below.
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