Steve at the Austin Real Estate Blog has an interesting post about the Independence Neighborhood we almost bought a house in. Apparently even Realtors are confused about whether it’s a house or a condo.

UPDATE: Ah, this comment pretty much cements it for me (although it appears to be about the north version of the neighborhood):

Take it me from me - Parking is a Nightmare on these streets!
…
There’s no parking on the side with hydrants- opposite the sidewalk side, but that does not stop them from parking up and down both sides. And when that happens, you are unable to get in or out of your driveway! (grumble! grumble! grumble!)

And when the towing company tows cars that are illegally parked: the owners sue the HOA. Once the residents found out Williamson County Judges are not partial to personal property being hauled away in the middle of the night, no one follows the parking policy. My wife was president of the board when the judge decided against them in 2x cases. Oy! $1000’s in legal bills…

And don’t get me started on those with big trucks who stick out in the road…

One house is complaining that the FIVE cars/trucks that the THREE people in the family own can not possibly abide by the parking policy [they do not park in their garages either]. Why are they being disciminated against for owning FIVE vehicles?

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Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-06-11T22:01:57.000Z

That article made my head hurt, especially that part about how the properties would be listed, but how they would come up on the search and then… I’ve always wondered the difference between condos and townhomes. Everyone assumes ours is a condo. We just dealt with our property taxes and according to the county we own $96,000 of dirt. Including the shared driveway. But I’m glad it’s not a condo. Our HOA fees right now are $100 per YEAR. It pays for the lawn guys to trim the 50 ft2 of grass in the culverts. I’m so glad that you didn’t end up in that house. I think that the parking alone was a deal-breaker. You know, because it was my decision to make. But it was so stupid to build a new development with almost negative parking space. They shoehorned all of our houses into a neighborhood that used to be fields and a few houses, so the streets were narrow—and I’ll bet we still have more parking. Well, until people put giant rocks to block people from parking on “their” grass.