My First HOA Meeting is Tonight

Last October the HOA presidnent asked me to take over his position. And tonight is our annual meeting and my first as the new president. I know there are three owners who allowed their houses to arbitraged in the last three years and all three renters failed with their arbitrage business plans. LOL. So I assume they lost money on these business ventures or their renter had break their leases early. So I am wondering if I should mention this during the meeting to warn other owners of the risk of allowing arbitrage with their properties? I don’t want to embarras anyone and their decisions, but I don’t want the onwers considering allowing arbitrage to get burned.

I don’t see how this has anything to do with your duties as HOA president. Assuming you are a host, could backfire if raising the topic inspires discussion on the part of other board members about whether STR should be allowed at all.

My town loves short term rentals and a lot of property owners are always curious to find out how others are doing with Airbnb and etc. But I want to open a discussion if allowing renters to arbitrage their properties is worth it or not. I have watched every arbitrage fail in all the neighborhoods I own properties because the rent is higher in our town compared to most cities and towns in my state.

What does “arbitrage” mean in this context?

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I believe it means you rent a property then sublet it to Airbnb guests.

(i.e. you do not own the property)

My 2 cents - this should not be an official HOA discussion or issue. Property owners should be able to do what they like, provided that the right to quiet enjoyment is maintained.

I’m not a fan of oversight, hoa rules/regulations, etc. What the owners do as private business ventures does not seem an appropriate topic for an official meeting.

A slippery slope indeed.

I agree. But I want the owners to share their experience with arbitrage renters with those who have been approached with the business plan and are considering it. I feel this will help us all to avoid or profit.

@Jim_Haines I appreciate where you are coming from. For your consideration, I would suggest this might be better as a totally separate “non-official” meeting/discussion, hosted at your place or a nearby restaurant/bar - for owners who are interested. Rather than making it a part of a HOA meeting.

Once anything happens at an “official mtg”, it can lead to a bunch of strangers/neighbors “getting concerned” and down a path to rules that control personal property.

I am holding the meeting at a local buffet. And for full disclosure, HOA’s in my town are only responsible for choosing the landscaping company because most owners live out of town.

Damn, I just bet there is some GOOD fried chicken and fried catfish, isn’t there? Fresh shrimp? Oysters?

Interesting, so your HOA is rather non conventional and has little actual authority? That is truly interesting. We do not have one but the ones in our area and other areas can hold a lot of sway. I am not interested in people telling us what we can do unless they pay our mortgage and tax bill.

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I feel like you are saying different things here - on one hand you say you just want to discuss arbitrage, because the HOA only chooses the landscaping company. But you also say you are considering whether to allow arbitrage - implying that you may make a rule against it. Which is it?

We will discuss the usual things like what we can do to maintain our property values and the budget used for landscaping and etc. But I want to bring up the arbitrage business model for us to compare notes so property oweners are aware of the pros and cons. In this town, if any HOA tries to regulate or tries to create any kind or rule or regulations, they would be shut down.