Who Decided Purple Houses (or Any Other Color) Are Ugly...and Why?

It's not clear who it was that first decided the go-to color to use as an example of a supposed, unacceptable, exterior house color was PURPLE! But every time one talks to an HOA supporter who thinks it's a good idea to allow a small, handful of people to decide what are the only acceptable house colors are, and if anyone wants a different color for THEIR home, they're told they can't have it...that is, as long as they think this same small group of people would NEVER presume to tell them, "No, you can't have that pastel, white color!" or whatever color THEY think is OK, for THEIR home!

This idea, that having a house color that is unusual or more pronounced or bright is somehow going to negatively affect the value of any surrounding home is a MYTH, and it's a myth that is almost uniquely found in the United States! In virtually any other developed nation around the world, brightly colored homes are considered pretty and endearing. In fact, pick up any travel brochure to pretty much any other part of world, and the first thing characteristic that stands out are homes painted with many different colors.

Regardless of whether weather we're talking about Mexico, Sweden, Japan or any one of scores of other parts of the world where many Americans spend 10s of $1,000s to travel to, rent out a bed and breakfast home to relax and take in all the colorful beauty of the their guest homes, why is it while back here in the USA they, suddenly, seem to think the very same home colors would be just awful in their neighborhood? How is it so many have come to think in such a contradictory way?

Actually, the answer is not a strange one--this belief (and let's be clear, it is nothing more than a BELIEF) has been promoted by some very influential for-profit corporations who specialize in HOA management. It's one of their many FALSE and UNPROVEN arguments which they use to convince home owners they MUST allow a small number of people on their HOA Board to, not only DICTATE what few colors, almost ALL of them BORING, DRAB and COOKIE-CUTTER, a home exterior may have, but to surrender their home owner sovereignty to complete strangers who don't pay a single dime to pay for their homes, their taxes, their insurance and their upkeep!

Meanwhile, these same HOA Management companies make $Millions, not only by the regular fees they collect from the HOA Board, but also for their cut of the many fines they issue for a myriad number of supposed "violations."

In other words, the idea that tolerating whatever it is your neighbor wants to do with HIS home, is somehow, a direct threat, or even an indirect one, to the value of your home is nothing other than a ruse to get you to give up YOUR RIGHTS to have control over YOUR home, and of course, most people don't even realize how invasive, disrespectful and just plain wrong it is to trample on others' rights...until it happens TO THEM! And when it does, it's really going to be very difficult to get YOUR home sovereignty back, even though you THOUGHT all the 1000s of rules you allowed an HOA to use in order to line their pockets was ONLY going to effect OTHERS!

So, don't worry. If you're having any doubts about either dissolving or reforming your HOA in order to reclaim home sovereignty, just because your neighbor might then paint his house PURPLE, while it's very unlikely, even if he did, SO WHAT? Tolerating your neighbor's home decoration choices is a very small price to pay because, in return, you get to presume your neighbor will tolerate whatever choices YOU make about YOUR home!