Neighborhood Website - Good Idea or Bad?

Our homeowners association has a website that is available to all who live in the neighborhood--and they are provided with a password to initially access the system. Most of the focus is on neighborhood concerns and events but there is also a page for people who want to list items for sale or items they wish to borrow or give away. It also contains a list of kids available to babysit, walk dogs or services. Most people list a contact phone number. There is no cost to list anything, but items must be submitted to a webmaster (a volunteer position) before items are listed.

Check out www.eneighbors.com

My husband actually set up a site for our neighborhood several years ago, I can't remember now how he dealt with privacy issues. But then the homes association found the site above. It is password protected. You can post classifieds such as what you are talking about as well as meeting minutes, and a neighborhood directory. Of course it's the neighbors who whine the most about never knowing anything that refuse to log on.

Our neighborhood has a site that is maintained. Anyone can see the home page if they google, etc HOWEVER, you must register, have login, password and live in the neighborhood to have access to the full site.

We have a directory which lists everyone's address, phone, email, children, etc.

Message board which has notices of any lost/found/wanted items, references on contractors, etc, babysitter list, minutes/financials a blog and more.

We are on facebook as well and it is limited to homeowners. We get security notices, updates on community pool, etc.

We've had ours for years and it has worked well. You can pay your HOA dues online as well.

It has been an asset for our neighborhood.

My HOA has a closed group website through Yahoo where only the HOA Pres. or Secretary can add you. Neighbors are able to post about anything relating to our neighborhood (so no link to funny websites or pics of kids in the neighborhood etc...). It's how meetings are generally related to our neighborhood as well as updates on new happenings going on in our area that may affect us etc... It works fine as a communication port but I like better that it's a closed group instead of being an open website. You never know what neighbors could post and it may tick off another neighbor. I think rules would definitely need to be forced upon everyone to avoid unnecessary neighbor fights.

We had one and nobody ever used it so it went away.

It sounds like a great idea to me, as long as you can get the privacy settings right and it doesnt turn into an open board that would require a moderator. I'd love to have a community website for my tenants to use but since my tenants are on the less affluent side the majority does not have internet access. It's a great idea especially for mobile home parks or apartment communities where the general rule is "no yardsales" and people have a hard time getting rid of "stuff" when they need to.
Good luck with it!

We have a women's Yahoo group in our neighborhood. Actually, it is open to the whole master planned community and there are over 1,000 women on this group! It is awesome. People buy and sell things all of the time, share community happenings, school info, and recommend doctors, hair stylists, etc. It is such a great way to share information and I am going to miss it when we move next month. I'm sure it is a false sense of security, but since we live in a nice community, I tend to think that it's safer than Craig's List. Our moderator requires that the person provide their address when they sign up and she verifies that they live there (using public records). Since these women are our neighbors, I have never had an issue buying or selling anything and having to share my address. Anyway, it works really well here and I think you should give it a shot! I might even try to do this in my new neighborhood if they don't have one because it is just an amazing resource.

Our "Cluster" has a community website...

it is not for buying and selling but for updating the community on issues, meetings, etc. we are also able to post for help - looking for a cleaning lady, looking for a dog walker, etc.

Ours is a closed group. You can only view by getting allowed in by the administrator. You MUST be a cluster resident in order to get in as well.

My subdivision has a facebook page. A neighbor of mine set it up, it has been very resourceful for our community. We use it for keeping in contact with our neighbors,selling things,borrowing things, also let people know if their has been any break ins,or just to get to know everyone. We have quite alot of homeowners who are very active on the page.
We also have a commuinty web page but not very many people check it, they check our facebook more,lol.
Good luck,
J.

We have a Facebook page for our neighborhood. It's private and only residents can be added. We discuss things about the neighborhood, community get togethers, or selling stuff.

We are trying to gather email addresses in the neighborhood now so that news, classified ads and important info can be emailed to residents instead of mailing (costly).
Very few people want to give out their email. We told them the link to the neighborhood site would be password and address protected so only neighbors can use it b/c our web creative neighbor said he can guarantee security but it's still not working.
People are very leary of putting info on websites---for good reason. But even when there are a lot of precautions being taken, only 10% of our neighborhood wants to participate.