I think it’s important when evaluating an HOA to look at the bylaws and ask yourself “If I was a squirrelly little fuckwit, how could I use a board position to fuck over the residents”…
And then also go ask an attorney who deals with HOA cases.
Because plenty can start out fine,managed by sane people, and end up with stupid little tinpot dictators who drive dues & fees up and make the neighborhood miserable.
Given the historically awful things done in the name of “maintaining property values” (namely, excluding certain ethnicities from the neighborhood) and the persnickety, harassing rules that HOA enforcement commonly devolves into, that justification has a bad odor.
I can see how, in developments with houses jammed up tightly against each other, seemingly minor irritations and departures from community “norms” can be grating to those with little tolerance for individual expression. Space from your neighbors is of great value.
As an avid gardener, I can imagine an HOA trying to rule on what I could plant and where I could grow it, as has happened elsewhere when people have tried to grow vegetables or wildflowers in their front yard. Thanks, but a little anarchy is far preferable to being ruled by wannabe suburban autocrats.
I know that was a typo… but it’s also a great double entendre 
On the other side of the coin is people with a garbage filled yard and overgrown ivy that is full of vermin. There’s a balance.
Persnickety HOA members who uptightly enforce silly rules are the exception. Of the many dozens of people I have known in HOA governed places there was only one situation like that. He was renting and had a boat in the driveway or something. They sent him notices that he ignored because he was moving out in less than a month anyway.
If you want to have a vegetable bed, don’t move into the very very rare neighborhood that doesn’t allow them.
Our HOA costs $125 a year. The fees pretty much all go to keeping the power on for the light in the cul-de-sac circle, insurance for same, and a once-a-year block party. The board president and her husband take care of the landscaping in the circle, which as far as I know they finance themselves (it’s just some ground cover that they probably bought at Lowe’s).
I don’t even know if there are by-laws. It’s about the most hands-off HOA I’ve ever heard of.
Cite?
As I mentioned above there are ~375,000 HOAs in the US. Doubtless a few have few have gone off the rails.
Most work fine. Some few have gone mad..I think we need more before calling all HOAs “bad.”
Interestingly, living in an HOA-controlled development may not be beneficial for property values.
A second study referenced in the article suggests that while homes in HOA communities may have higher sale prices on average than nearby non-HOA neighborhoods, that correlates with a higher degree of racial segregation.
Doubtless. 
I guess to me it is like paying taxes. The HOA takes care of trash (and leaf) pickup, clearing the snow, maintaining the playgrounds, re-sealing the parking lot and painting the parking spot lines, cutting the grass in the common areas and also some stuff about making sure your house looks presentable. I pay the fee, like I pay taxes, to get services that I need/like with a little bit of things I don’t.
In general, it doesn’t bother me, and I am not bothered by it.
//i\\
Isn’t “persnickety, nitpicking, rules” in the eye of the beholder.
I live in a non HOA house in an area where HOAs are not common. We lived in three houses before in HOA developments.
Almost every house our street (about 30) would have run afoul of all three HOSs. Turning lawns into clover, or native grasses 8 inches tall. Planting fruit trees in the front yard within sight of the road. “Architectural” mailboxes. Adding on garages or rooms above the garage. Fences of every materia, style and color. People keeping chickens in their backyard. People selling tomatoes, eggs and bread from cabinets in their front yards! Heck all three HOAs would fine us if the azaleas around the house got higher than the windowsills. And only one of these I would consider a “bad HOA”. The other two were just normal HOAs doing what HOAs are supposed to do.
I’m a fan of front yard produce. Not a fan of dead cars up on blocks for years.
I don’t know the ethnic stats in my HOA neighborhood, but at least 3/4 of the kids getting off the schoolbuses are not white Euro-Americans.
I don’t think when people point out that one of the original purposes of CID covenants was to keep blacks out, they are saying that is still one of the purposes. They are saying that it is one of the ways in which you can proscribe behavior that the law does not proscribe.
Heck, in one of the “good” HOAs, they could fine you for dead/brown grass in your front yard. But there was a drought, no one was allowed to water the lawn by the city. You’d get fined, warned and could have your water shut off. Because it was a good HOA, the board decided not to enforce that provision, rather than say “Dig a well, peasant” to any complainers.
This was in an area where almost all the “nice” homes were in HOA. Between the HOA subdivisions there were two kinds of houses. Run down properties with junk cars, trailers, etc. and huge gated estates. Like 5-10 acre lots with 7500 sq ft houses and outbuildings, usually on the waterfront.
Over the years, we’d lived in 3 HOA neighborhoods. Two were pretty benign, tho we were lucky enough to move out of the second place shortly before the fees became stupidly high. The place we owned before moving here was full of petty, power mad, < insert multiple expletives > busybodies. There were rules you might expect to find in a high-end gated community, not in a working-class neighborhood. I was so glad when we moved.
One of the main requirements when we were shopping for this last place was NO HOA! Most folks here take care of their property and generally lead chill lives. As it should be.
I live in a single family housing development, a bit over 70 years old now, with an HOA. The dues are reasonable, and have not even gone up as much as inflation, let alone as much as our housing prices appreciated. It runs two parks and two pools and organizes parties mostly for kids. There are tennis courts and a playground.
The only annoying thing is that you need approval for renovations people can see, though we repainted our garage without approval (the same color) and no one complained. The contractors around here know how to deal with them.
They used to use keeping property values up as an excuse, but with the state of the housing market and that every house that goes on the market still sells almost immediately, they’ve stopped.
When the drought was on and we were under water restrictions they were wise enough to not complain about lawns turning brown.
I’m in one; I live in a twenty year old development of single family homes. I would say they’ve calmed down considerably (their peak weirdness was demanding that people store their trash carts in their garages), and aren’t too bad now. People might balk at having to submit work requests for approval, but I’ve only known one thing that got turned down (a neighbor who thought he could build his own deck in his backyard…the town actually went after him on that one too). They do a nice job of maintaining the common areas, even paying a crew to put Christmas lights on the trees at the entrance. The board has been the same for years due to lack of neighborhood interest, but they seem to know what they’re doing. Dues are reasonable IMO.
I’m the vice-president of our 58 house, plus 55 subdivision HOA. For $227 a month residents get their lawns mowed and treated, their trash picked up and their driveways and sidewalks cleared of snow. Along with maintenance of common areas.
It would be interesting to find out what would happen if the residents like me who don’t care one way or another about uniformity challenged the more restrictive covenants because there is probably a hard core nucleus of those who want every property to look exactly the same.
There was a kerfluffle three years ago about some unprofessional accounting practices but the board has since turned over and my fellow officers are great people committed to keeping costs down for everyone.
We seem to be lucky, because overall, our HOA is pretty reasonable. We have rules that everyone is obliged to follow, and they are enforced.
By comparison, the two developments next door do not. There are so many vehicles on the streets it’s practically impossible to drive through either of them. Residents display all manner of crap in their yards, allow dogs to run loose, and don’t keep up the exterior of their homes.
The result is we still have an attractive, well-kept neighborhood where in the rare occasion a house goes up for sale, it’s snapped-up immediately.
I have a vacation home in a lake community with an HOA. People complain all the time about the HOA screwing things up, but overall it’s just people like me trying to manage maintaining the roads, lake, lakefront, buildings, security, etc.
Nobody is checking grass with a ruler or issuing fines over paint colors. Hell, we got guys with cars on blocks, and clogged culverts who should probably get fined, but aren’t.
Do You Belong To An HOA?
No. We live in the middle of a 15 acre woods. I am so accustomed to doing whatever I want that I couldn’t imagine living in one.
A lot of the hate comes from people who want to violate restrictions in the covenants. Often, what draws people to move into the neighborhood is the fact that the covenants keep it looking attractive. Then they move in and want to violate those same covenants. I can understand someone wanting complete freedom over their property, but if that’s the case, don’t move into a neighborhood which restricts what you can do on your property. For instance, if the covenants have restrictions about parking on the street, don’t park on the street. If you want to park on the street, move to a neighborhood which doesn’t restrict that.
There are HOAs that are problematic, but that’s often due to the fact that the board is run by a bunch of “letter of the law” busybodies who have too much time on their hands. If you’re in such a neighborhood and don’t like it, run for a position on the HOA board. If enough neighbors want a change, you’ll get on the board and can change things. But if the neighbors like the draconian way the covenants are enforced, then that’s just the way it goes. Either follow the rules or move somewhere else. It sometimes sucks to live in a democratic environment when the majority want things to be different than you prefer.
Not only do I live in an HOA, I’m one of the five board members. I live in a townhouse complex with multiple dwelling units per building, so as others have said an HOA is necessary to take care of the common property — which is most of the structure.
Beyond handling maintenance issues, our HOA doesn’t do much. There is a covenant we have to abide by, but it’s pretty lenient and we rarely have to send out notices.
The big thing coming up is that we are replacing the outdated fire alarm system, and that will require a technician to enter every single unit.