The problem is HOAs are spreading across the country like a fungus, and it's becoming increasingly hard to find an area that isn't an HOA area.

Mandatory HOAs should be outlawed, plain and simple. Optional participation in return for access to common areas (e.g. a gym/pool membership) is fine, but hell no they're not telling me how to decorate something I own. Tell them to look up what "own" means in the Oxford English Dictionary if they have a problem with it.

So you wouldn't have any problem with your neighbor decorating their house to look like some kind of brothel? Or your other neighbor using his front yard as an auto parts storage area? Or another letting their grass grow so high that it starts attracting wild animals and snakes that keep spilling over into your backyard?

Something even as small as a bunch of junk in a yard that fills with rain water can bring a plague of mosquitos upon an entire neighborhood in certain areas.

The biggest problem is that these hypothetical situations are incredibly rare unless you're buying into an already bad/trashy neighborhood. Some of the nicest neighborhoods in the area I searched when house hunting (North Austin) had no HOA but were more expensive nicer homes.

It's always amusing to me that people that live under HOA's don't realize that city governments exist.

There are many things that city governments do not have regulations against.

Some people wish to live in a place with a bit higher standards than their municipality sets. Because municipalities have to set rules and standards that make sense in both the lower and middle class neighborhoods as well as the rich ones.

Yeah and other people don't like fines for painting their window trim the wrong color.

> So you wouldn't have any problem with your neighbor decorating their house to look like some kind of brothel?

No, I don't care. If there is evidence that it is a brothel that is illegal where I live and I'd report it, but decorated like one? It's not my house, and not my right to decide.

But have you considered that most people aren't going to make their house look like a Brothel? More realistically I might want to make my house look like an awesome fairy tale house, would love to see the other creative houses around me, and most HOAs would not "allow" that.

I currently rent but there's a non-HOA neighborhood near me and it's a pleasure to walk those streets. One house looks like a traditional Japanese house, another has some Black Lives Matter signs on it, another has a mini forest in their front yard and it looks like something that came out of Harry Potter. I love it.

There's also an HOA neighborhood near me. Boring as fuck.

> Or your other neighbor using his front yard as an auto parts storage area?

No. I don't care. I'll just build wood furniture in my front yard and maybe we'd have some nice conversations and maybe I'd pay them to fix my car. Auto repair next door sounds kinda nice actually.

> Or another letting their grass grow so high that it starts attracting wild animals and snakes that keep spilling over into your backyard?

I don't care about their grass. Most wild animals aren't actually nuisances. Snakes would probably just stay in the tall grass and are unlikely to migrate to open areas, that's just how they behave. If there are nuisance pests then it's their responsibility to find a way to not impact my property, but it's not upto me how they exercise that responsibility. If they want their tall grass and a fence, fine, if they want to cut the grass short, fine, if they want to spray their property with some anti-pest stuff, fine, that's upto them.

> Something even as small as a bunch of junk in a yard that fills with rain water can bring a plague of mosquitos upon an entire neighborhood in certain areas.

Yes, if the mosquitoes are flying into other peoples' properties, that's not okay. But if they want to build a pond in their front yard AND take responsibility to make sure there aren't mosquitoes by spraying it appropriately or installing a fountain to keep the water moving or build a greenhouse over it or however other way they choose to avoid impacting others, that's their right to decorate their place however they want. An HOA would probably be stubborn and say "no ponds". I say let them have whatever they want as long as they aren't releasing mosquitoes into my property.*

>There's also an HOA neighborhood near me. Boring as fuck.

HOA neighborhoods is an extension of the phenomenon of paving everything. HOA neighborhoods look like someone paved over everyone's soul.

I think a big problem is that one single thing is paramount in housing: selling the house later for a profit. People get this idea that because their property value fluctuates that you owe them something. Everyone must sanitize every aspect of their lives lest some random stranger get a whiff of it. I can't wait til all this horse shit resolves itself and all these people who treat housing like the stock market are underwater and signing divorce papers.

>But if they want to build a pond in their front yard AND take responsibility to make sure there aren't mosquitoes by spraying it appropriately

Well, then you are going to need an HOA to enforce that unless you live in a municipality that already does.

No, the HOA would just say no ponds allowed, and oh by the way, you have to chop down that tree [that has every right to live as a living being]. Oh and yeah you can't paint your house blue.

Fuck that. The municipality on the other hand will only care about the mosquitoes and such public health issues and unless it's a historic neighborhood they couldn't care less about what color your house is. That's the way it should be.

And if the municipality doesn't care, go to a city council meeting with the 20 other people who are affected and make them care.

>> I don't find the HOA oppressive our violating my rights at all.

But this is addressed in the article: HOAs may not feel oppressive... until they do. And if that happens, then you'll essentially be powerless because in most jurisdictions, the law heavily favors HOAs.

I would've loved to have not bought a home in an HOA area, unfortunately there seems to be now development built these days that isn't under the control of an HOA that is in turned controlled by the developer that is actually an umbrella HOA that controls everything and isn't part of my neighborhood at all.

Exactly - I have 0 issues with mine either. I'd love to build a big garage in the yard, but I realize I can't for the better of the neighborhood aesthetics, and I'm fine with it.

Are you allowed to paint your house what you want or are you restricted to something like ten shades of beige?

From what I’ve seen, Non-hoa areas tend to have more variety in landscaping and color and are more pleasant to look at while hoa areas are drab and have a monoculture office park landscaping that some how makes plants feel lifeless and can’t be environmentally friendly.

They do prevent trashed houses and a number of other ills, but they do it by forcing everyone to be equally mediocre. They are like the porridge of architecture and landscaping.

And a lot of them claim to be about maximizing home values which is definitely not true. They are about preventing a house from lowering the values of the neighborhood, but that usually means preventing nicely done houses raising the value of the neighborhood.

> I like our HOA. They do a good job maintaining all of the common property, including the pool, the shuttle system, and the copious grassy areas and parks that are part of our neighborhood.

This is the part I dont understand. Is an HOA really the best way to handle this? Isnt there some company that could be hired to handle these maintenance tasks?

That's....exactly what the HOA does though in this case - it vets said companies and pays them, through the HOA dues paid by Homeowners. Homeowners typically elect folk(s) to the Board who then make those decisions. That person usually lives in the neighborhood (at least in HOA's I'm familiar with) so they've got a vested interest in keeping things 'their best'

It's like a mini government, for the neighborhood. Then they contract out work that needs to be done to care for the things they cover (like the common property/green areas, pools, etc.), review/revise rules as times change, resolve HOA-rule-related disputes, etc.