HoAs are no different with their cancerous rentseeking behavior. Here in TX, they can place a lien on your house if you don't pay your dues.
I rent in a nice neighborhood, and the HOA really dislikes rentals. But they don't have enough support to get the bylaws changed to make it more difficult to rent. So instead they abuse the fine system by selectively enforcing mostly-ignored bylaws to create arbitrary violations for rented units and implicitly discourage owners from renting.
The owner of my house never passed through any of the fines to me[1], and was very apologetic. But the notices finally irritated me to the point of putting up outside cameras. I gave my landlord video evidence of the HOA people logging violations outside, and walking right past the exact same violations[2] at several neighbors houses without even stopping. The violation letters stopped shortly after, and my landlord cut my rent by a sizable chunk as a thank you for helping him get that thorn out of his side.
[1] Based on him giving me a break on the rent going forward, and my original rent being par for the neighborhood, I assume the market rate was already being padded significantly by everyone to account for the constant fines.
[2] These are violations like the bushes hiding the HVAC unit from street view not being full enough (in the dead of winter when the leaves were thinned out), an older mailbox looking like an older mailbox despite it being consistent with the rest of the houses on the street, the trashcan still being on the street at 4PM on trash day despite everyone else not being home yet to pull theirs up yet either, the yard not being cut that week despite it having been raining too heavily for anyone to have cut their yard recently, etc.
People don't always buy a home with an HOA because they want "facilities"; sometimes they buy a home with an HOA because they have little to no choice.
Furthermore your claim that there are no alternatives in some general areas is simply false. I defy you to identify a single residential area in the US where there are no non-HOA properties within 50 miles. Sure you might have to pay more or drive further but there are always alternatives.
https://bostonfairhousing.org/timeline/1920s1948-Restrictive...
The principle of BATNA can define the more privileged party in a contract:
https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/batna/translate-your-batna...
The principle remains.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/unenforceable-contra...
You're also simply raising objections to elements I've introduced which you claim prior knowledge of (a fact of which, if I do have privileged access, I'd be well advised to conceal, and more probably, I don't). Which begins to seem tendentious and argument for the sake of arguing.
You could have introduced BATNA to the discussion. You didn't. I did. It is a valid concern and consideration: the HOA need only find another mark^Wbuyer. The buyer needs to find a property not covered by onerous HOA terms.
It's also notable that the Oakland County case doesn't concern HOAs. Though complaints against HOA are certainly justified in many cases.
I think a lot of the regulations they tend to want to impose are crap and busy body meddling but gathering funds to maintain community facilities is one of the legitimate reasons for an HOA.
I have seen far too many petits Napoleons terrorizing their neighbors under an HOA aegis to defend even the HOAs that act honorably to fulfill their original intents. They should all be voided. If you can't "preserve neighborhood character" on voluntary contributions and conduct alone, your HOA doesn't deserve to exist.
HOAs are all about making little insular villages with none of the actual infrastructure necessary to support one, such as schools and parks and fire trucks and businesses that generate noise and traffic (and money). That is itself cutting corners to make everything as cheap as possible, and leaving the buyers holding the bag. Do you want to be part of the city that actually provides those things, or do you want to be continually subject to nasty letters for having a dandelion in your yard, just because the home building company stuck that clause in there as a marketing gimmick for the bermudagrass-monoculture lawn snobs?
And even better, they may decide to sell the home for substantially under market price.
Even better, it won't go on the public market, because ever-so-conveniently, one of the HOA board members who voted to accept the under market lowball offers is... the board member who _made_ the lowball offer, to add to his property portfolio.
It's likely that anyone can place a lien on your house by just filing the appropriate paperwork.
It's when they try to seize your house over nonsense like minor rule infraction that they become awful.
An eviction from a property where the HOA is not the owner (typical detached SFH) is not something I have seen. It also wouldn't make a lot of sense because 1 month of rent in my neighborhood would cover years of HOA dues. A shared condo environment is different because what is owned by the owner and the community is more intermingled.
Those communities always looked to me as some sort of protestant prison. Where everybody can watch everybody to make sure nobody is committing some sin. Where all the nosey bodies can keep close tabs on you and probably report any deviation for the pastor on Sundays.
For me I want walls, I want to be able to walk naked in my garden if I want, to never ever have to close my curtains just because the jones from the other side of the street can look inside my house.