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What I find really interesting is that I keep hearing how Americans love their freedom and hate being told what to do and how to behave. Yet HOAs are such stereotypical American institution....I've lived in a few different countries and I can't think of anything as opressive to your homeowner rights as American HOAs. And people enter them willingly? Can someone explain why? Are the benefits of living in a managed neighbourhood really worth being told when to cut your grass and when you can take your bins out and what you can and cannot park in your own paid for driveway?

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Freedom is generally understood to be a trade-off with various levels of control and power. There's a lot of subjectivity in the freedom concept, especially in America. In other countries it's treated more monolithically when talking about America, but that's not always fair.

An HOA itself also falls under various systems of control, from interpersonal social control e.g. within its board, to the levels of legal systems inside of which it operates.

The benefits really depend on you. Some people like the HOA for perfectly fine social reasons. Are you after status? Maybe the strictest HOA neighborhood just has it. Are you after structure and control at a fine-grained level? Great, and might as well get on the board while you are at it. More structure makes a lot of people feel safer and even more free inside their own skin (freedom to see one's preferred perspectives celebrated! Feels good in that you can be yourself); that's just how psychology works.

Another important factor: Will you even be home much? Do you just need a place to stay that's orderly, pleasant, and convenient, and you can afford to hire people to take care of upkeep? Or is your home more of the main place for you, a subjectively calibrated environment? A big part of your identity?

Instead of bashing HOAs I think it's a good idea to educate people in living and lifestyle design. You can then find your best-fit from the inside (of you) out, and it's less about avoiding stuff like the HOA.

> And people enter them willingly? Can someone explain why?

For some, the house they want happens to be in an HOA neighborhood, so they oblige. For others, they like the "order" that the HOA demands of the homeowners that live in that zone - grass and roofs and paints are all "approved" which definitely provides some semblance of consistency.

In my experience, HOAs are exactly like this article describes. People that like power for power's sake becoming anal about the people they have control over, under the guise of "consistency" and "order".

This is a truism that extends to any governing body. But there are people that having lived under the tyranny of power mongering HOAs, work to keep the rules to a minimum.

People that like power for power's sake becoming anal about the people they have control over, under the guise of "consistency" and "order"

It's easy to say this if you've never been on one, where you see how unbelievably petty and stupid people can be about sliding their own exceptions by, or just trying to get away with not obeying the rules until someone demands they do, or you have to mediate a real dispute between neighbours that's sort-of-but-not-really covered by the rules.

Nothing has corroded my belief that humanity is capable of governing itself in a sane, common sense manner, as much as serving on Strata (Canadian version of an HOA for a condo building) for several years.

> Nothing has corroded my belief that humanity is capable of governing itself in a sane, common sense manner, as much as serving on Strata (Canadian version of an HOA for a condo building) for several years.

People cannot govern without injecting extreme bias. With regard to something like home ownership, I'd like my home to be subject to only my own biases. Power corrupts absolutely, even at the smallest scale.

We love our freedom, but also love our property values and really don't seem to value the freedom of others as much as we should. Add the love of power tripping and some spots of actual corruption, and you get the American HOA. Its like the local PTA with fines. In a lot of ways, you can think of it as American who just want to be left alone taken advantage of by busy bodies with the rule of law on their side. When it breaks, it breaks badly.

You don’t get the hoa for the rules, but for keeping the kind of people who wouldn’t like those rules out.

> Americans love their freedom and hate being told what to do and how to behave.... And people enter them willingly

I think you answered your own statement. Americans don't blanket hate being told what to do, they hate being told to do X when they haven't agreed beforehand what they could be nagged to do X. Seems pretty reasonable.

For completeness, I'm sure that there is also a segment that on joining an HOA is a "temporarily inconvenienced dictator" that imagines themselves ascending to the HOA board and being able to write the rules, so they won't ever have to be told what to do, they'll do the telling.

>> I've lived in a few different countries and I can't think of anything as opressive to your homeowner rights as American HOAs.

Try Japan. Could tell you plenty of stories, but patio11's stories about being an entrepreneur and trying to rent an apartment sum it up pretty well.

Americans are full of contradictions like that. They formed their nation out of spite for monarchy, but every chance they get they try to install their own. The Bushes, the Clintons, the Kennedys.

The real power of the US lies in Congress and the judicial system. The president is really just an administrative role, and that's over a lifetime bureaucracy that has managed presidential power for decades. Executive orders are more a thing now, but they can be overridden by the next administration. Sure the president has veto power, but even it can be overridden.

Dynasty is what you're thinking, and really, our federal system is designed so one person can't have much power at all, other than the power of the pulpit.

Nothing like a lifetime, and multi-generational monarchy.

When state institutions act in a way that benefits them (keep out the riff raff, support real estate appreciation) or they think the force of government will only fall on others there are fewer cries of "freedom"/"liberty." For another example see the reactionary movement "all lives matter."

Is it bad to want state institutions to act in a way that benefits you? Isn't that "government for the people"?

No. I guess my point is that self-interest trumps high minded ideals.

In some regions of the country, HOA's are more or less a given if you want a newer house.

I don't necessarily want to live in one, but there are essentially no houses built in the last 50 years in my area for sale that don't sit in an HOA.

You can buy a plot of land and hire a homebuilder.

That ends up being easier said than done, too.

Most "buildable lots" tend to be in subdivisions ... which already have HOAs. "Infill lots" tend to either be in terrible neighborhoods or amazing neighborhoods that are out of reach, budget-wise, for most.

Building on a rural "plot of land" is often more restricted than you'd think, due to zoning regs on minimum lot sizes and rules about water meter availability. And frankly, buying and caring for 10 acres puts the whole project out of reach for most.

Not to mention internet availability is problematic as you get into rural locations with more flexibility.

Don’t forget that most people live in towns/cities, counties, states, etc. All levels can and have made idiotic rules. Does anyone really think that the FCC’s current interpretation of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 is anything other than the droolings of a moron? The congress that wrote the act was apparently not firing on all cylinders either, but at least the act is pretty coherent.

Also, don’t forget that not all HOAs make the stereotypical idiotic rules about grass length and garbage bins. Some of them have invented entirely novel classes of idiotic rules! And many of them are just boring and stick to maintaining common areas for the use of residents. Cleaning the neighborhood pool, mowing the median of an avenue or two, trimming the trees, and so on.

> people enter them willingly?

Sometimes a developer builds a group of homes, offers parks, gym, walkways, street lights etc, and until all homes are not sold yet, or build, manages those common things. Buyers of those houses willingly by a house with a perspective HOA. Once all homes are sold, developer hands over the maintenance responsibility to group of elected home owners.

Now if a colony already has a HOA and somebody sells their house, the buyer has to be in the HOA in most of the cases, very few exceptions like if seller fails to disclose that it's HOA, seller does not give the HOA paperwork to sign and such.

I think there's a price difference also between a HOA homes and non HOA homes.

People who love freedom tend to also love the freedom to tell others what to do.

Americans love things that keep the "undesirable" people out. HOAs are basically just white gatekeepers. They're legally backed rackets in every instance I've ever had to interact with them.

Please elaborate on how they keep "undesirable" people out - a statement like this has no meaning without any evidence. The HOA is not involved in the purchase of a house in any way.

My HOA has rules designed to prevent blue collar people from living in the neighborhood. No work icons on any vehicle parked outside a garage.

Yup! In a similar vein: My old HOA didn't allow you to have vehicles parked on your own driveway after 6pm until 6am.

So, no families allowed. Only singles and couples.

They can't keep you from moving in, but once you do, they can nickel and dime you with fines and make your life miserable until you move out.

And they absolutely will. After I moved out of my last HOA, I found out the towing company had a flat rate kickback to the HOA organization for every tow they made. Genuinely baffles me how it's even legal.

Most HOAs have enough legalese baked into them that they can even hold eviction over tenants heads. It's absolutely a class weapon that gets used as a bludgeon. And if they can't technically evict you, they sure can make your life hell until you leave. Selective enforcement is the name of the game with these types.

American Dad covered this - Roger decided to get back at Stan so corrupted the HOA and did all sorts of things like arranging trash pickup, installing a hydrant on his lawn, etc.

If the HOA don’t like you, it seems there little recourse.

The HOA can not restrict purchase sure, but can specifically target PoC for "violations" while ignoring the white households who are committing violations. This has the effect of working to force these folks out and maintaining the racial status quo of the HOA.

In the 70s (I think) and before, HOA were definitely active gatekeepers though against PoC, and then after that with new laws passed, moved to these more "subtle" methods.

This does not match my personal experience. I live in a 10,000 person neighborhood that is covered by an HOA, and it is a very diverse place. In fact, one of the things that I like about living here is that there are people from all over the world living here.

I'm genuinely glad that is the experience you've had. I hope that model would be the one that's more common.

Unfortunately in my experience it's the exact opposite. Here they're used and abused by exclusively rich, mostly-white neighborhoods to keep them that way.

You may be conflating class and race (it's a common error). A neighborhood of wealthier, successful people (regardless of race) probably want their neighborhood to be a quieter, nice-looking, pleasant place.

I've lived in both HOA and non-HOA neighborhoods. If there's a barrier to entry such as price, then generally a more successful (and hopefully more refined) type of person will move in, and generally the homes will stay nice-looking without rules. Without that, then an HOA to try to maintain an aesthetic baseline can be very helpful. All the homeowners benefit from maintaining an attractive neighborhood, in that their home values will be higher.

This matches my experience. Our neighborhood is rich in a mix of housing. There are large apartment buildings with small, relatively affordable apartments, townhouse of 2 sizes, and then single family homes that run from large to very large. I assume that the many people who own one-bedroom condos are just as interested as the people who own the six-bedroom houses in keeping the common areas well maintained.

I'm not conflating class and race, I'm establishing a connection between the two. I'm very aware that it's generally a "rich" thing. That doesn't mean that race plays no factor, and even then, if it's purely a class issue then it's still an issue in my eyes.

How do they keep people out? The HOA wouldn't prevent someone from "buying in" would they? It's not that there is an interview process, is there?

That was the original reason for HOA's. After the supreme court ruled racial covenants were unenforceable the idea was that HOA's could enforce them.

How though? Many people seem to claim that that's what's being done, I'm wondering how.

The HOA's had rules that black and other undesirables weren't allowed. Enforceable since HOA's were a private associations.

However the supreme court also ruled that was unenforceable too.

But that didn't happen before developers realized that they could use HOA's as a cash cow. You sell a house once. But you can collect HOA dues for a couple of decades after. There is a case in Daily City where it took decades for home owners to get rid of the HOA. That collected dues and provided absolutely nothing in return.

Depending on the hoa of course, but my answer is yes. Yes it is. As long as I’m on the board ;)

In all seriousness though, I hate the bureaucracy but being on the board gives me the opportunity to keep things in check.

This is a weird comment. You acknowledge that people enter these arrangements willingly, yet call the arrangements oppressive and wonder why anybody would submit to them. People form or join HOAs because they want to. You ask whether the benefits are worth it... surely you realize "worth it" is inherently subjective and is up for any individual to decide themselves.

> "I keep hearing how Americans love their freedom and hate being told what to do and how to behave"

Consider that most Americans do not live under HOAs. Don't you think it likely that the Americans who exemplify the stereotypical traits you list are likely not the ones choosing to live under HOAs?

It doesn't seem like they do it that willingly. You can't just buy a house in the HoA area and opt out.

If that's the definition of willingly, than i suppose most citizens of dictatorships are willing participants.

Are you telling me that you can just opt of the democracy you currently live in? HOA's have rules and votes. The bylaws can be changed. It just may hurt your idealisms that most people in them are either apathetic or like the rules the way they are.

It's not always willingly, there are plenty of times I've been forced into moving into an HOA because of lack of choice and availability, or them being the only option in a given area, etc...

> It's not always willingly, there are plenty of times I've been forced into moving into an HOA because of lack of choice and availability, or them being the only option in a given area,

This is exactly the reason we're in our current HOA home. It was the only viable option at that time.

It's been a fairly terrible experience w/ the HOA inventing absurd crap some times (non-existent shed on thimble-sized front lawn) and selectively enforcing other times (reporting my kid's grad sign & residents' Biden signs but not Trump signs).

Surely there’s a separation of powers between those that make the rules and those who judge if they have been broken?

No. Just one board doing both.

It's also common for HOA boards members to post their friends for elections. I was on the board in our last neighborhood. All members are pals after a few months.

Report both signs and then sue for civil rights violations if one side is ignored.

>People form or join HOAs because they want to

Not from my experience. Try finding a non-HOA house near any major city. From all the friends I know who are homeowners, not a single one got into HOA willingly.

One managed to find a home about 20 miles from Seattle that wasn't HOA-managed. The others had to settle for an HOA house, because there were none available within a reasonable driving distance from the city that weren't HOA.

Sure, this is just my anecdata. But you should check how many people explicitly are looking for HOA vs. how many just settle for it. I hate HOAs with passion, but when I decide to buy a house, I am already mentally getting ready to settle for an HOA one, simply because of the location.

Done it many times, no problem. People who say "there are no HOA neighborhoods" typically mean there are not any neighborhoods that don't have HOAs but look like those that do have HOAs.

Who do you think you're fooling? HOAs are not termite damage concealed from buyers at the time of purchase. The existence of HOAs is disclosed before the sale and every single person who chooses to buy a home in an HOA neighborhood has weighed the pros and cons and decided the pros outweighted the cons. I have never lived in an HOA neighborhood and, for as long as my preferences remain the same, I never will. I have never and will never be forced to buy a home in an HOA neighborhood against my will.

Somebody living in an HOA neighborhood might reasonably claim to regret their decision, but it was their decision. Some people want to have their cake and eat it too; they want to live in that nice pretty HOA neighborhood but don't want the HOA that made it a nice neighborhood. Such people are immature. You may as well choose to live in the woods, then complain about trees.

> Who do you think you're fooling? HOAs are not termite damage concealed from buyers at the time of purchase.

At no point I claimed it was concealed ahead of purchase. It wasn't, it was known.

>Somebody living in an HOA neighborhood might reasonably claim to regret their decision, but it was their decision.

Yeah, it was their decision. They did it, despite hating the idea of joining an HOA. Simply because there were no houses for acceptable prices within a driving distance from the city. That's the complaint. No one is saying "they got tricked into it" or something.

Typically there are some benefits, like a community pool or just mowing common areas. But yeah, if I could have found a house without an HOA I would have.

The mundane answer is that you don't necessarily have a choice within your desired combination of budget + location + quality + ...

It protects property values for the entire neighborhood.

It's very hard to sell homes for top dollar when your next door neighbor has old toilets in their drive way, or parked cars on cinder blocks. Or someone who wants to raise chickens in their backyard. Just makes the entire place look bad and property values will diminish, affecting one of your biggest investments.

> Can someone explain why?

I like order, and I do not trust most people to behave responsibly. I am more than happy to be told when to cut my grass if it also comes with the guarantee that my next-door neighbor is not going to be throwing wild house parties after dark, or turning his driveway into a junkyard, or running a kennel in his backyard, etc. Some people might be willing to tolerate this kind of barbarism, but not me, so I will gladly consign myself to the restrictions of HOAs.

Question out of curiosity: I’m German so I don’t know the US law that well but don’t you for example have laws that forbid being noisy after a certain hour of the day?

If my neighbours were throwing a loud party past 10pm I could simply call the police/ Ordnungsamt (police light) and they’d tell them to quiet down.

I'm in Sydney Australia and whole-city laws cover noise. Yes, Police can be called for excessive noise outside the permitted hours.

Several years ago, our next door neighbour decided to get into the meat delivery business and parked his van in his front yard overnight. It had a petrol engine for a refrigeration unit that ran constantly. The Police came around and advised them to switch it off or move it somewhere else.

It depends on where you live. In an incorporated area (town/city) generally yes. An issue though is in a city the enforcement of these kinds of things can be low priority, an HOA is generally more effective from that standpoint.

Local noise ordinances are only as effective as the police force which enforces them. Where I live, the police do not take this responsibility seriously. The hammer of the HOA is a necessity to ensure that peace and quiet is maintained.

You could also swap out the sheriff, there's a vote for that. Conversely, I once rented from a landlord who was financially overextended, and the first sign of that was that he stopped paying for trash removal. The following week, the heating failed. One call to code enforcement (this was NY State) was enough to get things fixed until we moved out. It's hard to imagine tenant's safety and comfort to be high priority in a HOA, their purpose is to keep property values up.

Throwing a late house party is barbarism?

Yes, it is--at least to those of us who respect our neighbors and do not think we have the right to impair their enjoyment of peace and quiet within the four corners of their residences.

I mean, it's not all black and white though, right? I'd absolutely call police if my neighbours were throwing a party every evening for 6 months a year, but an occasional party that goes to 3am on a warm summer night? I'm probably not going to. It seems like HOA would pursue the second one with full force, even though there is such thing as common sense.

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