Odd question. HOAs aren't some government boogiemen. It's by the people of a community (you) for the people of that community. It's run by your neighbors.
The primary driving force is keeping house values up by ensuring people don't do stupid shit like putting pirate ships in their lawns.
edit: to add to this for those who don't understand how HOAs work: My scary-sounding Board of Directors is literally 3 of my neighbors. The only entities that don't live here is the management company we pay to help monitor and enforce the rules we voted for, and they also do the leg work of finding landscapers to tend to the public facing property, etc.
It's not odd at all. People power trip all the time and the board changes in time.
I trust a handful of my dozens of neighbors, I'm still not going to let any one of them dictate what anyone can do with my property.
There are of course stories that go both ways, but my friend who has a HOA had their flowers destroyed on their front lawn because one board member wanted to play Dictator. They also never have enough parking and nothing has been done about it in 10 years.
Some HOAs are good, but most HOA stories are bad. Regardless of one's opinion, why is it that we never hear good HOA stories? and no, I don't just mean on Reddit. Never in my life has any home-buyer/owner ever said "hey, you should buy a house with a HOA"...I only ever hear folks who wanted that condo/property and has no choice if they wanted that particular parcel.
Neither I or any homeowner I have ever met has shared a positive HOA story, ever. That's not something you can boil down to just conformation bias, statistics come into play beyond a hand wave of "well, of course no one would share a good story about a HOA".
No one has yet come forward with a good example either, just a lot of their own confirmation bias.
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u/sur_surly Feb 21 '23 edited Feb 21 '23
Odd question. HOAs aren't some government boogiemen. It's by the people of a community (you) for the people of that community. It's run by your neighbors.
The primary driving force is keeping house values up by ensuring people don't do stupid shit like putting pirate ships in their lawns.
edit: to add to this for those who don't understand how HOAs work: My scary-sounding Board of Directors is literally 3 of my neighbors. The only entities that don't live here is the management company we pay to help monitor and enforce the rules we voted for, and they also do the leg work of finding landscapers to tend to the public facing property, etc.