Also banning children is illegal in the U.S. unless you have a 55 or older community.

I don't know why you wouldn't desire rules about noise if your home is attached to another home where loud neighbors would bother you.

But at any rate that concern has nothing to do with condominiums, your HOA in a planned development with detached housing can also serve you noise complaints.

The quality of construction has nothing to do with whether the project is a condo. Unless you think single- family detached homes can't have bad construction.

The level and type of noise that reaches nuisance levels is highly subjective, which leads to conflict between neighbors. You also have no control over your neighbors, so you might be able to practice your guitar for a decade and then suddenly your neighbors move and the new ones don't appreciate the sound as much.

It's the same issue all of these types of organizations have; HOAs suffer from the same problems. The rules tend to be defined by those most sensitive to them, who are generally those the most willing to waste a bunch of their own time screwing around with the HOA/condo association.

I personally refuse to own a condo or HOA home. It's worth it to me to exchange the equity for renting and being able to get out easily if I want to. I also find "ownership" to be a bit of a misnomer for either type of housing, since the rules can be arbitrarily changed and they can place a lien on your home. You live there at the grace of the HOA/condo community.

I get the reasons why those processes exist, especially for condos, but it's just not for me. I grew up in a rural area, so my idea of ownership is probably tainted by space being a non-factor and enforcement of any kind of laws, much less non-governmental ones, being sparse.

I'm hanging on to hope that remote work will become a major factor in the job market so that I can move back to the country without having to resort to the rural IT job market.