At the same time, you should consider possible shenanigans that your neighbors may get up to. While there is always a lot of petty stuff going on in our HOA, I also see a lot of chatter from people on nextdoor who don't live in an HOA and their neighbors can be quite annoying. Loud roosters waking you up at 4am and the like.

Many of the "hoa-style" complaints can be dealt with by careful inspection of the local laws before buying. You can find communities that ban roosters (the one I'm in does, and charges $25 a year "hen fee" for up to three hens lol).

Living with other people is annoying, but you can work to mitigate the biggest issues, and sometimes the right answer might be a HOA. Investigate the HOA before buying and talk to your potential neighbors. Many people will gladly go out to dinner/drinks if you ask and bitch about any problems there may be.

And there will always be problems; the key is determining if they'll be annoying enough for you to bypass it.

One friend years ago pointed out that he could buy a much nicer house if he spent the HOA payment on mortgage instead; and so went that way.

not all the rules are in the HOA booklet. For example, ours doesn't say anything about banning vegetables in the front yard, not a single rule. And yet, if we even so much as grow fava beans, the HOA will say we can't do that due to the catch all rule: "No unplanned modifications". It's all up to the HOA directors mood and discretion. And while you may currently have a reasonable HOA board, that can quickly change with just one election.

Wow - "no unplanned modifications" is a really big loophole, I wonder if that refers to some "master plan" somewhere in a cupboard behind the leopard.

And yeah, the elections can change everything - and sometimes nobody cares and you can run for the HOA board and effectively take control muahahahahah.

Er, I wouldn't know anyone who would do that. Ever.

It can also be changed more permanently with changes to the covenants. Many covenants require a super majority vote of the members so even a future bad board member can be restrained to an extent.

I have a home in an area without an HOA and I have had a 100% resolution rate by just talking and explaining. Being decent and pragmatic goes a long way.

For shared building situations, like a condo in a downtown highrise, I think they're unavoidable: there's inherently shared resources that require maintenance and co-ordination, even if there's a mininum of services. Add in things like a pool, shared gym, doorman, or large recurring maintenance (roof), and you absolutely need a governing body to collect costs for that and handle the work, which is, in essence, an HOA.