Freedom of association means the freedom to be a member of an HOA. But requiring HOA membership to purchase a specific property should be banned. Freedom of association means that you should have the freedom to not be a part of the HOA.

This might be unpopular, but I don't think HOAs should be banned. WAIT! I, personally, think HOAs suck and I'd never agree to buying a home in an HOA. That said, not everyone feels that way. Some folks genuinely like living in HOAs, and for all the horror stories, there's at least a few where the HOA simply exists to provide amenities to the neighborhood i.e. playgrounds, walking trails, pools, etc. People should be free to choose the kind of housing arrangements they want, and if they want an HOA, then that's their prerogative.

The real problem with HOAs is that we're trying to solve the housing crisis exclusively with single family residential zoning, which means that HOAs are vastly overrepresented in terms of what's available on the housing market. It's fundamentally a zoning issue. People who don't want an HOA or can't spend $2,000/mo in mortgage plus another $300/mo or whatever in HOA fees should have options, but they kinda don't. Ask your city why their zoning sucks.

Absolutely ban them as they currently exist. If you must band together for whatever reason, do so en masse not hand the reins to a small handful of people who inevitably go power mad

No. Should they be as pervasive as they are with unbounded layers of beurocracy? Also no.

I think people might not understand how many assholes live around you that the HOA keeps in check. I didn't until I joined the board. Sometimes you have to litigate, but sometimes you also just need a dedicated (and elected) group of people to go knock on the door and talk out a problem. It's nicer to have this somewhat regulated (bank accounts, insurance, taxes, and yes even covenants for procedure if they are kept up to date) than to just knock on some doors and wing it.

If your HOA has an old lady measuring your grass and some dude using color swatches to check the paint on your mailbox, move. If your neighborhood has lights, clear sidewalks, fences and landscaping that are cared for, and no dog crap to step in, keep paying into it. They are doing a good job.

The point of HOAs is protecting/increasing property value. We need property to be cheaper, not more expensive. Higher property values benefit speculation, not ownership. Burn them all.

I’ve lived with good HOAs. I’d still rather they dissolve and everything be part of normal city operations.

Plus is it just me or are the same people that say they want small government also the ones who are super pro HOA?

I hate my HOA except that it's the only thing from keeping my neighbor from filling his yard up with garbage and junk cars. My bar is low, but it's above that. We live too close for that kinda shit.

Yes. Housing is tough enough as it is. Linking a lot of properties to the HOA is disgusting and should be illegal.

Yes.

I believe some TIC agreements are structured as HOAs, which is perfectly reasonable

but I'm pretty sure that's not what you're referring to here.

Yes

An HOA can have a very positive effect on a neighborhood when handled properly, but inevitably a troublemaker gets on the board and starts making life miserable for everyone.

There was a recent local case where an elderly lady in her 80s accidentally underpaid her HOA dues by 30 cents. They started fining her, and before she figured out there was an issue, the fines were thousands of dollars, and she couldn't afford it. She tried to work it out with the HOA board, but they were immovable. Then they started foreclosure proceedings, and that's when she went to the local news.

This lady's house was paid off, and they had every intention of taking it away from her in her old age, over THIRTY CENTS!

The news tried to reason with the HOA, but they wouldn't be reasonable, and the last I heard, she was going to have to pay a lawyer to fight it in court.

No HOA should be able to take anyone's house away for any reason. Same with back property taxes, especially if a propery is fully paid off. It invites predatory behavior, and there are always people who will gleefully exploit such situations.

Yes

Objectively yes. We don't need an extra government to cover the job of the actual government, especially not ones that are easy for psychopaths to infiltrate. Your park? That's the damn state's responsibility, pay your fair share of taxes instead and let the city handle it. Your home value? Don't treat housing as a damn vehicle for investment. All those nasty poors and minorities? If they bother you find a way to leave earth, permanently.

HOAs are emblematic of everything wrong with America and actively strip away the good parts.

The HOA hate is completely overblown online. It's practically clickbait at this point. Just a framework for petty neighbour stories to entertain reddit teenagers with no real world experience.

I fell for it at first, and when my wife and I started looking for houses, I specified no HOAs. We saw a couple of houses that didn't have HOAs, and then I realized that while I personally would prefer not to be in an HOA, I really, really want my neighbors to be in one.

So we got a house with an HOA. It was a gated community of small houses in a bad neighborhood. The HOA handled trash pickup, maintenance of common areas, what little landscaping we had, and a couple other things that we wouldn't want to deal with on our own. Sometimes they'd hire a security guard to deter package theft. They charged a little more than I'd like to pay, but overall it was a positive experience. They sent us a letter once saying we had to replace our door. We didn't. Nothing ever came of it. And to be fair, they were right; that door is in terrible shape.

Now I live in a different neighborhood with a different HOA. Sometimes they send us an annoying letter saying I can't leave my trash cans out. It's a minor inconvenience. Overall another positive experience.

The vast majority of HOAs are fine. You don't hear about those because that's not entertaining. It's silly to think that the stories about petty old busybodies would be the norm.

No. Some people like them. If you like being in an hoa, you should be allowed to move into and have one.

I hate them, and would never live in one, but if some people want everything around them to look about the same and be some generic "pretty" and not have full control over your own property, you do you.

Banned? The freedom cities will be the best HOAs ever.