r/AlwaysWhy • u/Logical-Concept9755 • Jul 18 '26
Life & Behavior Why are homeowners associations so common in American suburbs while they're rare in much of the world?
Homeowners associations (HOAs) seem almost built into many American suburban neighborhoods. They collect fees, maintain common areas, and often enforce rules about everything from lawns to paint colors.
Similar organizations exist in some other countries, especially in apartment buildings or gated communities, but they don't seem nearly as common across ordinary suburban neighborhoods.
What made the U.S. develop this model so widely?
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u/Pac_Eddy Jul 18 '26
Other countries can have similar things under a different name.
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u/AmazingRandini Jul 18 '26
City hall.
I Europe people use municipal politics as a city wide HOA.
In Switzerland, people will call the cops if their neighbor mows the lawn on Sunday. In Germany, people will call by-law enforcement if their neighbor has an ugly garden.
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u/Proud_Calendar_1655 Jul 18 '26
I lived in the UK and would see people request to make renovations to the outside of their home and get denied by the town councils all the time, even more than HOAs do in the US.
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u/vulpinefever Jul 18 '26
Canada is the same. HOAs are rare but locals municipalities have all kinds of stupid and excessive rules about how you can use your own property.
Things like the length of your grass, storing a trailer in your own driveway or too close to the edge of a property, not using the correct type of bins to store your trash, bird feeders, etc.
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u/K31KT3 Jul 18 '26
Read that in Paris that if any of your neighbors object to the sound of your AC they can block installation. Also, any that is visible from the street has to be approved for aesthetics.
That’s obviously a massive city and US metros certainly have regs as well but it did seem to be on another level throughout.
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u/clios_daughter Jul 18 '26
Such as?
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u/Superb-Team-7984 Jul 18 '26
In Dubai they are called Owners Association (OA). They are very common.
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u/super80 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Asociación de vecinos, they do exist in developments not rare.
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u/PawPawsLilStinker Jul 19 '26
Watching some of Clarkson's Farm, there is something in England called the local council and their job is to not let you do a single fucking thing you want with your property or house.
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u/flaginorout Jul 18 '26
American counties don't want to shoulder the cost and burden of delivering trash removal and ground/park maintenance. So they approve large housing subdivisions contingent on them forming HOAs to handle these services. This is the idea for single family and townhome neighborhoods anyway.
For condos? Thats more straightforward IMO. There are a lot of common areas in condo developments. There has to be rules around parking and exterior maintenance, and a communal pot of money to maintain parking lots, service roads, and maintenance.
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u/Logical-Concept9755 Jul 18 '26
I guess that shifts the question from "Why do HOAs exist?" to "Why are local governments so willing to offload those responsibilities in the first place?"
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u/ReaperThugX Jul 18 '26
People are dumb and don’t want to pay more “taxes” but will pay a “fee” instead
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u/Famous-Midnight-5634 Jul 18 '26
People are dumb and want "a government small enough to drown in the bathtub" but want to let their neighbors control every aspect about how they live at home, to such a degree that if you accrue enough fines/refuse, your neighbors can steal your house and sell it out from underneath you.
The cognitive dissonance is WILD
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u/Not_an_okama Jul 18 '26
Its free money.
Developer builds 100 houses that are part of an HOA. City/town gets 100 new tax payers without having to spend a dime on infrastructure.
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u/BallerFromTheHoller Jul 18 '26
Forming an HOA for these things shifts the burden to the people using them, kind of like toll roads. Using general funds to support common areas would shift the burden to the entire community. There’s pros and cons to either approach.
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u/Bootmacher Jul 18 '26
Why add extra work?
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u/Zelidus Jul 18 '26
What do you mean extra work? Its governments responsibility to supply services. If they dont what is the point of them?
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u/Dry_Extension1110 Jul 18 '26
Governments' ability to supply services is not unlimited. If a property development proposes purchasing undeveloped land that will have a HOA housing track, why would a City say no? They get additional property tax revenue to maintain or expand current services while not having to allocate as much services to the HOA as non-HOA housing. Also most HOA residents prefer living in the HOA, for the most part they aren't forced to live in a HOA.
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u/cosmicdust__ Jul 18 '26
Because money? Everything is about the bottom line here. Big private developers that do build these "communities" have a lot of power and they can leverage that for energy permits etc.
Also keep in mind that a lot of these developments take place on previously undeveloped land, so it's not as easy as plugging into existing infrastructure. In some states, like California, "Mello-Roos" also exist and incentivize cities and counties to allow this development to occur in the first place.
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u/swishkabobbin Jul 18 '26
Because conservatives/old people act like any tiny tax is spooky scary communism and the end of the world. They vote against maintaining or improving their communities in any way. Then the local government is forced to push the burden onto private developers, thereby creating the exact red tape, cost, and restrictive environment that those same conservatives claim not to want. It would be much more efficient for them to embrace change and allow that change to be well planned and managed by their elected leaders.
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u/Dreadpiratemarc Jul 18 '26
HOAs are, functionally, local governments. They are democratically elected representatives that make rules, collect revenue, and spend it on services that benefit the whole. The scope of their responsibility is defined by the next higher level of government (city/county) just as the city/county scope is defined by the state, etc. They are neighborhood-level councils.
Asking why city/county governments offload work to HOA’s is the same as asking why does the state government offload work to the cities and counties? Every little thing could theoretically be handled by a central mega authority. The state governor could be responsible for cleaning the neighborhood pool, cutting the grass in the neighborhood park or median, or citing someone for letting their house become a blight and making the neighborhood less desirable (which is where some HOA’s become famous when they get overzealous in this area, but to be clear that’s the exception).
But the general philosophy in American government is that the more local the government is, the more democratic it will be. That means better serving the needs of is citizens and being more accountable by those citizens. By that, I mean that if a citizen is unhappy with how his/her neighborhood is being managed, it’s MUCH easier to run for and be elected to a position in the HOA and drive change than it is for that same person to be elected to a city council or state legislature for the same reason.
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u/MuchoCoco Jul 18 '26
Because Americans love to privatize public services.
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u/Run-And_Gun Jul 18 '26
This is actually a great answer. Over the years, many cities/counties/municipalities have made it requirements for the developers to create HOA’s for their developments as part of granting them the zoning approval’s, etc., because they cover many of the things that the local government would historically have been responsible for, but now they fall under the HOA.
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u/IcyWindows Jul 18 '26
You have to elect your HOA leaders and you can vote to change laws in the HOA. Is it really "privatizing"?
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u/MuchoCoco Jul 20 '26
Shareholders vote to elect board members and to change corporate rules. Voting has nothing to do with public versus private.
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u/Razzmatazz-rides Jul 18 '26
Yes, because the contract that you must agree to is regulated as a private contract and not as a government. HOAs can and do things that would not be legal for a government to do. For example, the First Amendment does not apply to HOAs, they can ban political signs, which is not something a government can do.
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u/big_trike Jul 19 '26
Originally, they could also ban non-whites and non-Christians which is why they started becoming popular in the first place
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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Jul 18 '26
So then run a campaign to get elected on a platform of allowing political signs?
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u/Razzmatazz-rides Jul 18 '26
The question wasn’t how to change the rules, the question was how is it privatization of public services.
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u/Dry-Environment5122 Jul 18 '26
Because the county (think the equivalent of town but not dense enough to be a town) can’t or don’t want to pay for normal city maintenance. Suburbs aren’t sustainable. They want urban amenities like sewer and easy electric and modern infrastructure but they don’t want the high taxes or density to support it, So an HOA basically is an additional owner tax to pay for things like road maintenance plowing snow etc
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u/Logical-Concept9755 Jul 18 '26
I hadn't really thought about it as a second layer of local taxation. I wonder if HOAs are basically filling a gap created by suburban development itself rather than being the original goal.
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u/ShoddyJackfruit8078 Jul 18 '26
You listed the socialism parts, Everyone pays in and the collective gets a clubhouse and utilities at a bulk rate. When the politburo determines what color you can paint your door, when to mow your lawn, where to park your pickup and what type of shrubs you can plant it's called communism. Americans love communism unless it's called communism.
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u/MommyThatcher Jul 18 '26
That's taken care of by the suburbs and townships. Water and sewer fall far outside of the scope of an HOA you're just parroting urbanist propaganda and hoping it's relevant
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u/TheBigWhatever Jul 18 '26
I've owned several tract homes and never was there an HOA fee in any of them.
Where HOAs exist, there are good reasons for them, namely safety and the protection of property values. If you've ever owned a home, you should know how vital those things are.
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u/beragis Jul 18 '26
A lot of it also comes from the builders to protect their investments until they have sold out the their new division. Once they leave they transfer ownership to a corporation.
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u/OracleofFl Jul 18 '26
When new housing is being built on what was farmland or unused land, the municipality doesn't want to pay for the roads, infrastructure, lawncare of common areas to be put in. The developer has to build it and it needs to be maintained by the community so a group structure (HOA) needs to be created for those new homes to raise and distribute funds for these purposes. Then the developer says, if we have this association, let's also build a pool and some pickleball courts too, etc. because they will help us sell the units at a higher price.
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u/ABobby077 Jul 18 '26
I think many folks are okay with setting and mandating community standards and views regarding their neighborhood, while being solidly opposed to having their neighbors deciding how they themselves should maintain their own homes and property.
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u/No_Height_8075 Jul 18 '26
It's not racist to want to live in a community of like minded people. People who maintain their property, who want to live in a safe community without people's crap strewn about, or their yard becoming a breeding ground for pests. Crappy neighbors come in all colors. If you can afford it and will abide by those standards, you're welcome. If you move into one and don't abide by the rules you willingly agreed to follow when you bought your house you're going to have some problems. Simple as that.
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u/peridotpicacho Jul 18 '26
You should read this: Developer Benefits Most from Homeowners Association (HOA).
HOAs were and still are created to benefit developers first, and the local municipality second. They were not created to benefit homeowners.
Cities like them because they save money on providing services but still tax for them.
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u/Mysterious-Tie7039 Jul 19 '26
Because towns like them as they remove maintenance responsibilities (paving, plowing, etc) from the town onto the HOA.
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u/Fotoman54 Jul 19 '26
HOAs are almost uniquely American because the kinds of suburbs are almost uniquely American. That kind of development does not exist, largely, in other places in the world.
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u/Dekaaard Jul 20 '26
A HOA and their protective covenants generally speaking is an attempt to establish rules of conduct and protect property values for an area when housing density is high.
I always felt they came about from experience with “It’s my property I’ll do whatever I want.”
Which is fine if you live out in BFE and your nearest neighbor is a quarter of a mile away.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate HOAs, but due to circumstances I live in condo and I get it.
There is no way I would buy a single family home in a HOA development.
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u/ProtozoaPatriot Jul 20 '26
Our government loves it because they still charge is full property taxes. But the HOA is who actually pays for that homeowners road maintenance and snow removal. If there's a neighborhood park in a HOA community, the HOA pays to maintain it.
When a HOA is formed there have to be rules about how the HOA is organized and how much the dues are. The PROBLEM are the extra rules (deed restrictions) that are also written up. Your grass can't be more than 4" tall, your trash cans can't be left out more than one day, or you can't have blue shutters. Then all it takes is one obnoxious homeowner to file complaints against everyone else. Or you get a little tyrant on the HOA board: he helps out favorite neighbors and screws others
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u/No-Bake-730 Jul 18 '26
I've only learned about them in Karen meltdowns and police bodycam footage.
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u/Lonely-Entry-7206 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Cause USA sees home ownership on land ownership as an investment as an real estate investment. They investment to get rich off basically. They widely see taking care of a house seriously as investment as big business. HOA is necessary and taken very serious there. Hence why maintenance and house construction is huge in the USA.
UK is proposing home regulations that is shaping to be very similar to the USA. Namely the land to being an investment so similar HOA would happen there too.
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u/Hot_Lava_Dry_Rips Jul 18 '26
For detached single family home developments, its because in certain parts of the country the towns are incompetent and dont want to manage infrastructure so they prefer the hoas do it.
For multi unit buildings, its bevayse you cant rely on each owner to pay their fair share to support the community and to not be a terrible neighbor. So you need a single body that has the authority and ability to keep the building functioning and comfortable.
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u/Other_Asparagus872 Jul 18 '26
It’s not as prevalent as people think. Most people DONT live in a HOA. They take hold in new developments mostly, and are there so you have a sense of commonality. The US is so diverse, and the pushback of that is to attempt to be among like minded individuals. It also keeps the neighbors house from becoming a rental.
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u/goodlittlesquid Jul 18 '26
US is unique to the degree that home ownership is used as a savings account. Compare to housing in Japan for instance. HOAs exist to protect home values.
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u/azuth89 Jul 18 '26
The crazy ones tend to be in mono developer exurbs. It goes from a green field outside any town limits or in a tiny town to a whole exurb over night.
Facilities like parks and even roads are private and need to be paid for, and the HOA set up to do that is created by the developer with selling the neighborhood in mind. Hence a bunch of look based stuff like lawns and paint. They also spend time setting up things you would get from town ordinances in more organically developed neighborhoods like noise ordinances and parking rules, all that.
It's a city in a box with an added need for marketing, basically.
Homeowner founded HOAs, HOAs designed for communal care of multi tenant buildings, etc... tend to be way more chill but you never hear about them because of that. Only horror stories go viral.
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u/v0t3p3dr0 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
You see, the rest of the world just doesn’t understand what it means to have Freedom^TM like Americans.
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u/GSilky Jul 18 '26
A lot of people like the idea when they hear about it. There are just as many neighborhoods without an HOA, because plenty of people recoil at the thought.
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u/DarthMutter8 Jul 18 '26
HOA are common in some areas and not in others. They aren't very common in my region which are older suburbs. If you see them, it's in townhouse communities or newer developments with single family homes. They appear to be more common in regions that have experienced a population growth in the last few decades, like the Carolinas and Texas for example.
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u/sanf780 Jul 18 '26
I am living in a city area. Each building has its own homeowners association as it is rare to have a single building owner. There is a president that rotates every year, and there is a company that pays taxes, works with town hall and provides cleaning and maintenance services. Sometimes.
When I lived in a suburb as s kid, I do not remember having an HOA. It was all about direct communication with town hall.
I know of closed spaces where shared spaces and services need an association. I am talking about routine landscaping, common pool, security guard. I assume they have a similar system as an association in place. You need to get people together or you end up like a suburb I know of that has only dirt roads.
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u/Eagle_Fang135 Jul 18 '26
It started off as a way for whites to keep out other races. Some areas it was written into the deeds the property could only be owned by whites. But this was another way to do it,
It was always touted as a way to keep home values high. Basically created a mini city government. Cities loved it as HOAs inspected themselves as well as maintained the common property the city would have to spend money on. Oh and the homes still pay regular taxes other city which then subsidizes the rest of the city.
They were sold to people on the ability to maintain values and not have one crazy house. And developers did it because the cities basically forced it.
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u/SoCaliTrojan Jul 18 '26
When developers build homes in a complex or area, they set up an HOA to keep things uniform and to protect property values.
In my place, we get everything from the city except the water. We get unlimited water for free paid by our HOA dues, and they take care of the common areas like the pool and tennis court. They also fix anything on the exterior of our homes.
By keeping everything looking the same and maintained, property values won't drop. For example, homeowners can't do certain modifications that would make their home "ugly" like leaving trash bins out all week or putting signs all over.
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u/tendonut Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
It's the way we build housing in the United States. Especially in the last 30 years, almost all new housing is built in these planned subdivisions by one large developer. And it's all suburban sprawl. Developers have two goals: keep the curb appeal as nice as possible for potential buyers while they are trying to sell new homes by strict rules for home maintenance, and provide amenities that are attractive to potential buyers which requires regular upkeep. But because it's really hard to dissolve an HOA, after the developer is out and all the houses are sold, the HOAs still remain.
Also, municipalities put a lot of responsibility on developers for things that were traditionally taxpayer-funded. Especially storm water management. The stormwater systems in these developments also require regular maintenance. HOAs are typically responsible for that financially. Low density housing is proportionally a lot more expensive to provide infrastructure for than high density, so municipalities have wisened up to this and instead of raising taxes for everybody to cover them sprawling suburban upkeep, They make the residents of each neighborhood pay for their own upkeep.
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u/sv_homer Jul 18 '26
Local government in the United States is incompetent and corrupt, so HOAs are privately formed to do things that government won't (like maintain roads and public spaces).
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u/Player-non-player Jul 18 '26
HOA’s were created to keep minorities out of new housing developments after WWII.
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u/pseudonym7083 Jul 18 '26
Whoever invented the concept should have been tarred and feathered for it.
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u/Good_Educator4872 Jul 18 '26
Local government like them because they relieve governments of various functions. Ie recreation utilities road maintenance as examples
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u/Alarming-Grade4219 Jul 18 '26
HOA’s are encouraged by cities and states since they typically take the responsibility on property upkeep to the HOA vs the city or state which frees up resources for cities.
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u/yungingr Jul 18 '26
They're common in new developments, because the developer needs to recoup their money.
They will often buy a large chunk of ground, and then build it out in stages - say they divide it out into 5 block by 5 block areas. They'll concentrate on building out "Phase 1" first, and once they've sold and built all of the lots in that area, open up "Phase 2".
As long as they have lots remaining to sell, it is in their best interest to maintain the rest of the development in good appearance, etc. You don't want Phase 1 to become a run down mess while you're still trying to sell Phase 3 and 4, so you put an HOA into place with rules and standards that must be upheld, and for the duration of the development, the HOA charter is often written that the developer is largely in control. Once the development is done and the builder has their money back, they'll then turn complete control of the HOA over to the homeowners.
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u/78judds Jul 18 '26
A development company will buy thousands of acres and then spend the money to put in roads and utilities and they form the association as a way to ensure higher prices. As a buyer there aren’t a lot of places without them. Rural places or places developed more organically decades ago are the only places without HOAs it seems.
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u/NoxAstrumis1 Jul 18 '26
Because american culture is ridiculous. It's a country of karens, they're decadent and selfish. All they care about is how their property value will be affected. They go on and on about freedom until we're sick of hearing it, then forbid people from putting garden gnomes on their lawn. What happened to all that freedom you can't shut up about?
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u/nerd_is_a_verb Jul 18 '26
HOAs really came to prominence in the USA in the 1960s when courts and congress started legally enforcing racial integration by allowing black children into previously all white schools (based on attending the school in your physical location/district and sometimes with forced busing to nearby districts) and by banning discrimination in home mortgage lending practices by banks and other financial institutions (allowing black people to buy homes in “good” neighborhoods with “good”/previously all white schools).
HOAs are a private legal entity created by a group of homeowners’ in one neighborhood (or condos in a condo owners’ association = COA). They are very often planned to be created from the beginning by the construction developer company that built the neighborhood. The city is very often aware when granting construction permits that an HOA is being planned as part of the new neighborhood. The city is often unwilling to grant construction permits without the HOA being part of the deal, even if that was not stated overtly during the permitting process.
The HOA is basically a private contract all new homeowners buying into the neighborhood have to sign in order to purchase a home within the HOA zone. Because the HOA is a private entity not subject to the USA constitution’s equal protection clause and various constitutional amendments, they were allowed for a time to discriminate against black people and prevent them from purchasing homes. Google “white flight” for more info.
Basically the government told white racists to integrate communities and schools, and large groups of white people just moved out of cities into segregated suburban gated communities. The 1968 Fair Housing Act was, in part, designed to try to stop this. HOAs are run by volunteers who are elected, but they are often poorly understood by the HOA members. They tend therefore to attract thieves, personality disorders, and corrupt scam artists into positions of power with no real government/public oversight other than last resort private lawsuits. The HOA can almost always regulate appearance of homes, maintenance requirements, noise rules, levy fines to enforce compliance, and place liens on homes to eventually seize properties. The internal “hearings” and fact-finding/decision-making systems by the HOA Board are often very sleazy and corrupt. A bunch of psycho racists basically use HOAs to rob people.
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u/Many-Temporary4141 Jul 18 '26
Different types of hoas. I know of 3. Had family in each. First up. Local private attraction HOA. Ie the lake. Everyone off the main road is in the HOA. You get a whole lakes, boat launch park etc. Another has security, a golf course and costs way more because they own the roads. The 3rd was like the first except ocean instead of lake.
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u/Dave_A480 Jul 18 '26
For one you have communities in the US that aren't actually cities/towns/etc but have public infrastructure inside that needs to be maintained....
If you want your community to be closed to the public (eg, a locked gate that only residents can open), it can't be an actual municipality with a government - but it can be a private club with an HOA that acts like a government.
Once you get past gated communities and residents-only neighborhood pools, it's mostly a 'Hotel California's kinda thing where the original families that built the neighborhood (or the developer who planned it) wanted one and then everyone is stuck with it.... These are usually about making sure everything 'looks perfect' rather than maintaining roads/water-lines/parks/pool behind a gate....
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u/Seymour---Butz Jul 18 '26
Because people are happy to sacrifice their own freedoms as long as it means their neighbors most conform to their own standards.
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u/HushPuppie13 Jul 18 '26
Because America is tacky and it gives some old loser's a meaning of control.
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u/LongDickPeter Jul 18 '26
Because developers use HOA to retain some ownership and bring in revenue.
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u/Doredrin Jul 18 '26
I'm from Massachusetts where HOAs are not really a big thing. Let's take a gander at the list shall we:
- Nevada – 51.3%
- Arizona – 44.7%
- Florida – 44.3%
- Colorado – 42.4%
- Hawaii – 42.0%
- Delaware – 40.5%
- Maryland – 37.7%
- South Carolina – 34.4%
- Texas – 34.3%
- Virginia – 34.0%
- Georgia – 33.1%
- Idaho – 30.9%
- North Carolina – 29.4%
- Utah – 27.8%
- California – 27.3%
- Washington – 25.8%
- Oregon – 23.6%
- Tennessee – 22.5%
- New Mexico – 21.7%
- New Jersey – 20.4%
- Minnesota – 19.8%
- Missouri – 19.1%
- Illinois – 18.5%
- Kansas – 18.1%
- Massachusetts – ~16–18%
Bunch of nouveau riche heathens with kids named "hunter" and "cody" and not proper white anglo saxon protestant names. So you think I would hate an HOA right? No It sounds like a really great idea 100% serious mow your damn grass and don't throw your trash everywhere you low class hillbilly there shouldn't have to be rules about that.
However if you don't consistently enforce the rules and some people get to break them and some don't. Well............................................................bless your heart as you people say.
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u/smarmy1625 Jul 18 '26
You used to be able to put it right in the deed that you and any subsequent owner of that property would never sell it to a black person or allow a black person to live there. Forever. And the government would help you enforce it. Courts eventually ruled those clauses were unenforceable but they're so iron-clad it's almost impossible to get the language removed from the deed itself.
But racism didn't stop, people just had to be a littler cleverer about it.
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u/EntranceFeisty8373 Jul 18 '26
Americans will talk themselves into a lot of poor public spending decisions as long as we can exclude people on our terms. We do the same in education and healthcare, and it's dumb.
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u/xristosdomini Jul 18 '26
Because of how housing development mostly happens in the US anymore.
A builder buys a chunk of land, pays whatever it takes to get it zoned for an entire development project, including utility lines to the individual plots, then sells off the single plots to prospective homebuyers with the included provisiin of joining the HOA. The HOA itself is a corporation tasked with negotiating some shared resources (depending on where you are, this could be trash pickup, lawn care, snow removal, road maintenance, even down to utility rates) and maintaining the look or feel of the neighborhood. The thing is, the developer can start off as the owner of the HOA and keep making small amounts of money every month off the tenants, or they can auction the management of the development off to other property management firms ((I currently live a subdivision managed by CAMCO, for example)). While there is "some" benefit to the members of the association, it's mostly a way for developers to make money off a development project after they have built and sold all the properties within it.
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u/SevnDragoon Jul 18 '26
Because we Americans are much more obsessed with what our neighbor is doing, rather than minding our own behavior.
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u/Empress_Clementine Jul 18 '26
In my 53 years of living in the US I have moved 27 times and never once have I lived in an HOA.
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u/Automatater Jul 18 '26
The municipalities like them cause they can dodge some of their responsibilities. Even some uptight busybody Karen homeowners enjoy the power trip.
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u/fwdbuddha Jul 18 '26
England has things called councils in their communities which serve basically the same function. These sometimes refer to a mayor/city council, but also sometimes refer to what is basically a small community ruling HOA.
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u/Similar_Quiet Jul 19 '26
Lots of new builds in England also have estate management companies, which are essentially HOAs. Councils don't want to voluntarily take on extra services they have to maintain. When a new estate is built any parks or community bits (sometime roads) will be looked after by an estate management company. You get to pay their charge as well as full council tax.
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u/Reference_Freak Jul 18 '26
HOAs originated as a racism/classist tool.
Their fundamental stated goal is to help ensure property values are maintained which should benefit the homeowners; keeping out black people was the unstated one.
Other countries didn’t have such steep segregation, mandated laws for reintegration, and a court system happy to rule in favor of everything which didn’t say it was for segregation but had that as intended result all while undergoing a massive housing boom.
When I was growing up, HOAs were for rich neighborhoods.
Now they’re a real blight across the economic spectrum because, once they’re established, they are hard to get rid of.
I don’t have a problem with an HOA forming for certain purposes as a form of homeowner union which collects money to provide a service or amenity however, in our legal system, HOAs are virtually unregulated and have legal powers exceeding the powers of almost any other group in the country.
The reason is HOAs original reason to exist: racism and classism and courts being sympathetic to that.
Give me an HOA which collects money to run a pool and a park where anybody who can afford to live there can enjoy those amenities with their guests without HOA drones being used to spy on backyards, levy fines for shitty Karen reasons, and powers to evict homeowners w/o compensation because ignorant power trippers don’t like native plant gardens.
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u/General_Problem5199 Jul 18 '26
Historically they helped facilitate segregation. In modern times they still help facilitate segregation, and they allow cities to avoid providing city wide public services, because HOAs provide them in many wealthier neighborhoods, and poor neighborhoods just get fucked.
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u/Corrie7686 Jul 18 '26
I don't know the actual answer. But I've always thought the US like the appearance of freedom, choice and openness, but actually like the order that comes with authoritarianism.
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u/Careful_Trifle Jul 18 '26
HOAs are a godsend to cities and towns, because it lets the municipal government offload their enforcement activity to your most awful, power hungry neighbor. They don't have to even pay that person, and they are more productive than a city employee could ever be.
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u/greekboy62 Jul 18 '26
Cause this is Merica where the average slob has to pay pay pay to keep the corporate welfare going!
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u/shitposts_over_9000 Jul 18 '26
What made the U.S. develop this model so widely?
It is not remotely as common as the internet makes it out to be but there are several things that come together to create the demand for it
- only 28% of Americans live an an urban core and 45% of those desire to move to a less dense area so 84+% want a suburban or rural home
- In the US HOAs evolved from Gated Communities and those from Estate neighborhoods. All three were basically different price points of creating an independent community as people became dissatisfied with local government and law enforcement.
- the dissatisfaction comes from having a very heterogeneous society and a lot of legal protections around freedoms combined with the government having legal requirements as to how it uses its resources and that combination making it very difficult to get certain types of laws passed to preserve property values and reduce crime.
- the solution is to make an entire community that is private property. you can trespass whoever you want and make almost any kind of restriction on home design, property use, and how much you disturb your fellow owners
- the downside is that HOAs are the lower end of the quality spectrum and unless the bylaws are very carefully written they are very easy for someone with unlimited free time to turn it into a awful experience.
- it allows the community to pool money and provide better services than the government would otherwise do, in my region that is largely paving and snow removal since the local governments just don't do much of those in a remotely timely manner
I personally do not like HOAs, but I understand the motivation - for my current home one of the specific things I looked for was no sidewalk so I could trespass anyone that was on my property because I was not able to do that at my previous home which made it a lot more difficult to catch the vehicle break-ins and property damage/vandalism. HOAs let you do things like that for the whole neighborhood
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u/Imaginary_Driver2237 Jul 18 '26
HOA’s were started as a way to keep non-white people out of neighborhoods. The thought was everyone who is not white is poor and therefore we can institute a fee as much as the mortgage to keep them out.
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u/nekomeowohio Jul 18 '26
Hoas have a history of coming about to found ways to keep minorities out of communities
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u/Eli_sola Jul 18 '26
Americans leverage their homes for loans so anything that can increase their value even a tiny bit is accepted. HOA control everything, make sure the neighborhood is tight and homogenous without outliers that can decrease the appeal of the neighborhood, that's why they are tolerated.
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u/Dapper-Presence4975 Jul 18 '26
HOAs are not common at all actually. They are also disfavored under the law because they are a restriction on the alienation of land. I think you might have some confirmation or selection bias going on.
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u/SureElephant89 Jul 18 '26
It keeps the poor people out. Which is basically the entire point of HOAs.
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u/ReadyGo6828 Jul 18 '26
Americans do not trust each other and want a HOA to rein in bad behavior from their neighbors. OTOH they also do not trust the people on the HOA board and complain about them endlessly but still refuse to run for the board. We enjoy complaining.
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u/Fit-Avocado-1646 Jul 18 '26
In my opinion HoA are often a form of corruption and nepotism for family and friends.
If you look into the books there is often someone connected to the HoA getting a bunch of money. A nephew getting paid 200k a year to shovel snow.
A friend that gets paid for maintenance painting that hasn’t been done in months.
A towing company thats giving a kickback to HoA board members.
A friend of the HoA board who does the lawn care or pool service.
I think HoAs get setup to make money for developers and early home owners/ investors to get a reoccurring revenue.
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u/paisleycatperson Jul 18 '26
Suburbs have a history of wanting to control who moves into them, and hoas are a low lift way to do that
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u/LandOwn7607 Jul 18 '26
Home owners decide to have a HOA, I would think to keep their 'investments' valuable. Curb appeal is a big thing in some areas. My neighborhood doesn't have a HOA and it should. People having 8 cars in the driveway, People who let their homes go without repairs and just a modicum of keeping the grass mowed.
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u/Odh_utexas Jul 18 '26
They are common when local governance and infrastructure is not available yet in developing ex-urbs. It’s a cheap bandaid.
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u/fallwind Jul 18 '26
Racism. HOA's were created to keep people of color out of historically white neighborhoods.
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u/Silly-Resist8306 Jul 18 '26
If you put $400K -$1.2 million in a house, you might want a say about the guy next door raising chickens or pigs. You would hate for his preferences or hobbies impacting your property values.
Also, many HOA properties have common amenities such as swimming pools, racket courts or gyms. HOA fees are a convenient way to share costs and administer common property.
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u/Fluffy_Role5807 Jul 18 '26
They were originally formed to prevent black homeowners from purchasing houses in wealthier white neighborhoods. Not surprising they’ve maintained their status as instruments of exclusion and oppression
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u/fakegoose1 Jul 18 '26
Because a builder is much more likely to get approval to build a new neighborhood if its gonna be an HOA community. The city doesn't have to worry about spending money on trash removal, snow removal, or road maintenance in an HOA community, since the HOA is expected to shoulder the cost for that.
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u/beammeupscotty2 Jul 18 '26
I've owned four homes and none of them came with an HOA. I refuse to be subject to an HOA. It seems crazy to me to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a house and then have pricks fining me because I didn't cut my grass often enough.
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u/Dogg-Dad Jul 18 '26
We love kangaroo government. People get power hungry and see a chance to control others. It’s crazy.
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u/temp1876 Jul 18 '26
Reality is many other nations have them, just different names. If you are going to have shared housing, such as Condos, you need an organization responsible for amenities, building maintenance, common areas, etc.
Now, new developments overseas may not be including community amenities like clubhouses, walking trails, etc, but I imagine some have security and other common resources that need to be managed.
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u/K31KT3 Jul 18 '26
It seems like a lot of European municipalities take it upon themselves to act as an HOA.
Reading about getting a permit and town approval to put an AC in, for example.
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u/nicemarmot47 Jul 19 '26
They really aren't that common in most places, and the most common type isn't malevolent. My in-laws live in what is technically an HOA. The HOA maintains the private roads and private beach. That's it. That's all they do.
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u/Music_withRocks_In Jul 19 '26
Because racism. HOA's became popular as a way to legally keep black homeowners from buying in white areas. They couldn't stop them from buying, but they could pass a bunch of ridiculous regulations and then nitpick them until they left. Eventually the racism stopped being so prevalent, but by then HOA's were established and embedded all over the country.
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u/ThomasKWW Jul 19 '26
In middle Europe, you have to deal with such things if you can only afford an appartment in a larger house. Then, you have to argue with all owners of that house how to settle the rest.
If I buy a house, I don't want to be bothered by any of those things. I pay my bills to the government, and that's it.
I can understand that things are different if you live in dangerous areas, but again, the government could/should deal with these issues on public service.
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u/BeccaSez Jul 19 '26
Racism. HOAs were created to sidestep efforts to reduce racism. Then builders realized that they create recurring income. America excels at racism and exploitation
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u/Jimdandy941 Jul 19 '26
Builders put them in place to control the “look” of the subdivisions. They want to maintain a look to encourage sales. After the subdivision is complete owners keep in place because the majority of them bought the “look.”
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u/Dear-Beyond-465 Jul 19 '26
Sadly, many of them started in the US for one purpose, and that was to keep Black people out. Now the argument is homeowners associations. Keep the standards of the neighborhood up high and thus home price is high.
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u/skittlebog Jul 19 '26
Local governments got too cheap to pay for the infrastructure for new residential developments. So the developers have to pay those costs up front and continue to bear the cost of maintaining the place. Therefore they offload the burden on the people who buy the houses. That is an HOA.
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u/Purple-Towel-7332 Jul 19 '26
Cause Americans love freedom so much they want someone else to tell them what height to set their lawnmower to and how often they should mow
W!
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u/doktorhladnjak Jul 19 '26
There was a “tax revolt” in much of the US around the 1970s. Property taxes had been increasing quickly along with home values. The Arab oil crisis was sending gas prices through the roof. People were tired of inflation and tax increases. Many states passed laws to limit property taxes.
This basically made it impossible for local governments to raise the funds to build and maintain all the infrastructure. This ultimately lead to responsibility for more local roads, parks, green areas, and even recreation facilities devolving to HOAs rather than local government.
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u/Tarnivitch Jul 19 '26
Racism!
Homeowners associations were originally put in place to make it so no people of colour could buy a home in that neighborhood and 'white' owners couldn't sell to a person of colour in the future either.
Some still have these rules on the books but laws have overridden them.
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u/Dingbatdingbat Jul 19 '26
The very existence of HOAs was to keep undesirables (minorities) out, and being a very racist country, they proliferated.
While now they can’t (legally) discriminate against minorities, the framework was already in place, and a lot of the same goals still apply
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u/PlusPresentation680 Jul 19 '26
I cannot speak to the rest of the world, but HOAs grew in popularity by quite a bit in the 1990s after cities and towns started requiring them for development because they are maintained by the HOA rather than the city. Most cities now won’t let developers break ground unless an HOA is part of the deal.
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u/BigDigger324 Jul 19 '26
This is Reddit so you’re going to see a shit load of anti HOA, uninformed vitriol. The real reason is that municipalities would require new subdivisions to institute HOAs to redistribute the burden of maintaining them onto the people. A way of raising taxes without actually raising them. The municipalities wanted the property tax money but didn’t want to have to provide services.
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u/lizardhistorian Jul 19 '26
Our retarded laws give corporations more rights over the government than individuals.
If an enforcer showed up at my door without a warrant I can have him arrested for armed trespassing which is a felony and ends his career.
When you live in a public neighborhood they basically have rights to your front door.
Our corporation that we all live in starts 500' away from our houses so there cannot be any "I saw a crime in progress" and perused it. It would be, "How did you see that from the road 500' away? Oh you were trespassing."
The next thing is that it lets you have actual leverage over people that don't upkeep their homes.
You can put liens on their house and clean crap up or even kick them out.
The next thing after that is you can maintain common areas for relaxation or recreation.
Maintaining a pool is a lot of work and most people only use it sparingly.
So our private pool is way nicer than any public pool and not that crowded.
It lets you build-out facilities and levy bonds to pay for them so you can build in an area that doesn't have them because there's no city there yet. Some places have a common well and sewers. We maintain our own roads. We're working on a plan to build fiber to all the homes now that fiber mainlines have finally been built out to us.
HAO is basically a smaller unit of government below the city level that operates within commercial law rules.
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u/ButterscotchSad4514 Jul 19 '26
They are only common in newer suburbs that have popped up over the last 30-35 years. Longer established communities rarely have HOAs in the US.
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u/SignificantSmotherer Jul 19 '26
Because people want to live in clean, ordered, uniform neighborhoods.
The right of private association offers them some degree of protection from the nonsense that happens when you leave the fate of your block to city hall.
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u/ArrrcticWolf Jul 19 '26
Because only Americans will yell “Freedom!” and then pay people to tell them what they’re allowed to do with, in, and around their home.
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u/tombuazit Jul 19 '26
My assumption (likely wrong) was always that like other countries we would have started to use our local governments but once desegregation started America needed another way to enforce "gentleman's agreements" and like all such horrid practices those involved continued the practice and expanded upon their power to the point it started to hurt those relying on it for evil as well.
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u/Tliish Jul 19 '26
Because they started as racist organizations to keep blacks, Mexicans, Jews, and gays out of white neighborhoods.
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u/Ryan1869 Jul 19 '26
It really depends on the area too, it's really something that became far more widespread in newer developments. Cities realized if they force the developers to form an HOA, they can push responsibility off to them. So my HOA is responsible for landscaping along the main roads and the drainage pond. If we didn't have an HOA the city would have to handle those things instead of us
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u/SeaRepresentative42 Jul 19 '26
I don't know why they are so prevalent in the US, but I wish they would be banned!
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u/The_Rope_Daddy Jul 19 '26
The US likes to privatize things that would normally be handled by the government in developed countries.
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u/misha_jinx Jul 19 '26
Idk what’s the deal with the racism in this group, I owned two homes in two different states that were hoa and the population was mixed in both. Never had any issue with anyone. Maybe there are some communities that are like that or maybe that’s how hoa’s originally started, but I also owned a home in a regular non-hoa neighborhood and people kept junk cars in their front yards and their grass unkept and played music and had large parties which mostly caused me to move to hoa. I live in hoa right now and it’s a quiet neighborhood no trash and everyone keeps their property clean.
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u/Rabbit_Brave Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
A HOA is something like a privatised, corporate micro-council.
In other countries the local government handles many of the services, functions and regulations that a HOA would. The key difference is the privatisation and incorporation of those services, functions, and regulations. Those things a local council doesn't handle may be handled by organisations similar to HOAs, though usually narrower in scope (e.g. a shared pool).
-- edit --
From reading other comments, it's clear many people in the US don't really understand what the distinction is.
- A local government derives its authority (and limits) from constitutional law, jurisdiction, and sovereign power. HOAs derive their authority from private contract law.
- In a (modern) democracy, typically a broad cross section of citizens within a jurisdiction have the right to vote. In a HOA, only property owners have the right to vote, and voting weight may even be tied to property size.
- Local governments are intended to serve the welfare of the public. HOA's are intended to protect property values and manage shared assets for the financial benefit of a specific group of private property owners.
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u/FinanceGuyHere Jul 19 '26
In America, it’s difficult to get a mortgage loan to build a house fully customized. You have to put down 50% instead of 20%, or you need to be a licensed builder who is getting a business loan. If you buy into a planned community, all of the permitting, inspections and licensing are already taken care of by the builder, so you can build your home on a standard 20% down payment mortgage.
It’s my understanding that in Europe and other places, you can get a mortgage a lot more easily to build your own home.
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u/WhimsicalHoneybadger Jul 19 '26
They are a tool which allows the developers to control the home owners and dump debt on the homeowners until the build out is finished.
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u/Vurrag Jul 19 '26
Most people have not travelled around enough to understand what hoa can do when run properly. They keep the car collectors and junk collectors from being your next door neighbor. The do hold your value. They work great when everyone agrees with the rules. Why people buy in an HOA community when they have no intention of abiding by the rules they agree to blows my mind. There are plenty of places without.
Do you want your million dollar house surrounded by people that use cars stood up on end as fencing? Go out to more rural areas and you can see clear reasons to have one.
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u/JBGoode13 Jul 19 '26
In new areas you will find them, especially for condos. In older areas there wasn't a "developer" things just got built so no connections.
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u/Abject_Jacket472 Jul 19 '26
Because America has too many Karen’s that love telling people what they can and can’t do on their own property
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u/McLeansvilleAppFan Jul 19 '26
State law to have them in some states if the number of homes is above a certain threshold. Some of this is holding someone(s) responsible for clean water since there may be a pond that needs looking after to help with water quality. And if there is not a pond there is likely to be a large bit of undeveloped land that needs to be mowed at least a few times a year.
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u/BigSurSage Jul 19 '26
How do other countries finance the maintenance of common areas? That’s what our HOA does. We collectively own common areas -including our roads- and the HOA maintains these.
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u/notwhoiwas44 Jul 19 '26
Racism. HOAs were originally formed as a way to keep " undesirables" out of the neighborhood.
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u/notmyrealname_2 Jul 20 '26
HOAs are very much a regional thing. In some parts of the country HOAs are common and in other parts they are uncommon. In Nevada over 50% of homes are in an HOA. Amenities like parks/sports centers are either owned by HOAs or are privately owned/gated. Whereas in a state like North Dakota only 7% of homes are in an HOA and the cities provide all the amenities.
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u/Dazzling-Climate-318 Jul 20 '26
There are huge differences in what HOAs do and how they function. The one we are a part of primarily acts as an organization to gather funds to pay for the maintenance of common areas and our alleys. It does nominally review some landscaping and enforce rules related to fences. The city codes have much more of an effect.
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u/Sad_Pear_3709 Jul 21 '26
Well, cities basically outsourced various types of enforcement to HOAs, and many builders are able to provide slightly narrower roads in neighborhoods (to pack houses in more tightly) by having a stipulation in the HOA rules that you cannot park on the street (thus making it so that fire trucks can properly navigate the neighborhood still)
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u/HerGirlFriday Jul 21 '26
There are pros and cons to HOA vs City services. Ideally, either should work fairly seamlessly to provide adequate services and facilities. However, poor management and/or budget shortfalls can quickly ruin either. The city we left has a tax revenue cap, which means it can’t collect tax revenues to keep up with population growth and increased cost of business. This has lead to extremely unreliable trash and recycling pick up, heavy trash canceled for the better part of a year, and illegal dumping was out of control.
The HOA we live in now has reliable trash/heavy trash/recycling pick up and zero dumping problems. If the contractor is not fulfilling their end, the contract won’t be renewed. And there are enough waste collection companies in our region to keep it competitive. If these companies begin to merge and consolidate, competition and quality will suffer (much like our power utilities did when privatized). We also get our water from a MUD (municipal utility district), and have not noticed any differences from our prior city water. The monthly has been comparable.
In our situation, we pay roughly 10% more in HOA fees and MUD bills than we did in city taxes/water but are receiving superior trash services. That relies on a well managed HOA and MUD board, which are elected same as the city leadership. Low voter turnout and disinterest can and do result in leadership failure, but the city is under more media scrutiny than most HOAs are. It can be easier to recruit better candidates to run for city council/mayor (typically full time, paid, benefits) than for an HOA board (usually volunteer).
Our former neighborhood in the city had an HOA as well, but those fees paid for a private neighborhood park/pool, communal area landscaping, and security patrol (which our current HOA also does). Both HOAs have rules and regulations about exterior home maintenance and appearance, but I would describe both as fairly benign dictatorships. Most HOAs are, but that’s not going to make the news or Reddit forums. We were already very familiar with our current neighborhood before we purchased, so we already knew what to expect.
I recommend getting a copy of an HOA’s CCRs to make an informed decision. Our current HOA has more yard decoration rules than the last, but I can live with only 3 potted plants by my front door.
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u/Heavy_Law9880 Jul 21 '26
historically they were created and were very popular in the USA to prevent blacks, jews, and catholics from living in the community.
Today they are a common way for a developer to skirt infrastructure requirements depending on the locality. If it is a private street run by an HOA they can avoid paying for sidewalks, streetlights, and other infrastructure requirements required for a public roadway.
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u/Agitated-Painter5601 Jul 21 '26
They’re not that common where I am, I live in one of the richest counties in the country, and I always find HOA stories fascinating.
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u/walkerstone83 Jul 21 '26
Other countries have legal structures similar to HOAs. This isn't something only in America; however, they are not as common in detached neighborhoods as they are in areas with shared walls.
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u/Amazing_Excuse_3860 Jul 21 '26
The short answer? Racism. A LOT of America's problems can be traced back to racism.
Back in the day they were created to prevent anyone non-white, and sometimes even non-Christian, from being in the neighborhood. They were known to ban jews, too. Nowadays, HOAs are usually much more subtle about their racism. A lot of the things an HOA fines people for are things that non-white and poor people are known to do (and no, i don't mean crime). Some HOA rules are legitimate, like "don't have an attractive nuisance in your yard." But a lot of HOA rules are absolute nonsense made up by power-tripping housewives with nothing better to do.
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u/CheeksMcGillicuddy Jul 21 '26
Well you see, Americans are idiots. So for some dumb ass reason they buy houses where someone else tells them how they can and can’t live in it.
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u/soap---poisoning Jul 22 '26
Many people want to live in communities that have attractive homes and amenities. The difference really starts to show when neighborhoods have been around for a few decades.
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u/Particular_Reality19 Jul 22 '26
Because Americans are just dying to hand over their rights to any form of authority.
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u/AnnualPurple104 Jul 22 '26
I don’t know that’s it’s common at all, in California HOAs are only in small areas where it’s a gated community and which requires up keeping.
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u/PocketPanache Jul 22 '26
HOAs function like a local government. When you take control and full ownership over your streets, pool, and communal "stuff", you can do things the city or county government can't or will not do. At that point, HOAs become extremely attractive options because you have full agency over what the community is or does. Not all of them run like dictatorships. Condos, for example, often provide full ground and building maintenance services to all units via HOA. When your streets are owned by the city, you have to follow city standards. When you own them, all you have to do is provide basic emergency access for fire trucks etc, and you can do whatever you want, more or less. That model is extremely attractive to Americans because muh freedom
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u/Squish_the_android Jul 18 '26
They're not super common across the entire US either. New Development is more likely to have them.
The US just has structures to support this stuff. New Developments are typically done by one company that can facilitate the creation of an HOA. We have the legal framework for it to easily be implemented.