> Most homes aren’t in an HOA, so you have plenty of options if you don’t like it. If we are talking about suburban/urban homes, some large percentage are in a

> Most homes aren’t in an HOA, so you have plenty of options if you don’t like it. If we are talking about suburban/urban homes, some large percentage are in an HOA. Most people who own instead of renting do have to contend with HOAs. There are not plenty of options. In many cases, there are no other options at all. > It prevents all sorts of tragedies of the commons. What sort of "tragedy of the commons" does it prevent, exactly? That because I was laid off and had to take a lower-paying, higher-houred job, my house goes unpainted a little too long, and now the paint's peeling and chipping? That because of weather, I had to wait 3 extra weekends to mow the lawn (can't do it when I go home after work, not allowed to do it after 6pm or whatever) and now it's too tall? These aren't tragedies. > HOAs would have no power at all if you could opt out. Exactly. But you never bothered to ask why they should ever have power at all. The people who have these powers are people who should never have power under any conceivable circumstances. If there were a way to somehow discover people who craved to be on HOA boards, I would support a constitutional amendment to rescind their voting rights. > We believe in individual freedom, which includes the ability to chose Spoken by the sort of person who cheers on as the non-HOA choices dwindle to nothing. I have a compromise that just occurred to me. If, for instance, only 1.2% of homes within a given region (perhaps legislative districts) could be included within an HOA, and if the HOAs had to bid on an HOA license, such that they're competing with each other to be included in the HOA... then the true cost of HOA apologism could be factored into the market. If you want to live in one, and if that HOA has to pay for a $12 million annual license (they could easily be bid up this high, and if you're honest with yourself you know I'm right), then who am I to tell you HOAs are bad? You're paying a premium for it and it's restricted to a tiny fraction of all available homes. > If homes were cheap and moving were easy, perhaps HOAs would never have been invented. Not even close to how this works. The people who favor HOAs are emotionally invested in how others manage their own households. They're not the kind of people who are easily chased away. Quite the contrary, they want to chase others away. You know, the wrong kind of people. > People who complain about HOAs existing are the same as the people who complain about EVs. If you don’t want one, don’t buy it. Funny that example, you belong to a political constituency that is doing whatever they can to make it illegal to sell any non-EV.