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.

Conceptually great idea but they have people involved and people suck.

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.

They’re already opt-in: you opt-in when you choose to buy a home with an HOA

Also you can’t “ban HOAs.” It’s a contract you agree to when buying a house

Gonna take a controversial tack here:

No, they shouldn't be banned.

You have a choice to buy into an HOA or not. You can still buy plots of land, and build to suit; you are not obligated or limited solely to houses that already exist in HOAs. Yes, your up-front costs will be higher, because you're going to have to pay for putting in a well, septic system, and possibly running electric to your place, and if you want gas you'll need propane deliveries, versus hooking in to an existing water/sewer/electric/natural gas system. But that's still your choice.

Some people want HOAs because them come with amenities that people wouldn't have otherwise. In my area, there are two very large HOAs that both offer things like full golf courses, and horse stables with miles of trails for riding; the people buying in those HOAs buy into them because of those things; having enough land on your own to keep and ride horses is, well, good luck finding that much land as a single parcel within reasonable driving distance of any city.

Finally, if you buy a home, most of the time you want to know that your home isn't going to plummet in value. You're dropping a LOT of money on one, and hoping that, if you ever need to move, you'll be able to get the money you put in back out again. When you don't live in an HOA, there's always a risk that the things shitty neighbors will do will end up wrecking your property values. E.g., if the person right next to me starts parking dead cars in their driveway, and has yard dogs that are barking at all hours of the night, not many people are going to willingly move in next to them.

Do I LIKE HOAs? Not really. The best HOAs are the ones that have absolutely minimal interference in your daily life. I live in an HOA; they keep the road functional, specify certain aspects of new construction (minimum size--no tiny homes--colors have to be earth-tones, etc.) and... That's about it. Yeah, I'm supposed to get permission before I put in any yard statues more than 6' tall, and I'm not allowed to clear cut the trees on my property (...not that I ever plan to...), I can't put a pistol range in my yard and practice shooting at home, but that's about all. As long as I stay quiet, and mind my own business, the HOA doesn't give a shit. The most high-handed thing they've done in the last decade was amend the by-laws to ban short-term rentals; one shithead was renting out their place as an AirBnB, which led to loud parties on weekends and a lot of extra traffic.