It’s extremely common for local governments to make an HOA a legal requirement for new developments. This lets them put things like road maintenance, park maintenance, and trash pickup in private hands so the local government doesn’t have to pay for them. (They’re still happy to collect property taxes from the new residents at full rate, of course.) The result is that it becomes harder and harder to find non-HOA homes.

I’d have no problem with their existence if it was a free market, but I have a big problem with them when they’re being legally mandated.

> It’s extremely common for local governments to make an HOA a legal requirement for new developments.

This is true, and I'd never choose to live in an area like that.