When I was looking for a new home last year I noticed that the homes in the area fell into four general categories:
1. Detached homes with an HOA -- mostly newer subdivisions
2. Detached homes with no HOA -- mainly older suburbs or rural areas
3. Townhome development with HOA -- mostly located in newer suburban area
4. Townhome development with no HOA -- mostly outlying subdivisions surrounded by rural areas
Every one of these had its advantages and disadvantages, but I can tell you that #4 was the absolute worst. These developments tended to look worn and shabby even if they were only a few years old. And many of them seem to have at least 25% more cars parked around them than there are spaces for them in garages and driveways. I decided that living with limited rules and regulations is great, but it is awful when you live that way in a place where you have no space between your home and your neighbor's home.
After lots of research, I found that #1 is the ideal situation if you need to live in an area where residential lots are less than a half-acre in size -- provided the HOA is a "benign" one. And by "benign" I mean it has almost no function other than to enforce rules and regulations and collect nominal fees for very limited common expenses. I found a perfect HOA that doesn't have any recreational facilities and doesn't even maintain the streets or collect garbage. It charges an annual fee of about $100 per home just to pay for the maintenance of an adjacent open space that is used for stormwater management and flood control.
This is my home, is a small western PA town, on a one mile around cul-d-sac with about 100 houses.
My house was one of the first, built in 1979 so the neighborhood has under gone several family changes over the years.
No rules except self imposed ones, like mow the lawn, keep your house looking like a home and no trash lying about.
There is only a single undeveloped lot, directly across the street from my house and it is owned by a {conservative} woman that lives further up the street.
The lawn is always well taken care of and during the voting season full of Trump/pubbie signs.
Any demonRAT signs are removed by me [with her permission] and she plans to built a new home, and sell the one she now owns.
The houses are selling in the high $300, low $400K range so it is a nice, middle income neighborhood.
I flew the American flag for 40 years but replaced it with a Gadsden flag in November of 2020 and it will fly until America is changed back to a Republic.
1. Detached homes with an HOA -- mostly newer subdivisions
2. Detached homes with no HOA -- mainly older suburbs or rural areas
Although the subdivisions aren't newer. The HOA needs to be highly regulated and Virginia law has gotten better about that, giving more power to the owners.
HOAs are 'voluntary' only in an Orwellian sense of the word. It is pretty much getting so that if you want to purchase a newer home, you're going to be forced to 'volundarily' join their association.
They are a pestilence across the land, and tend to be run by evil and petty busybodies.