[twobjshelbys]

We will never buy again with a HOA. Our HOA in Colorado started off benign and then the Californiaites came and decided they wanted to control everyone. They quickly got that that wasn't in the cards and many moved on. Either my wife or I were on the board for all of the 18 years we lived there so we knew when they were cooking something up.

We had a NO HOA requirement when we moved to NV. Our MLS listing showed association dues, but it is for a "Landscape Maintenance Association" (LMA) not a full HOA, so no worries about placing a storage shed that peeks above the fence, no permission for satellite or solar (which they can't legally restrict any more anyway), and none of the "you can't leave your garage door open or wash your car on the driveway crap.

We had considered the Phoenix valley before we came here, and if you don't have commuting concerns, we found areas in Mesa, Gilbert, and especially Queen Creek that don't have HOAs.

I think you will find that most new developments will have an obtrusive HOA, while older developed areas (back 20+ years) won't have one at all or it will be fairly passive.

As a planning oriented person and also a real estate broker, HOAs are appropriate for common property developments like condos and townhomes but have no place in detached single family developments. I actually weakened our subdivision code that required a HOA and all sorts of the covenants everyone hates - they are not required in a municipal code. All we required was covenants but didn't say what they had to contain. A community that was developed based on a community kitchen and heavy social involvement had lots different covenants than a subdivision of single family homes on .5+ acre lots.