[Dog Gone]

It's good advice. They can serve a good function, and in places like Houston where there are no zoning laws, they are a necessity in order to prevent the house next to yours from becoming a quickie-mart site over your objection.

People who do not read the by-laws (which become enforceable covenants running with the title to your land) are fools.

I would not buy a house in a subdivision governed by an HOA without first checking with a few neighbors, too. They will have invaluable insight as to how their HOA operates.

They tend to keep the property value of your neighborhood high, as it is nearly impossible for neighborhood deterioration to occur under their supervision. They also can be a real pain in the butt, especially with little things that you think should be none of their business (like how many indoor pets you can have.)

READ THE FINE PRINT.

[Sloth]

they are a necessity in order to prevent the house next to yours from becoming a quickie-mart site over your objection.

Really? My strategy would be to buy the adjacent lots, if I wanted to prevent this. If I couldn't afford to do so, I guess it wouldn't be ANY OF MY BUSINESS what was built there.

[38special]

We live in a nice small middle-class subdivision around Houston without any H.O.A and everything is fine. They are really not needed. Some of our neighbors are assholes but that's ok, we don't talk to them and they don't to us. Most of our neighbors are good and we build decks, saunas, patio covers, flagpoles, and nobody says we can't because it's our homes not the H.O.A.