Not that it matters, but just for conversation's sake I value my HOA primarily for property value reasons. Once my kids are out of school and I don't care about things like school zones or parks I will be moving to more rural areas without an HOA for similar reasons to why you dislike HOAs so much.
It’s odd that in my area non HOA areas have grown in price more than the gated cookie cutter communities. The people with money want out of there and live by the river and be able to have block parties with cookouts without having to be backed by a change.org petition and petty meetings.
But I’ve also seen that in some areas all you have is HOAs because nothing was developed before those communities and whatever is outside can be pretty crappy.
