most likely the reason some Americans are fine with a HOA is because they do give up some liberties/freedoms for the other benefits that come with a HOA. Such as amenities, security, upkeep of surroundings, and other benefits from the pooling of resources (ie hoa fees). You also have essentially an arbitrator to deal with disputes between neighbors (mainly over appearances). (and generally when homes are constructed together/all at once and on a single large plot of land; their final costs are much less thus you can purchase homes for cheaper). In the case of subdivisions like this, Not all come with an HOA but that is generally the case.
I'm on the fence, so to speak. have lived in subs with and without HOA, and mostly haven't noticed much of a difference. we did get a curt letter once about a trashcan "visible from the street" but they didn't followup when I asked for more info. Depending on what street you're on, it might be visible against the back of the house, but it wasn't visible from the front street, which is all I'd assume we'd care about.
One of the values I've found is that it does provide a way to collectively prevent certain eyesores. I don't really want to have someone with 5 cars in the street on in their driveway for extended periods of time. Having a BBQ party? Sure - have 15 cars there for a few hours. Want to collect cars and work on them and leave cars 'in repair' out the street for weeks at a time? I'd rather you didn't, and would rather there be some agreed upon process to resolve those disputes.
I do understand some HOAs have people that get power hungry - grass being a 1/4" too tall, etc. That's generally bullshit, and I think there's probably other things going on in those cases where the HOA issue is the public face of some other private neighbor disputes going on.
Oh, we did have a letter once or twice about "your lawn is not kept properly". We have a lawn service and they got delayed, then it rained heavy for 3 days, and they were backed up again, and... we had really long grass. It was cut the moment someone could cut it at that point. Nature happens. If the worst that came out of that was a $50 fine or something... meh.
A lot of HOA's send letters about things they don't have authority over, and people comply anyway. If you push back or ask for clarification, they just drop it so they aren't exposed as lacking authority.
