To the extent you accept that an HOA is necessary at all, I think you are right. But I’m not sure that they are necessary. We have lived in two homes in SD without HOAs and one that had an HOA (the one with the HOA had a lot of rentals for UCSD, etc.) We never wished for an HOA when one didn’t exist. And the one time we did have to deal with an HOA it was clear that the board was interested in handing out maintenance contracts to friends. So the interest in upgrading things for resale value I think is simply a ruse.
