HOA Property Myth #1
Al Bennett
· ·49m ·
All-star contributor
Executive Summary: Another Crack in the HOA Property-Value Myth
For decades, the Homeowners Association (HOA) industry has repeated one powerful sales pitch: HOAs protect property values. Leon S. Robertson’s 2019 study, Correlation of Homeowners Associations and Inferior Property Value Appreciation, challenges that claim directly.
Robertson examined 900 recent home sales in three counties: Duval County, Florida; Pima County, Arizona; and St. Louis County, Missouri. Instead of asking whether HOA homes sometimes sell for higher prices at one point in time, he asked the better investment question: How much did the same homes actually appreciate from purchase to resale?
The answer should concern every homeowner and lawmaker. After adjusting for inflation and controlling for property characteristics and economic conditions, homes in HOAs had significantly lower annual percentage returns than homes outside HOAs.
The study’s example is attention getting: for homes bought in 2013 and sold in 2018, the median annual return was 3.22% for HOA properties versus 5.75% for non-HOA properties. On a $200,000 home, that meant about $34,342 profit in an HOA compared with about $64,503 outside an HOA—a difference of more than $30,000.
And that comparison did not include HOA fees. If mandatory dues, special assessments, fines, legal costs, and other association charges were included, the HOA investment disadvantage could be even larger.
Robertson’s conclusion is blunt: the data do not support the widespread assumption that HOAs protect property values better than neighborhoods without HOAs. In fact, the observed relationship runs in the opposite direction.
This does not prove every HOA reduces every home’s value. But it does show that lawmakers, buyers, and homeowners should stop treating “HOAs protect property values” as an unquestioned fact. The real question is whether mandatory private governance, rising fees, restrictions, disputes, and enforcement powers create long-term homeowner wealth—or quietly drain it.