I used to service nearby areas when I was in pest control. Anecdotal but HOA didn’t stop people from having issues like the poster above me. Hell, you’re paying a monthly fee and your neighbors are breaking into each other’s houses. And I didn’t visit the places OP mentioned I don’t think but the state of disrepair some of them had. Or how the one place had to put up signs saying they needed to raise money to fix a bridge that looked and at was going to fall apart. Like the Miami condo collapse they didn’t keep up with maintenance on a lot of stuff.