I always chuckle when I hear people complain about HOAs.
I gladly pay my HOA fee every month for the peace of mind that they will bother my neighbor for any of the following:
Parking outside of a driveway or in front of their house (I don't want neighbors parking on lawns or having boats in their driveway)
Yard that looks terrible
House color that I don't approve of (neighbor wanted to paint their house so they have to come to me to sign off on their color choice before submitting it to the HOA)
Yard sculptures that are an eye sore (one neighborhood without an HOA has a huge rusted statute that is not artistically placed in a yard)
There is a neighbor that has had a car parked in the driveway without being moved for months and even that bothers me. At least drive it so the cobwebs are gone.
I used to be very anti-HOA. My friends live in an HOA community, and they just bought a second house there. And there's a house for sale across the street from their house.
(A coworker lives there, bought when it was built, and got into trouble for having tomato plants in front of the house...he didn't plant them, they just "came up" on their own, before the builder had done the landscaping. Anyway.)
I like my 'hood and my neighbors. Next door neighbors painted their house bright blue. It's really cute.
But it's an older 'hood. And...the parking. A lot of people have added units (legal or not) to their small 5000 sf lots. And now you have many houses (half?) with 4-5 cars each. Some of the houses only have space for one car in the driveway, and the garage, if you have one, is too small for a car.
Visiting my friends recently, I thought "it's not so bad".
First, cars must be parked in the driveway or in the garage. There is limited off-street space.
Second, they have an on-site gym and two pools. And a basketball court, and other open space.
Third, they are really close to the elementary school. And Costco. And the movie theater.
However, they are also very close to the university, so there is traffic. They are across the street from some student housing, so there may be noise.
There are positives and negatives to HOAs, and like others said - whether or not you can find a nice house without one, will depend a lot on the area.
I live in a very HCOL place, but there's prop 13 here. So in a "mixed" neighborhood like mine, you have 1920's homes that have been doubled in size. So, someone had the money to put down $300k or $500k (depending on when they bought) and then do construction. Or if you bought post-construction, then $1.1M.
Other 2BR 1BA houses are selling for about $750k, and these tend to be 1940's originals, no updates, some 90-year old couple/ person just died. Clearly you have to be able to buy in and fix up. I'm sure the neighbors would prefer our yard look ... decent, but we've got 2 kids and 2 FT jobs, so ... you'll be waiting awhile.
Some of the houses have several generations, so there is again the parking issue.