[pdonis]

I think this is at least partly driven by the locality (city or county) wanting more property taxes from the new homes. In a city near me, there have been five new subdivisions approved in the past few years, all of which have not only HOAs but CDDs, which are basically extra property taxes (ostensibly to fund the building of more amenities in these communities like pools and community centers) that get split between the developer and the city/county until the community is fully built out, and then the city continues to collect them for an additional period that, I believe, is something like 30 years. The city/county required the HOA/CDD setup as a condition for the subdivisions to be developed.