No first hand knowledge, but my girlfriend's cousin and her fiancé bought a house in a community with a HOA less than a year ago. The house is beautiful, but they are already putting it on the market 100% because of the HOA. They basically said that they don't feel like they even own their own house, the HOA does...

Luckily for them, his already wealthy family fell into a pretty big pile of lottery winnings a few years back, plus he makes bank himself. So, he's willing to take a financial hit just to get out of the HOA.