California HOAs · How they grew

The coast first, then inland: six decades of California’s associations

The Secretary of State’s register keeps the day each association’s articles were filed. Put in order, those dates show the state building its associations along the coast in the 1970s and 1980s, then further inland every decade since — and a boom in the 2000s that left many of its associations suspended within a few years.

Decade by decade

Each map shows the homes of the associations formed in that decade in colour, over the homes of every association formed before it in grey. Only associations still active today are drawn: the register cannot say where a dissolved one was.

One grain is one home, scattered round the cross streets the association filed. 1,877,764 of 2,375,291 homes are drawn; the rest belong to associations whose streets the Census Bureau’s map cannot find. The largest associations are drawn smaller than they are: the register keeps no more than three digits of a count.

Each decade’s new homes moved inland

19% of the homes in associations formed in the 1970s were in inland counties. Of those formed since 2010, 35% are, led by Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento and Placer counties.

The boom of the 2000s, and what was left of it

1,916 associations were formed in 2006, more than in any year before or since. By 2011 there were 364. The associations formed at the top of the boom fared worst: 49% of those formed in 2007 and 2008 were suspended or dissolved within five years, against 26% of those formed in 2013–2016. 38% of the 2007 and 2008 associations have never filed the statement that says how many homes they govern: many were set up for developments that were never finished.

Suspension is how the state enforces paperwork: the Franchise Tax Board or the Secretary of State suspends a corporation that stops filing, and most are restored once they catch up. An association that is suspended cannot sue or defend itself in court until it is restored.

By decade

The 1980s formed the associations governing the most homes today: 611,046.

Read it with care

• A birthday, not a building date. An association is usually formed as its first homes go on sale, but a building converted to condominiums may be decades older than its association.
• Only survivors are mapped. Of the 1,981 dissolutions on the register, 2 were filed before 2004: associations dissolved in earlier decades are mostly missing altogether, so the older decades are undercounted.
• Unincorporated associations are left out. 2,335 of them, governing 55,794 homes, appear on the register only from the day they first filed a statement, which tells nothing about when they began.
• Counts stop at 999. The register’s field for the number of homes holds three digits. No association is on file with a thousand homes, though several govern many thousands — the foundation of Laguna Woods Village is on file with 127 — so the totals here are floors.
• Who manages an association is not on these maps. The register has named managing agents only since 2022, too short a record to show how the business has changed.