The number of homes being built in communities operated by a homeowners’ association (HOA) is rising. But not all the folks who purchase those homes realize what they are getting themselves into.

Common-interest developments -- in which HOAs run the properties after builders sell out all their lots, houses or apartments -- are the country’s fastest-growing form of housing. And whether you like it or not, you must join your association upon purchasing such a home. You can’t opt out just because you don’t use the pool, tennis courts or other community amenities.

According to the Census Bureau, 61 percent of all new single-family houses completed last year were in HOA-run properties, up from 48 percent in 2010. The Community Associations Institute (CAI) says 69 million Americans now reside in such places.

These associations are created to sustain property values, maintain common areas and enforce the rules that govern their communities. Some associations ban owners from parking business vehicles on their driveways, for example. Some HOAs say you can’t park any kind of truck in their communities, even in your own garage.

Keep your garage doors closed, while you’re at it. Make sure your draperies are all the same color and material as your neighbors’. Plant flowers here, but not there, and only this kind of plant. Good luck putting in a window air conditioning unit. Thinking about replacing your roof with a lighter shingle, or painting your front door red? Think again.

Those, of course, are some of the strictest rules an HOA might put into effect. Most rules are fairly benign. According to CAI, a national sampling of HOA residents rated their associations as either positive (64 percent) or neutral (26 percent). Only 1 in 10 had grievances, mostly involving how their particular complaint was handled.

Most HOA rules are in place for good reason. But once in a while, you run into an overzealous volunteer board or paid management company, and that’s when the gloves can come off.

Here, gathered from numerous sources, are some of the most egregious offenders:

-- In Virginia, a 90-year-old Medal of Honor winner placed a flagpole in his front yard, only to be told that it wasn’t allowed. The HOA relented, but only after the issue went public and the veteran received support from members of Congress, the White House and the American Legion.

-- A California man was flagged for having too many rosebushes on his 4.5-acre property. A judge ruled that he was in violation of the community’s architectural design rules. He offered to scale back his plantings, but was still forced to pay the HOA’s $70,000 legal bill, and eventually lost his home to the bank.

-- “For Sale” signs are illegal in many communities. A Tennessee woman was forced to move her lawn sign to her window, even though the builder, still active in the neighborhood, had signs all over the place.

-- When a Florida resident couldn’t afford to re-sod his lawn because the cost of his adjustable-rate mortgage had jumped markedly, his HOA sued him. He lost, and when he ignored the court’s order, he was put in jail.

-- A wounded combat vet in Georgia was set to receive a newly built house, compliments of Homes for Our Troops, when his HOA balked because his slightly smaller house might have lowered property values for his neighbors.

-- One California condo doesn’t allow pets’ feet to touch the floor in any common space, so a 61-year-old resident who walked with a cane was forced to carry her spaniel through the lobby every day. When she could no longer do so, she was fined $25 every time, and was eventually forced to move.

Rabid HOAs don’t always win, though. In Florida, a man whose commercial vehicle didn’t fit inside his garage was nabbed for parking the truck on his driveway. The HOA took him to court, even though he had been parking in the driveway for years. He won, the HOA appealed and he won again. This fracas cost the HOA about $300,000.

A Virginia HOA bankrupted itself in a battle over political yard signs. During the four years the case dragged through the courts, the association boosted the HOA fee from $650 annually to $3,500 -- meaning everyone had to pay for their board being on the wrong side of an argument.

And in another case, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has charged a New Jersey condo association with discrimination after barring an elderly resident from using the front door with her service pet. The woman, who has severely limited hearing and sight, was required to use the service entry -- a violation of the Fair Housing Act, according to HUD.

The takeaway: Living in an HOA-led community is fine for some people, but it’s not for everyone. Before you buy, ask for a sit-down with a member of the association board to discuss how things are run. And look over the rules carefully to make sure you can live with them.

Veterans eligible for financing backed by Uncle Sam’s good faith and credit can borrow up to $453,100 without paying a dime for a down payment. But how about paying nothing out of pocket for closing costs, either? All without paying a higher-than-normal interest rate?

A nearly no-cost loan is just one of the latest offerings from lenders. There is also a low-down-payment program that offers borrowers a $2,000 Home Depot gift card plus a $1,500 grant to offset some closing costs, and another that allows borrowers to qualify based on their assets as opposed to their incomes.

Even the academics are getting in on the act, with a proposal for a new type of mortgage they believe will help renters with stable incomes, but no savings, purchase their first homes.

The no-cost loans are coming in the new year from NewDay USA, which only writes mortgages backed by the Veterans Administration. Under a new program, the Maryland-based lender will advise borrowers to ask sellers to pay all of their closing costs. If it is successful, past and present servicemen and women won’t need any of their own funds to buy a house.

Closing costs are expensive, so asking a seller to fork over that much could prove to be difficult. Nationally, according to ClosingCorp, a San Diego firm that supplies closing cost data to lenders, the average charge is $5,651 with property taxes and $3,438 without.

But Rob Posner, NewDay’s CEO, points out that in many markets, sellers often pay at least a share of the buyer’s closing fee, so getting them to pay somewhat more shouldn’t be a problem. In return, the seller will be receiving the full asking price for the home.

“We’ll ask for 5 percent (of the purchase price) back,” Posner said in an interview. “But if we only get 4 percent, everybody will still be happy.”

NewDay won’t negotiate on a borrower’s behalf; that’s the real estate agent’s job. But it will educate clients to ask sellers and their agents to pay their closing costs. On the flip side, the seller will have a buyer who is already fully qualified and approved based on credit and income.

“Even if a VA borrower has the cash, they should ask the seller to pay his or her closing costs,” said Posner. “They’re always better off paying full price, getting the concession and keeping their money in the bank.”

Home Depot is not a direct partner in the 3-2-1 Home loan from San Diego-based Guild Mortgage, which operates in 40 states. But with a Guild-donated $2,000 gift card for use at the big box retailer, would-be buyers can more readily consider a home that needs minor repairs or updates, says Guild President Mary Ann McGarry.

Borrowers applying for the 3-2-1 Home mortgage must put 3 percent down, but that can be funded by a gift. They also must have a minimum credit score of 620, complete a homeownership class and have incomes that fall within certain limits, which vary regionally.

With its SmartFunds loan, meanwhile, New Penn Financial of Columbia, Maryland, now allows high-end buyers to qualify for a mortgage based solely on their assets. To qualify, borrowers must have enough eligible assets to cover their total monthly obligations for five years and meet certain reserve requirements.

The loan is available in amounts up to $3 million with a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 90 percent. It is available for primary residences and second homes, but not for non-owner-occupied investment properties. New Penn is licensed in 43 states.

Elsewhere, a brand-new loan idea stems from the fertile minds of two economists who work in the Federal Reserve system. They propose a new fixed-rate mortgage that they maintain could alleviate affordability issues, boost the chance for renters to move into their own homes and still provide “a highly profitable asset” for lenders and investors.

Wayne Passmore and Alexander H. von Hafften say their idea eliminates the three major flaws with today’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage: large down payments, the slow accumulation of equity and the expense of refinancing that prevents borrowers from taking advantage of falling rates.

Under their proposal, which they call the Fixed-COFI mortgage -- COFI stands for cost of funds index -- there would be no down payment and the fixed monthly cost would be equal to that of a traditional loan. Additionally, the new loan would not compensate investors for bearing the risk that the borrower would pay off the loan early. Instead, that money would be directed toward lower monthly payments or toward buying costs.

The idea is intriguing, but short on details, and would probably take years to reach fruition. Stay tuned for more updates and innovations.

You can tell a lot about how a family lives by their refrigerator -- not what’s inside, but what’s hanging on the outside.

If your fridge door is strewn with business cards, kids’ drawings, calendars, photos, schedules and other bits of minutiae, chances are, you’re living with big-time clutter -- not just in the kitchen, but everywhere in the house.

“The sheer volume of objects clinging to (your fridge) may indicate how much clutter can be found throughout your home,” reads a press release from UCLA about a study on the subject.

In 2012, researchers affiliated with UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families, or CELF, studied American families’ material possessions and lives. The results were compiled into a book called “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century.”

The exhaustive study -- “an incredibly labor-intensive enterprise,” said lead author Jeanne Arnold -- looked into the daily lives of 32 dual-income, middle-class families in the Los Angeles area. The team made some interesting discoveries, including some situations that future homebuyers and remodelers should try to avoid.

For example, garages were so packed with household overflow that cars were parked in the driveway or on the street. No wonder a recent poll by the National Association of Home Builders found that both first-time and move-up buyers rated garage storage among their top five most essential features.

Garages do provide storage, of course, but often not for automobiles. Only 1 in 4 of the garages in the CELF study could be used for cars because they were so packed with other stuff. This, even though keeping a car out of the weather is one of the best ways to extend its life.

The book labels garages “the new junk drawer.” Many families said they were parking their stuff in their garages until they could decide what to do with it, but plans to sell items online or at a garage sale rarely materialized.

For the study, CELF sent archaeologists, anthropologists and other social scientists to systematically study families’ home lives. The resulting book presents what co-author Elinor Ochs, an anthropologist and CELF’s director, says is a troubling picture of costly space that often goes unused.

Here’s a brief look at some of the other findings.

-- One of the most common renovations the 32 homeowners undertook was upgrading their master bedrooms, usually with the addition of an adjoining bathroom. Often designed and decorated to evoke luxury hotels, these private spaces were envisioned as refuges from the hustle and bustle of family life.

Yet researchers found that other than for sleeping and bathing, these spaces were rarely used, even though the cost to upgrade them often ran above $80,000 -- an amount that approached or exceeded the homeowners’ combined annual salaries. Families gladly spent that money, while ignoring “vexing pinch-points” such as crowded kitchens.

-- Even in the L.A. region, with its favorable year-round weather, families hardly used their yards. Nearly 3 out of 4 sets of parents spent no leisure time out back, and about half their kids didn’t, either. “They could not manage to carve out time to relax, play, eat, read or swim, despite the presence of such pricey features as built-in pools, spas, dining sets and lounges,” the researchers found.

In other words, those major expenses turned out to be mostly for looks.

Arnold said that families are “very sedentary at home. The ideal of indoor-outdoor living -- the California dream since the 1950s -- seems increasingly out of reach.”

-- The volume of these families’ possessions was sometimes overwhelming: One family actually stored their dirty clothes in an unused shower. And these messes affected moms and dads very differently.

“Mothers who lamented messy or cluttered rooms or unfinished remodeling projects when describing their homes were more likely to have elevated levels of stress hormones,” read a news release, while fathers often mentioned no messes at all.

“They were unaffected physiologically,” said Arnold. “The differences between parents and their comfort level about clutter and its long-term impact on well-being are pretty astonishing.”

-- Just 3 percent of the world’s children live in the United States, but their families buy more than 40 percent of the toys purchased globally. Most homes in the study had at least 100 toys on display, and several had more than 250. And countless other toys were stashed in closets or under beds.

-- Shopping at big-box stores leads to stockpiling, which compounds clutter. Nearly half the families had a second refrigerator or freezer to accommodate extra food, and a few even had a third.

“I don’t think Americans intend to collect so much,” says co-author Anthony Graesch, an assistant professor of anthropology at Connecticut College. “But we’re really bad at ridding our homes of old possessions before buying new stuff.”