No HOA is a toggle in the top row of the search screen, sitting with the Payment and Cash Needed chips. Turn it on and Padzilly shows only homes with no association fee.
You will also see a No HOA badge on property cards when a listing reports no association fee, so you can spot them without filtering.
Why an HOA fee deserves its own filter
Because your lender counts it.
A homeowner or condo association fee is part of your qualifying monthly payment, exactly like the mortgage, the taxes and the insurance. A $450 monthly fee is $450 of borrowing power you no longer have — and on a thirty-year horizon it is a very large number.
That is why two homes at the same asking price can be wildly different for you. The one with a $450 association fee needs roughly $70,000 to $80,000 less house to produce the same monthly payment. The price tag does not show that. The payment does.
What "No HOA" actually means here
It means the listing reports no association fee.
That is not the same as verified. A listing can show $0 because there genuinely is no association, or because the figure never made it into the MLS record. Padzilly tells you when it looks like the second case, with a note reading This listing shows $0 HOA fee.
So treat the filter as a strong signal, not a guarantee. If you are serious about a specific home, confirm with the listing agent — and be especially suspicious of a condo or a townhouse showing no fee, because those almost always have one.
When to turn it on
You are tight on monthly payment. This is the single fastest way to recover borrowing power. Removing a $400 fee from the equation does more for your list than almost any other filter.
You do not want the rules. Associations govern paint colours, parking, pets, rentals and what you may put in your own yard. Some people find that reassuring. Others find it unbearable. If you are the second kind, filter them out early rather than falling for a house and reading the covenants later.
When to leave it off
You are looking at condos or townhouses. They nearly all carry a fee. Filtering them out does not get you a cheaper condo, it gets you an empty list.
The fee buys something you would pay for anyway. A fee that covers the roof, the exterior insurance, lawn care and a pool is not pure cost — compare it against what maintaining those yourself would run. Sometimes the HOA home is the cheaper home in practice.
You want the widest possible list first. Start without the filter, see what the market has, then apply it to narrow down. A filter applied too early hides things you did not know you wanted.