I believe a land contract is a violations of the due on sale clause of the original mortgage (I might be wrong on that)

We removed about half of the residents because of drugs and rule violations.

From there, you can essentially move out of your 'unit' and rent the entire property out without violating your agreement. 

Are there any fair housing laws that would be violated by doing a search to make your decision ?

There are also a lot of middle of the road and good HOA's too.HOA's are ran by volunteers (Board of Directors) that direct Management to perform projects, budgets, violations, finances, etc.Below are the areas you definitely want to stay away from as an investor:Self Managed Homeowner Associations Association's with non-accredited Management Companies and/or ManagersAssociation's with less than 30% Reserve Funding Levels - Means high risk of large special assessmentsAssociation's with large amount of deferred maintenance - If something looks broken when your walking into the community, it likely is.Homeowner Associations in a way, with the proper Board and/or Management Company actually do help investors.If you tenant is performing illegal activities, throwing parties or causing obvious damage, the HOA will notify the owner of the unit via a warning or hearing.  

I would probably spend a few hours on title search for each one as the other component that is not accounted for is code violations etc.

Interestingly enough, Facebook actually just got in trouble last week with the HUD laws for violating the Fair Housing Act!

If you violated the lease, you violated the lease. 

When a tenant chooses to violate their lease they are relying on the emotional weakness of their landlord to allow it to pass.

In the contract is that if I get a notice from the city/county of violations, then I can take action.