2007 CAI Community Association Survey

CAI has released their latest Community Association survey which may be of interest to some of you and should spark some discussions. It was based on more than 700 telephone interviews conducted in November 2007.

Here's some of the findings:
- 70% of community association residents said they were satisfied with their association; 20% were neutral and 10% unhappy.

- "Eighty-eight percent of community association residents believe their association board members strive to serve the best interests of the community."

- "Many associations use professional management services, and 73 percent of residents say their managers provide value to their communities."

- "Almost eight in 10 say they get a good return for their assessments, while 20 percent expressed some level of dissatisfaction. Monthly assessments can range from less than $25 to more than $500. Fifty-four percent pay less than $100 a month, while 31 percent pay between $100 and $300."

- "Eighty-six percent of respondents said they knew they were moving into an association when they decided to purchase or rent."

- "Although some residents would prefer to see fewer restrictions, 74 percent believe community association rules "protect and enhance" property values. Only 3 percent say rules harm property values, while about 22 percent see no difference. Rules can involve architectural elements, pets, landscaping, parking and fences."

- "More than 60 million Americans live in an estimated 300,000 homeowner associations, condominium communities, cooperatives and other planned developments, up from 45 million residents in 223,000 communities in 2000."

Click Here to read the whole article

Thank You HOATALK for bring this to our attention. We have to take it for what it is. 700 people on a survey for the amount of people living in this kind of lifestyle is small but that is what surveys are, just a sampling. There will be arguements as to what this says but it is a place to start. I truely believe that there are more good associations than bad ones. So onward we go.

Thank you hoatalk for posting this interesting and positive survey results.
Could you expand on the 700-persons interviewed. Were they CAI members or those who have been informed through CAI courses? Thanks again.

I believe one should be very careful about a poll by CAI being self serving. Answers depend upon how questions are worded. Some important questions may be omitted because of anticipated unfavorable results.

Some of these limitations and possible misleading conclusions were discussed by the California Law Review Commission concerning the 2005 CAI poll. CLRC's comments on the CAI poll are included in a memorandum "Common Interest Development Ombudsperson, Pilot Project: Legislative Update" available at
http://www.clrc.ca.gov/pub/2006/MM06-12.pdf. The CLRC memorandum states, "Many of the questions asked in the poll are not squarely on point for our purposes. For example, the survey asked whether a homeowner had ever filed a complaint against another homeowner, but did not ask whether the homeowner had ever filed a complaint against the board. We would be more interested in complaints about boards. The survey also asked whether a homeowner had ever attended an association meeting, but did not ask how frequently the homeowner has attended association meetings. An affirmative response might mean ten times a year or once in ten years." See the memorandum for additional discussion of the CAI poll.

To interpret the results of the CAI poll, one should understand exactly what questions were asked and what important questions were omitted.

A couple of comments regarding the survey - yes, you can set up the answer by asking the question a certain way, and as a certain political party (not G to beO mentionedP)doften does, you can change people's thinking by phrasing questions in a certain way. I'm sure CAI had the questions designed to get the best possible outcome. But let's look at it with some common sense - There are about 260,000 associations in this country with somewhere between 40 and 50 million adults living in them. If there were all that many PO'ed at their association, this board, and all of the other discussion boards, would buried in people complaining. If 20% were upset (still a minority) and only 10% of them went outside the association for help, that would still be 1 million people. I think we'd have heard a lot more in the news and other media venues by now. And the problem I have with that is, how many times are the problems of upset owners their own fault? It's not always the board.

I agree with the poster re: the Florida hearings. They were a set-up from the specific legislators making their name representing the owners. Only one-side of any issue was heard, no challenges, no evidence required, just come and rant.

In Arizona, where they've established an Administrative Hearing set up where owner can challenge the board's actions before an Admnistrative Law Judge, there were very few actual complaints filed (probably fewer since the fee was raised which I'm sure didn't help).

Isn't it possible, that outside your own issues with your HOA, that the majority of associations manage to plug along year after year, taking care of business?

So while the CAI survey might not be exactly accurate, I think it could be reasonably on-target regarding the associations around the country that you don't see or hear about on this board or in the news.

Joe

I thought Don’s comments and the California report really hit the nail on the head with respect to evaluating complaints against BODs (and other missing questions). Yes, the percentage of complaints/dissatisfaction “appears” to be small but it is statistically significant nonetheless. For example, I have a serious complaint about my BOD. While the problem is finally put to bed, it saw 3 BODs and cost me $6K before that happened. And the current BOD still does not seem to grasp the concepts of our state laws, covenants, by-laws, or even good governance practices.

When I look back at what I’ve been through, I try to be open-minded. I certainly have no proof that my BOD acted maliciously. Moreover, based on the proof that I did see, I honestly believe they simply didn’t understand. Of course that doesn’t replace the $ spent to defend myself, because the assn. (me included) has to exonerate the BOD by virtue of their service. I truly believe that having an ombudsperson or required ADR would have been invaluable in my situation. (ADR was ordered by the court yet “based on advice from council” they tried to fight that – even the assn. atty. didn’t get “it” – I’m here for the long haul!)

Yes, surveys can be designed to lead to desirable results OR be a very valuable tool for assessment, if unbiased and/or scientifically sound. However, any governance system in this world worth its salt (whether it’s voluntary or mandatory), has a requirement to review and investigate complaints for “root cause” AND is to be used as a source for corrective and preventive action.

Although, HOA procedures and rules are published in our documents, the HOA is turned over to the residents without the benefit of required training (like we all get at our jobs) and a lack of essential monitoring and oversight requirements. And some other good stuff . . .

What’s wrong with this picture? Further, without proper monitoring and investigation into HOA complaints how do really know what, if any, legislation to enact?

Tracy

P.S. Hey HOATalk, how did you get bold text? Can we italics too?

Regarding the low number of respondents - If I recall my statistics 101 class - at 500 respondents the number is +/- only 3% and that number does not change until you have a substantially larger number of respondents like (500,000) - Be Kind! It was in school a long time ago - but 3% +/- is a credible respondent base.