SURVEY
HIGHLIGHTS
Cyber
Citizens for Justice, Inc. [CCFJ] surveyed owners of residences
in deed-restricted communities in Florida in August – October
of 2012. The survey
elicited respondents’ views about ten [10] possible
legislative reforms for Home Owners Associations.
450 usable responses were received and analyzed.
Responses which were anonymous or failed to provide an
answer to any of the 10 key questions were rejected.
Duplicate responses also were rejected.
CCFJ’s secretary, Dr. David Goldenberg, entered the
data into a standard database, then analyzed it and produced
this report.
Numbers
in brackets [#] in the report’s tables refer readers to a set
of footnotes at the end of this report.
Some
basic statistical tools were used to analyze the data in order
to extract as much information as possible for decision making.
Those techniques also are explained in the footnotes.
Summary
Table 1 shows that all ten [10] reforms are very highly
desired. The lowest
rating of YES votes was 84.7% in favor of paying a $4 annual fee
for an effective HOA regulatory agency.
The highest value was 95.4% in favor of better rules for
turning over or ending developer control of HOAs to allow residents
to determine their own
governance practices. Another test
revealed that the order
of asking the 10 key questions did not influence the size of the pro and con
ratings for those issues.
In the survey at hand there’s less than one chance in a
million that Florida residents in deed-restricted communities
actually are neutral on any of the ten issues according to the
t-tests. A huge majority of residents in deed-restricted
communities in Florida clearly desire every one of the proposed
reforms. Conversely,
these results definitely are not the whim of a vocal minority. Samples
are drawn from populations and data from the sample are used to
estimate the views of the population as a whole.
Statistical analyses enable one to estimate the odds that
the population from which a sample was drawn really differs from
the sample values or, in other words, that the sample
misrepresents the nature of the population.
(See
KEY
FINDINGS FROM TABLE 1)
Seven
[7] traits of respondents and seven [7] traits of their
communities were used to enhance understanding of the analytic
results. The
respondent traits were:
1. |
are
or aren’t
an attorney,
|
2. |
are
or aren’t a community association manager [C.A.M.],
|
3. |
are
a woman or a man,
|
4. |
are
or aren’t a CCFJ member,
|
5. |
are
full-time or part-time resident,
|
6. |
have
or haven’t served or are or are not presently serving on an
association’s board of
directors,
|
7. |
did
or did not make a comment. |
See Table
2-A for details.
(See KEY
FINDINGS FROM TABLE 2-A)
Statistical
analysis indicated that residents who had served
or were serving on a community’s board of directors held notably different views
from those respondents who had not done so.
The
seven [7] community traits considered were:
1. |
type
of community [HOA vs. CONDO], |
2. |
region
of the state where the community is located [north, central,
west coast, east coast and south],
|
3. |
size
of the community [small, that is less than 500 lots, vs. large,
that is at least 500 lots],
|
4. |
developer
does or doesn’t control the board, |
5. |
a
CAM is or isn’t used,
|
6. |
there
is or isn’t a 55+ age restriction, and
|
7. |
pets
are or aren’t allowed. Statistical
analysis indicated that very subtrait was notably
different and important in practice.
|
See
Table 2-B
for details. (See KEY
FINDINGS FROM TABLE 2-B)
Summary
Table 3 sorts and summarizes the 164 comments made.
(See
KEY FINDINGS
FROM TABLE 3)
Tables 4-A
and 4-B
contrast
and analyze the comments by community traits, and respondent
traits, respectively. (See
Key Findings from TABLE
4-A and TABLE
4-B)
Given
ten [10] issues and 14 traits, 140 cross-tabulations might be
amenable to analysis via Chi-squared test.
A Chi-squared test would indicate whether or not a given
trait influenced the answer to a particular key question.
For example, do small and large communities have
meaningful different views about the desirability of a proposed
change in the law?
Only four [4] or 2.9% of the ratings of the issues
almost certainly were influenced by a trait of their communities. Moreover,
those four issues were in the top five of most desired reforms.
Where a respondent trait,
board service or non-service, influenced the votes for or
against three different issues, namely, turnover of control, a
regulatory agency and bank liability. Two
traits, region where a community was located and whether or not
the community employed a CAM, influenced the votes for or against
reforming the eligibility rules for board service.
These
results imply that it would be quite misleading to draw any
conclusion(s) about the population of residents in Florida
deed-restricted communities just
from a given region or using a CAM or those with past/present
board service since only two community traits [region and use of
a
CAM] and one trait of respondents [past/present board service]
sometimes matter. Conversely, the size of a community, its
type [HOA vs. Condo], control by a developer, 55+ restriction,
or allowing pets didn’t impact the votes on the issues of
interest. Nor did the other respondent traits matter, that
is — full-time vs. part-time residency, gender, CCFJ
membership, being an attorney or being a CAM or making a
comment.
[Note well: the community trait of employing a CAM is not
the same as the respondent trait of being a CAM.]
34 or
24.3% of the 140 possible cross-tabulations had too small a
value in a cell, that is — less than 5, to calculate a
reliable Chi-Square value to use in testing for the presence or
absence of a relationship.
The
Chi-Square tests of the 102 or 72.9% of remaining
cross-tabulations found no credible relationship between an
issue and a trait.
SURVEY
RESULTS IN PERCENTAGES
SURVEY
QUESTIONS REGARDING
SUGGESTED
REFORMS
|