Vantaca and Maegan Woytek are proud to present this week's news you need to know happening across the industry! We plan to bring you all the critical news, regulatory shifts, market shifts and operational insights that are impacting your business every other week, so you can stay ahead of it. What you need to know for this week's episode:

1. Vantaca's data hit two major business outlets this week — Nicole Friedman's reporting in The Wall Street Journal and a Morning Brew newsletter breakdown both cited our research showing typical monthly HOA fees rose 51% from 2021 to 2025.
2. The bigger the spotlight on these numbers, the better the conversations between residents and their boards, the more visibility homeowners receive around what's actually driving association costs.
3. Our newest full episode of GBA features Jake Gold from the Foundation for Community Association Research, breaking down 21 years of homeowner satisfaction data and the finding that the overwhelming majority of the 74 million Americans living in community associations are satisfied with where they live.

Subscribe to Guilty by Association for ongoing industry updates and more conversations from Vantaca. Subscribe for more Guilty By Association.

We've all seen the viral HOA horror stories. But what do the people who actually live in a community association think? For 21 years — across 11 surveys, a housing crisis, a pandemic, and historic inflation — the Foundation for Community Association Research has asked residents directly, in a nationally representative survey representing the 74 million Americans who live in community associations. The answer keeps coming back the same: the overwhelming majority are satisfied with community association living.

In this episode of Guilty by Association, host Maegen Woytek talks with Jake Gold, CAE, Executive Director of FCAR, about the just-released 2026 Homeowner Satisfaction Survey, "Preferred Places to Call Home." They dig into why a consistent 21-year benchmark beats the one-off study that trends for a week and disappears, the gap between the headlines and the data, and the people the narrative usually overlooks — the volunteer boards and community managers running multi-million-dollar operations.

Chapter Breakdown:

• 00:00 - 03:45 - Intro
• 03:45 - 09:09 - The 2026 Homeowner Satisfaction Survey
• 09:09 -13:44 - Biggest Surprises from the Survey
• 13:44 - 16:31 - Can Technology Help CAMs Increase Satisfaction with Residents
• 16:31 - 19:28 - The Gap Between What Residents Want and What They're Getting Today
• 19:28 - 22:34- How Can the Ecosystem Best Use These Survey Findings
• 22:34 - 26:09 - What's Next for the Foundation?

For more information on the Foundation of Community Research:

• Website: https://foundation.caionline.org/
• The 2026 Homeowner Satisfaction Survey: https://foundation.caionline.org/research/survey_homeowner/
• Jake Gold: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-gold-a5b5b212/

Vantaca and Maegan Woytek are proud to present this week's news you need to know happening across the industry! We plan to bring you all the critical news, regulatory shifts, market shifts and operational insights that are impacting your business every other week, so you can stay ahead of it. What you need to know for this week's episode:

1. CNBC and Yahoo Finance both spotlighted Vantaca's data this week, reporting that median HOA dues jumped 44% in 2025 to $757 after years of holding steady around $500, based on our analysis of the same cohort of more than 3,300 associations covering over half a million homes from 2021-2025.
2. The why behind the spike: condo master policy premiums nearly doubled from $53 to $105 per door between 2021 and 2025.
3. With hurricane season officially opening June 1, every homeowner should be asking their board two questions before the first named storm.

Subscribe to Guilty by Association for ongoing industry updates and more conversations from Vantaca. Subscribe for more Guilty By Association:

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