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It’s that time of year again – budget season is upon us. You know the things to consider when creating your budget, but what drives your process? Are you focused on achieving a particular vision for your community? Avoiding conflict in the community? Solely looking to avoid increasing dues?

Some self-managed associations believe they can't afford to hire a professional property management company to manage and maintain their community's operations, assets, finances, common areas and other day-to-day activities. However, as you'll learn in this article, a professional property management company is one thing many communities can't afford to be without.

The Board Secretary is responsible for meeting the Association’s legal and financial obligations and maintaining the Association’s records. Depending on the Association’s requirements, some of the following tasks may need to be distributed to other Board Members or it might be necessary to appoint an assistant to the Secretary.

It’s no secret that association management is a big job. Across Minnesota, common areas require a lot of routine maintenance to uphold community standards – things like exterior light bulb replacements, landscaping and paint touch-ups. Depending on your townhome community, the scale of your amenities' needs will vary.

Great policies can help your association run smoothly, enhance the resident experience and improve your reputation. Here are five questions to ask before creating a new HOA policy.

Enforcing HOA policies is nobody’s cup of tea, but having good policy enforcement in place helps improve the resident experience and elevates your reputation. Follow these 4 principles for healthy policy enforcement:

An effective Nevada homeowners association will not only recruit great volunteers and committee members, but will empower them to help improve the community. The question is – how do you get there?

Great capital improvements improve property values. Read on to see the three ways to pay for them and the pros and cons.

As a self-managed association, do you need a management partner? Before making that choice, ask these 6 questions.

Do you know how your community rates to newer communities? What can you do to change your image? Find out how you can be keep your rating up in this new article by Erin O'Reilly that was featured in Management Trends.

Here are some email communication best practices for your building to use when sending out communications regarding the current pandemic.

The Climate Mobilization Act, requires buildings 25,000 square feet and larger to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by certain target percentages in 2024, 2030, and beyond.

It goes without saying that how we communicate has drastically switched from in-person contact to user-friendly digital platforms since the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread.

FirstService Residential and FirstService Energy are prepared to help boards and owners identify capital improvements or retrofits that improve a building's energy efficiency score and letter grade.

It’s important that co-op and condo boards come together to achieve strategic alignment.

As board communications become increasingly reliant on web-based technologies, it’s more important than ever to take proactive steps to safeguard the way you share and save sensitive information.

In an effort to help our clients and their families stay safe during these difficult times, FirstService Residential’s in-house technology experts recently assembled a list of best practices and technology tips for working at home, improving password security, identifying potential scams and selecting personalized internet packages.

As a board member for your condominium corporation, you know that your community depends on volunteers to operate successfully. However, finding residents who are willing to be on your board of directors, join a committee or help at an event can be challenging.

View our third episode of Ask the Expert, featuring Andrew Stoutenburg, Regional Executive Director of Reserve Advisors, as he talks about the importance of reserve studies in financial planning.

Managing association covenant enforcement can be difficult in any community. Restrictions for every community can be different, and it can be a challenge to keep the rules fair, reasonable and equally applied to all homeowners. Read on for some basic guidelines that will make navigating through these issues a little easier.

How do you determine which property management company will provide you with the best service? Here are 10 questions that you should ask when consulting with property or homeowner association (HOA) management companies to help you make the important decision.

John Friedrichsen, Senior Vice President & CFO of FirstService Residential parent company FirstService Corporation, is quoted in USA Today about how HOAs benefit from the value-added services provided by leading professional management companies.

Capital reserve fund vs. improvements: Budget for both and know when and how to allocate them in your Texas HOA for a continuously improved community.

In this article, we'll cover what underfunded HOA reserves are, how they happen, as well as the risks and what can be done about it.