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  • Post-Crisis HOA Cash Management: 3 Tips for Your Association

    How do manage collections and HOA funds after a crisis? Get 3 tips to help you plan for the future
  • Reserve Funds, Assessment or Loan: 3 Ways to Pay for Capital Improvements

    Strategic capital improvements lead to better property values. Read on to see the three ways to pay for them and their pros and cons.
  • Selecting Your Reserve Study Firm: Seven Essential Steps

    Your reserve study gives you the power to maintain the quality of your community by allowing for projects that are both necessary and potentially expensive. Establishing this fund can get a little complex. But you don’t have to be a fortune teller to read the future of your association. You simply need a good reserve study firm to help. Here’s how you can find one.
  • HOA Budget: Seven Best Practices for HOA Budgeting

    Creating your HOA budget involves many considerations. It’s not simply a month-to-month accounting for expenses. Ideally, it’s a both a short-term and long-term blueprint for sustained financial health. Offset rising costs and high interest rates with these 7 HOA budgeting tips.
  • 6 Questions for Self-Managed Associations to Consider

    As a self-managed association, do you need a management partner? Before making that choice, ask these 6 questions.
  • Six Simple HOA Board Meeting Rules for Success

    A great board meeting should have a balance of diverse opinions and discussions that are rooted in your community’s overall vision. Start with these 6 simple HOA board meeting rules.
  • 3 Strategies to Keep HOA Assessments Stable and Add Value

    There are often good reasons to raise assessments, but in some cases, you may be able to take a different route. Here are three strategies to help save your HOA money and keep assessments stable.
  • CMCA certification: California HOA manager qualifications 101

    Acronyms like CMCA, LSM, PCAM and others are used to designate certifications for community management professionals. What do these certifications mean? How does this benefit your association?
  • Ten steps on how to plan a community event

    You’re planning an event for your homeowner (HOA) or community association. Congratulations! After the initial excitement comes growing panic, right? Well, not necessarily.
  • HOA financial management: Tips for greater financial strength

    So what’s the most important aspect of your community? Is it aesthetics? Sense of belonging? Neighbors knowing neighbors? Desirability to home buyers?
  • How to be a successful property manager: 12 key qualities

    When choosing the right property management company for your community, you will be asking a variety of questions to assess whether the company or manager will be the right fit for your board and your residents.
  • Twelve things to know about HOA board of directors insurance

    Are you an insurance expert? Unless you sell it, the answer is probably “no.” But if you’re a member of your HOA’s Board of Directors, it’s a really smart idea to have a basic understanding of the policy that protects your association from liability.
  • Tips for managing building projects & community construction projects

    So your homeowners association is going to undertake a construction or improvement project for your community. That can be exciting – and more than a little daunting, too. The construction project management process can be fraught with complications and frustrations – after all, with so many moving pieces, there are a number of things that can go wrong. To smooth your way, you can consult with an experienced property management company to obtain proven guidance and advice. But to get started, we’ve put together a dozen pointers to help your community construction project build towards success.
  • Twelve tips for spring cleaning in your community

    This winter, much of the country was hunkered down under thick layers of snow and temperatures so low that even the groundhog thought twice about going outside. But thankfully, spring is here, and with the blooming fruit trees and sunnier days comes the need to clean up, spruce up and get your community ready to enjoy the season.
  • How to find a good insurance agent: 15 things to consider

    You’re a member of your community association’s board, and it’s time to review your current insurance policies and providers. While it may be tempting to maintain your current relationship, you may find that significant savings can be found when you shop around.
  • What to expect from your property management company: Services to look for

    For many communities, responsive service from a property management company is the best they can hope for when it comes to issue resolution. But what if you required more from your property management team? What if you held them to a higher standard, demanding that they address challenges early enough so that they never become full-blown issues at all?
  • Finding a property management company: 5 things to consider

    Your homeowner association (HOA) board has decided to hire a property management company. That’s a big step, and one not to be taken lightly. You might think because your board made this decision your community’s future is in good hands. But has your board done its research?
  • Planning your community budget: Six tips to follow

    Experienced property managers have created countless budgets, and they’re familiar with the best practices entailed in creating one that helps your community accomplish its goals. So to help you get started, here are six community budget basics you can follow.
  • Avoiding risks of short-term rentals

    The sharing economy continues to grow, and this, in turn, is fueling the proliferation of home-sharing websites like Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway. In our previous article on this growing trend, we discussed how the interest in short-term rentals is impacting multi-family buildings throughout the U.S. and Canada. Now we’re back with a game plan to help your condo board or strata council protect its interests.
  • Airbnb and short-term rentals: How the sharing economy can affect your multi-family building

    One of the most recent societal shifts has been a move towards a sharing economy – and if you’ve ever been driven home in an Uber car, or reserved a distinctive blue CitiBike for a few hours to pedal across town, you’ve experienced this practice first-hand. In this article, we discuss how the quick growth of the sharing economy – particularly, home sharing – is impacting buildings in large cities, and we’ll follow up next week with valuable advice on how your Board or Strata council can address this mushrooming trend.
  • Understanding how property management software can help

    Can cutting-edge property management software increase personalized customer service? It’s not a trick question, at least when it comes to the property management industry.
  • How Property Management Experts are Making a Difference in Today's Competitive Housing Market

    FirstService Residential’s Tasso Eracles discusses Toronto’s building boom and the important role property management experts play in helping condominium developers and builders overcome challenges and compete in this dynamic marketplace.
  • Communication in the Community: Do you have a plan?

    Is your community always aware of upcoming events, scheduled construction projects and upcoming board meetings? Do they understand their responsibilities and the policies they need to comply with? Clear, effective communication from the board to the residents makes a difference in the overall well-being of any community. Poor communication, on the other hand, is a real problem that can negatively impact your community’s reputation and even your operating budget and property values.
  • Debunking property management company myths

    Here’s one of the great ironies of the property management industry: though it’s incredibly big, it’s still a big mystery to most people. Let’s let the numbers do the talking. In the United States, 24% of homes are part of associations, with a total value of $4.65 trillion and $65 billion collected in assessments. In Canada, the industry generates about $6 billion in annual revenue with a healthy annual growth rate of 3.4%.
Showing 49 - 72 of 670