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Whether you live in a high-rise condominium in Austin, a gated community in San Antonio or an active adult community near Dallas, emergencies happen. As seen in the media over the past few years, such emergencies all may involve active shooters. Do you or your management team know what to do to protect residents in an active shooter situation?

A leak in a high-rise condominium can quickly result in expensive water damage. How can you reduce your risk and be better prepared if your building springs a leak?

Extreme Weather in Texas: Part 2 - Are you prepared for a tornado? Get practical safety tips and what emergency prepartion taks should be completed by residents, board members, and your property managment company.

Explore overall emergency management and three extreme weather scenarios - tornadoes, wildfires and hail in this quick 4 part series! Learn practical safety tips and what emergency prepartion taks should be completed by residents, board members, and your property managment company.

Extreme Weather in Texas: Part 4- Are you prepared for hail storms? Get practical safety tips and what emergency prepartion taks should be completed by residents, board members, and your property managment company.

Extreme Weather in Texas: Part 3 - Are you prepared for a wildfire? Get practical safety tips and what emergency prepartion taks should be completed by residents, board members, and your property managment company.

Summer time – the perfect season to hit the road, relax, spend time with family and friends, or embark on a new adventure. While you hope your residents have fun on their summer vacations, you also want to make sure that their homes stay safe and they fulfill their responsibilities to the association while away. Whether you live in a condominium, master-planned or single-family community, you want to make sure that your residents prepare their homes in a way that helps protect themselves and the community.

Summertime: It’s the perfect season to hit the road, relax, spend time with family and friends or embark on a new adventure. Although you hope that residents in your community have fun on their summer vacations, you also want to make sure that their homes stay safe and that they continue to fulfill their responsibilities to the association. Whether yours is a condominium, master-planned or single-family community, follow these tips to help your residents prepare their homes in a way that protects it and the community while they are away.

It’s often said that you should never judge a book by its cover. However, the front-line curb appeal of a community can make a difference in the value of every property in a neighborhood. This is one reason current and potential homeowners consider landscaping and common-area maintenance so important.

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.

Handling day-to-day maintenance and making necessary improvements are critical responsibilities for any homeowners association (HOA). And when your serve on your association’s board of directors, they can quickly become overwhelming if you don’t have a good system in place to manage them. So how do you make sure that your maintenance staff is able to handle that long list of tasks that need to get done so that your community runs smoothly and retains its appeal?

At one time or another, every condominium corporation has to spend money on replacing equipment or making major repairs. Whether that means replacing a roof, installing a new ventilation system or any other big-ticket project, they are a necessity. But how should your condo corporation pay for them?

Security risks increase exponentially during the holiday seasons for high-rise buildings. Many residents travel for the holidays, move to warmer weather during the winter months, or have an influx of guests and family members in and out. These factors make it easy for intruders to make it into the building, especially if there are no procedures in place to track the many people and deliveries in and out of the building.

Frozen pipes are an unwanted, but common, occurrence during Alberta's cold winters. The damage caused can be significant to condominium units and shared property. Our cold weather warning offers condominium residents tips to prevent frozen pipes and the water damage that results.

Self-managing your condominium property may seem like it saves money, but does it really? Why the cheapest property management option may not be the best.

When it comes to cyberattacks, you may be under the assumption that your condo corporation is flying under the radar. But you’d be dead wrong. In fact, as a small business, your corporation may be at greater risk of being targeted than ever before.

It seems innocent, but a surprising number of balcony and backyard fires are unintentionally started by disposal of smoking material in a potted plant or planter box. In a condominium environment this can have, and has had, disastrous consequences. And it's not just a summertime problem.

We can all agree there are many important elements to a housing structure, but your roof is probably the most important. Changing temperatures, snow accumulation, large amounts of rain, ice dams and high winds can all cause major damage to condominiums, townhomes and single-family homes. These harsh weather conditions can create all sorts of problems, from minor leaks to major cave-ins that can cost a condominium corporation thousands to repair.

Continually maintaining and improving your property is crucial if you want to protect your condominium corporation’s financial health. To ensure that these important responsibilities are well managed requires a long-term plan and a means of effectively handling day-to-day projects. Here’s how you can make that happen.

Most people who join the board of their condominium corporation aren’t experts. Rather, they are well-intentioned, dedicated volunteer-leaders who want to protect property values and ensure their community continues to be a great place to live. If you’re a new board member – or even a seasoned one – it’s important to get the training you need to govern effectively and address the issues you may face.

FirstService Residential and FirstService Financial work in tandem to help our clients successfully finance capital improvement projects and save money without compromising quality of service.

FirstService Residential managed properties have access to the tax certiorari experts at Goldberg Weprin Finkel Goldstein LLP, the premier firm in this specialized field.

FirstService Residential has invested substantial resources to facilitate each of our managed properties with facade inspections and is here to help you navigate the many intricacies of FISP.