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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. -
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. -
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. -
Four home safety tips for the holidays
It's the most wonderful time of the year but not if your holidays are cut short by a fire, an accident or a theft. Taking these 4 safety precautions can prevent such misfortunes. -
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? -
Active Shooter Training: What Should Your Community Do?
More than 1.4 million Americans have been killed by gunfire since 1968. Many of those shootings were accidental; some were suicides; some were at the hands of law enforcement officers in the line of duty. But many were not. Mass shootings, meaning that at least three people were killed by gunfire, have become an almost daily occurrence in the United States, with instances increasing each year since 2000, and many instances becoming more deadly. Thankfully, incidents of violence in community associations are rare, but unfortunately, they do occur. -
After the Storms: A Harvey and Irma Update from Our CEO
We have a very long road to recovery ahead for both Texas and Florida, for those of us affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. In the aftermath of the storms, there are tangible examples of our industry leadership, and in particular, why our ability to immediately leverage the depth of resources we have at our disposal is such a powerful differentiator for us. Here are a few examples of how we leveraged our resources, organization-wide, to ensure seamless service delivery for our clients. -
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%. -
Understanding common community manager responsibilities
The right support, the right personality and the right set of expectations from your community are critical for your community association management team to deliver exceptional results. Does yours have what it takes? -
How to prepare for an earthquake in your community association
As unpredictable as earthquakes can be, your community association should be prepared in case you ever feel the unmistakable rumble of a tremor. Here’s what you need to know. -
HOA nominating committee guidelines: Understanding HOA elections
Elections are a big part of what make our community associations work. It’s what empowers members, galvanizes our community, and brings residents together for a common purpose. -
Eight ways a property management company can help you and your community
Being part of a Homeowners Association is rewarding – yet it can also be challenging at times. Board members are often tasked with difficult duties ranging from proper financial stewardship to navigating community conflicts, and much more. -
How to create your HOA emergency preparedness plan
No board ever wants to find itself in the midst of an emergency, but they happen. Whether you face an outbreak of illness, an earthquake, a hurricane, a fire, the impact of any devastating event can be minimized by good emergency preparedness planning. -
The future of community association management: What to expect
As a profession, community association management is relatively young; it goes back about 50 years. But in that short time, it has made great strides—and so have the communities who have benefited from professional, skilled management teams. But what does the future hold for this profession, and how will it influence how community members live? The trade organization Community Associations Institute (CAI) put their publication, Common Ground , to work to find some answers to this question. They brought together industry experts to weigh in on the matter. FirstService Residential has also been at the forefront of looking to the future in this growing industry.