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How do you tackle alignment as a group of diverse individuals with unique values? Follow these four tips on HOA agreement to find out.

How should your HOA board handle a pandemic like COVID-19? Start by tackling these 5 questions.

Is your maintenance job turning into a capital improvement? Are you ready for a big capital improvement expenditure? Read on to get answers to your top questions about maintenance, capital improvements and useful life.

Are you getting the best returns on your reserve funds? Most California board members are not sure. Here are six ways to improve your reserve fund returns and create an HOA investment policy.

An earthquake in California can strike at any time, and they are daily occurrences throughout the state with varying impact and magnitude, with approximately 10,000 taking place each year.

How well does your community management company communicate? The answer to this question is at the heart of client satisfaction. A good community management company will engage you using a variety of tools and communication channels. Here are some ways your property management company should be connecting with you.

How do manage collections and HOA funds after a crisis? Get 3 tips to help you plan for the future

Ignorance is not bliss, especially when it means potentially leaving your homeowners association (HOA) at risk of a cyber attack. And that’s exactly what you’re doing if you don’t recognize that your HOA is as much of a target as any other small business.

Without a doubt, digital technology has made our everyday tasks easier and more convenient than ever. Mobile phones and tablets allow you to pay monthly bills, upload family photos and store important documents in “the cloud” with just a few taps and swipes. Homeowners associations are taking advantage of this pervasive technology in droves, using property management software to expedite resident transactions, sign documents with electronic signatures, and perform tasks more efficiently.

Strategic capital improvements lead to better property values. Read on to see the three ways to pay for them and their pros and cons.

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

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.

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.

Regardless of the size of your community, or where it’s located, there is always one thing that every community association board and committee needs: resident volunteers. However, volunteers are often a scarce resource. Here are some tips to combat apathy.

While the start of the new year is typically heralded as the best time to change old habits and commit to new ones, the reality for community associations and their board members is that there’s no time like the present. These 10 changes will help you get your board and your community association on the right track for the rest of the year.

They say that good fences make good neighbors. Rules can work the same way – putting the right parameters in place can help keep everyone happy. Too few rules result in anarchy, and too many rules start to feel onerous to residents.

Let’s face it: being a board member of your homeowner association isn’t easy. Neither is self-managing your property. For many boards, hiring a professional property management company is the best decision they’ll make for their community.

How well your board communicates has a tremendous impact on your community association. Great communication can lead to better relationships with residents – both homeowners and renters – and helps build a stronger sense of community.

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.

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.

Annual and special meetings can have their own set of rules and needs. Read on to learn more about these two important types of meetings for your HOA or condo association board.

Regardless of how you feel about them, board meetings are more than just something your community association chooses to do. They are something your community association must do. Board meetings are crucial to the governance of your community association. If they aren't run effectively, chances are your association won't function well either.

Dale Young, director of portfolio management at FirstService Residential, and other industry experts reveal the common characteristics of effective and functional boards.