Search

If you live in a pet-friendly community, it’s essential that your association board set boundaries to keep order within your community. Many of the issues that become problems in pet-friendly communities have very little to do with the pets – after all, they can’t clean up after themselves.

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.

Not only will they learn something new every day, but it'll also keep their minds bright and busy.

In a community association, the board of directors are a group of volunteers who execute a wide variety of tasks to maintain their community and improve the lives of residents – all in their free time. The work can become a heavy responsibility. But when they partner with a professional community association management company, together they shoulder some of the liability, stress and workload that comes with managing a board or condo association.

For most people, looking neat, attractive and well groomed ranks high on their list of priorities. They have the same expectations for where they live – in fact, according to a recent industry survey, over 70% of homebuyers consider curb appeal an important factor when choosing a community.

We’ve highlighted four common board blunders and included some practical tips for avoiding them. It’s important to identify these potential blunders early to save yourself and your board time and frustration.

How do you prevent conflict, avoid costly litigation and maintain a great resident experience in your community? Start by adopting these best practices for dispute resolution.

While maintenance, events, committees, and budget are all crucial aspects of managing a homeowners’ association, there's one even bigger challenge that board members face: HOA agreement and alignment. Read on to discover the secret to successful alignment among diverse individuals with distinct values.

Whether you are addressing overnight guest parking, or approved flooring, the basic process for creating good policies and enforcing them successfully are the same. Consider these eight steps when establishing an HOA policy.

These days, you can do almost anything online—buy groceries, look for a job or even find love. But what about voting on issues that affect your community?

Solving for these 5 common myths can help you improve your decision-making process and align as a board. Read on to learn more.

If your main concern is to avoid increasing assessments, you may want to reconsider. As a board member, one of your primary fiduciary responsibilities is to protect property values, and assessments are an investment that helps do just that.

What steps do you need to take to go from volunteer to community leader? Start with these five tactics, which can make a big impact on how you fulfill your duties and affect how residents and other board members perceive you.

There are 4 key areas to focus on if you want to ensure that your HOA Board of Directors is productive and successful. This article offers a review of each one.

Better resident experiences, improved reputation and even enhanced property values are possible through continued learning. Knowledge is power, and that’s especially the case when it comes to being a successful association board member. Learn how your continued education can pay dividends for your association.

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

Are you getting the best returns on your reserve funds? Most Arizona board members aren't sure. Find out six ways to improve your association's reserve fund returns, like creating an HOA investment policy.

As an HOA member, you’re often confronted with a variety of legal issues and gray areas concerning residents. The issues you face will vary, but they often boil down to disagreements between a homeowner and your association, or a dispute against another resident. To help you face the potential for legal issues going forward, we’ve compiled some best practices for dealing with conflict resolution.

Not sure which components you should fix and which you should replace entirely? You're not alone. Get the answers to some of your top questions about maintenance, capital improvements, and useful life.

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.

The board of directors for your homeowners association (HOA) probably feels it has a lot more pressing issues than cyber security. So it’s understandable that you may not be as focused on keeping up with safety measures to protect your HOA’s sensitive data. However, with cyber attacks becoming more and more prevalent, the financial and personal information that your association maintains is at greater risk.

Digital technology has taken over our lives, making everyday tasks easy and convenient. You can use your mobile phone or device to pay rent, order pizza, book a dentist appointment or store photos and documents in “the cloud” without blinking an eye. Arizona community associations are also benefiting from the latest digital technologies.

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