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Great policies can help your association run smoothly, enhance the resident experience and improve your reputation. Here are five questions to ask before creating a new HOA policy.

Living in a high-rise is unlike any other experience. Here are some community policies to consider to create a more harmonious environment for all.

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

Does your association manager have the right tools, resources and support to take your association to the next level?

Association leadership plays an important role in creating harmonious communities. This applies to board members and community management professionals to work in partnership. Here are seven steps to a happy community.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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%.

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?