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Eco friendly high-rise initiatives are not only good for the environment, but can be green for your association budget. How does close to $50,000 in annual savings sound? Here are suggestions you can implement for little to no cost.

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

You love your managed community or high-rise building! But obviously, living in proximity to other people can come with challenges, especially during cold and flu season. As a board member, you want to help keep your residents healthy and your community running smoothly. Read on to learn 4 ways to do that.

In many community associations, residents lack interest in getting involved. Getting residents to attend meetings, volunteer on committees or help run events can be like pulling teeth for many boards. Turn that around with these 5 simple steps.

Creating and executing a comprehensive building maintenance plan for your high-rise community should be a top priority for your board and property management company.

Learn how associates and residents are making a difference in their communities, providing grocery delivery and food delivery, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While community preventative maintenance keeps systems running in a way that keeps future problems from happening, predictive maintenance entails using existing data to determine when systems might fail. Creating your community preventative maintenance schedule will help you budget for these occurrences – and eliminate most of those nasty surprises. Here’s how you can do it.

Your pool is a source of fun for all of your community’s residents. Yet when it comes time to resurface it, it can quickly become a source of headaches. Knowing the facts about your pool resurfacing options can help minimize the hassle – and ensure your community enjoys a quality pool experience for years to come. The best decision is an informed decision. An excellent community association management company will be experienced in this area and can weigh in with some really good insight – and make a recommendation for a reliable pool specialist, too. But before you get to that point, you can start with these pros and cons.

Summertime is swim time, and for the most part, it’s a plunge into carefree fun. But without the right swimming pool safety practices, your residents and association could be at risk.

NYC's Organic Food Waste Recycling Pilot Program includes Morningside Heights Housing Corp., a cooperative building managed by FirstService Residential’s New York office. This exciting program is designed to reduce the amount of post-consumer waste sent to landfills.

Developing a comprehensive HOA communications strategy during this pandemic will help your board members and management team inform the community in a timely manner.

Learn how associates, residents and board members are making a difference in their communities with interactive online activities, during COVID-19.

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?

Over the past five years, nearly a half-million U.S. cars in this country have been able to zip right past gas stations – and it’s not because they’ve always had a full tank of gas. That’s how many plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have been purchased in this country since December 2010, when the first mass-market PEVs – the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt – made their much-heralded debut. Learn more about PEV's in order to ready your HOA.

Is installing EV charging stations the right choice for your community? If your association is considering it, consider this – you’ll not only satisfy the needs of current and future EV owners, but you’ll also enhance your property’s “green” image, which can increase property value and attract future residents. So how should your Board proceed? Start by talking to other community Board members and local community leaders to see if this issue is being addressed locally. Do your research, including consulting with a good property management company. If your community is professionally managed, your property management team can provide you with information and guide you through the process.

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.

Should community associations implement energy efficiency measures? Most Board members and residents think so, but making conservation a reality can be a challenge. In a recent issue of Condo Management, FS Energy’s Chris Normandeau offers ways communities can take energy efficiency from principle to practice.

High summer temperatures bring high electric bills – especially this summer, as heat waves and soaring temperatures continue to blaze across the U.S. and Canada. But FirstService Residential’s innovative FS Energy program is keeping residents cool, curbing electric bills and lowering energy emissions and usage – and it saved $1.5 million in energy costs for NYC residents last summer. Now, the program is rolling out to multifamily buildings in Chicago and Miami.

Reducing energy usage and costs, while increasing "green" living is vitally important not just for multi-family properties and residents, but also for the environment. In New York, FirstService Residential recently hosted its Third Annual Sustainability Expo and Symposium to help building staff and property managers increase their commitment and actions towards increasing efficiency and sustainability. Want to know more? Check out this recent spread in the Mann Management Report.

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.

Realizing that energy conservation and managing HOA community environmental footprints is crucial, board members have a responsibility to homeowners to exercise financial prudence and proactively seek ways to manage rising costs.

Of all the expenses you encounter as a homeowner, community or condo association, energy ranks toward the top of the list. Many of us see this as a given. We need lights. We need heating and cooling. We need to warm our water and prepare our food. And while the necessity of energy use will never change, how much we pay for it, and how much we need, can.

Given the unprecedented practice of "social distancing," now may be the best time to find the right video conferencing platform for your association.