My child is looking at purchasing a condominium. The market is such that some agents are requesting waivers for appraisals, inspections and basically any real due diligence in buying a residence. What sort of things should we be looking at before the deal is done to make sure that there is nothing that could come […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
One of our clients is, unfortunately, facing a special assessment. 15 years of accumulated damage must finally be addressed. At a cost of $5,000,000 for the complex of 200 units. And before you ask, no, the reserves are woefully inadequate as past boards did not want to increase the dues because everyone is too poor […]
Last week I read David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Fascinating collection of stories to support the premise that sometimes impressions are dead wrong. I rather appreciated the U-shaped curve theory which implies that sometimes too much leads to too little. This week I am reading the Lords of Finance, which is about the world […]
We very invited to visit a condominium project in Portland earlier this week to propose our service. Its a smaller community with a board that tries to do everything themselves so they don’t spend money on management. As we were talking, Doug pointed out how the focus on saving money for all creates an unequal […]
This probably won’t come as a shock to anyone reading these articles, but pretty much every record about a condominium and its business is an official document of the condominium association. You probably will not also be shocked to find out that the majority of boards don’t believe this. It is one of the more […]
My Google alerts recently brought me the article about the owners of Shoreline Towers and their quest to deny reality. It seems they don’t want a special assessment to correct defects, so instead of merely voting against the special assessment, the owners are petitioning to remove the board and install new, apparently more owner-friendly, directors. […]
If you are a calendar year-end association, this is probably the month you start budgeting. This is the time to start finalizing your spending plan for 2022 so you can get the budget in front of the owners. Here in Washington, the owners have the final say by ratifying the budget and you want everything […]
We have seen the best and worst of budgeting for condo operations. One way, what is probably the simplest way, is also probably not in the association’s best interest. That is to take last year’s numbers and multiply by 1.XX, where XX stands in for whatever rate of increase the board believes it can realistically […]
Our new website section Board Management is online starting today! This section has all the cool templates and tools we ask you to write and request. You can now get access to these materials at no cost and without having to email us. You simply need to register to access this section of our website. Here you […]