Category: Building Operations

With all the amazing advances in security technology and connectivity over the last decade, it's easy to get carried away with wanting the latest, sleekest, most sophisticated systems and gadgets for your community. But cool as retinal scan…

Nobody would claim that managing condos, co-ops or other multifamily properties is an easy gig -- quite the opposite is often true. Here, management pros dish the dirt on what makes their job tough. (Spoiler: it may not be what you think!) …

Property insurance is one of the most important components of protection for common interest communities.  It protects the property, association, corporation, board members, and residents from potentially financial consequences in the event…

Even the most laid-back, harmonious community will periodically experience conflicts -- maybe between board members, between neighbors, or between residents and the board. Resolving these issues without litigation or lingering acrimony is k…

In a scene from the 1985 historical drama Out of Africa , Lord Delamare (portrayed by Michael Gough) asks the Danish writer Isak Dinesen (played by Meryl Streep) if she had insurance after her coffee farm in Africa burnt to the ground. “…

In residential properties, lighting – both its quality and its efficiency – is often as important as the fixtures in which bulbs themselves are placed. This applies particularly to LED light bulbs, since they’re directly tied to monthly ene…

If you think about it, a multifamily building isn’t that much different than the human body. Both house important complex operating systems and organ-like pieces of vital equipment; both take in fuel and produce waste; and both require regu…

When we think of a co-op, condo, or HOA, it’s easy to picture a towering high-rise, or a suburban development that sprawls across acres and acres, and is home to hundreds, maybe even thousands of residents. While those communities certainly…

Maintaining a residential cooperative or condo association does not come cheap. Shareholders and unit owners contribute regular maintenance payments, to be sure, but that only covers so much. What happens in the event of a rainy day? Well, …

Being a board member, manager, or maintenance staff member for a building or HOA obviously comes with numerous responsibilities. Chief among those is being ready and able to deal with risks, issues, and hazards that pose potential threats t…