Ever wonder why no one showed up at the last board meeting?
Bluestone and Hockley Real Estate Services
Julie, the board president, looked out at the room. The only people present were board members. She knew that she was tired of running the 40 unit Brook Hills Condominium Association. She had been President for the last five years, and her board members had been working with her at least that long.
Julie was wondering what to do. It was important to her keep up the property. This was the only real estate she owned and she was depending on a strong resale value to help her with her retirement. She was therefore hesitant to relinquish the reins of the association, on the other hand she need to get more people involved.
Julie decided this was going to be a year of change. She cleared her throat and addressed the other two members of the board, “Okay everybody, I think it is time for us to do a better job reaching out to our owners. We need to have more of them attend our meetings, and I think it is an attainable goal to get four more owners interested in helping us out. Let’s brainstorm and see what we can do to get people involved.”
The other two members of the board enthusiastically endorsed Julie’s plan. They decided to host a pool party and invite all of the owners. This would give the board an opportunity to talk with them and feel out who has gripes or a particular love for their condominium property.
Julie concluded, “Let’s establish some subcommittees such as landscape, finance/budget, and buildings to place these people on. Once they have been involved at this level for a year or so, some of them may be interested in assisting at the board level.”
One of the board members added, “You know we might be able to get more people to serve if we had a property management company do much of the work. No one here seems to be interested in doing all of the planning, and no one certainly wants to touch the money (i.e. assessments) for fear of being sued.”
Julie thought about this comment for a moment. “We do need to make it easier for someone to serve on our board,” she said. “None of our owners want a second job. An increase in the budget to hire a property management company might catch their eye and get them more involved.”
So Julie and the other members of the board sent out a newsletter explaining their plans and their intention to interview condominium property management companies. You can only imagine how the next meeting was packed with members wanting to understand why, after all of these years, a management company was now needed at Brook Hills Condominiums! Julie was pleased at the turnout, but vexed at the negative undertone.
Julie explained the board’s reasoning to the meeting attendees, “Our board has been slaving away for the last five years with little or no help. It is time for a change. We believe that we need an outside party to do the hard work and let the board set policy and inspect results. We believe this change will allow more people to become involved in the association, and more involvement builds a happier community.”
The members of the association groused about the proposed changes. Then a couple of hotheads decided to challenge the decisions made by the board. At this point Julie and her board had a couple potential choices: 1.) they could either take the abuse from the troublemakers, or 2.) they could turn around and challenge them to do the work. But Julie decided on a different path.
She determined that the hotheads should serve on a subcommittee as a method for establishing their true interest in the association. If the current grousing was just a moment of passion, they would never show up to a board or committee meeting. If they were really interested in the association, they would pitch in over the longer term to maintain their self-management, or help with the transition to a property management company.
Julie and the board decided to follow through with the pool party and get to know all of the association members. Ten owners attended — though not one of the hotheads did. The gathering gave Julie and the board a chance to explain in greater detail what they were doing and why they thought property management, even though it called for an increase the monthly assessments, would be beneficial to the long term health of the association. At the same time they had a chance to recruit more people and establish some interest in the subcommittees.
The process went very well and within two months they had six people actively involved.
This core group then assisted in the process of selecting a management company, on which the entire association voted and accepted. From this group also came two new board members who helped point out areas that the board had overlooked. They also helped solidify a comprehensive budget and develop an improved building inspection protocol.
Julie attended the next Brook Hills annual meeting with mixed emotions. She was glad not to be the association president anymore, and she was glad that the involvement had resulted in a push to modernize and update their homes. She was also happy that a reliable, experienced property manager had been hired. She was a bit depressed, however, because she was no longer in charge, but her depression did not last long since she now had the time to travel and not worry about her home. She could rest assured that the new board had lots of depth and support, as well as a good turnout at meetings!
Tags: 3000 NW Stucki, association, board meeting, brook hills, carbon monoxide detector laws, cliff hockley, condominium, Cost of operations, financial performance of apartments, Gary & Mark Colemansmith, hartwig chiropractic, ira advantage, owners, proerty management company, sell reo
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 1st, 2005 at 12:00 am and is filed under Articles, Community Management, Property Managers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
