March 31, 2005
Spring
Temperatures actually went into the 60's this week and people in northern climes began to undertake the rites of spring - cleaning the half-ton of rock salt off the bottom of the car, shaking the propane container under the grill to see if there's anything left, cleaning the rust off the clubs and driving slowly by golf courses to see if the flags are in the greens, putting down crabgrass preventer in the forlorn hope that it might actually work THIS year, assessing which trees, shrubs and plants survived the winter, and the worst one of all, checking to see if any of your summer clothes from last year still fit.
When I was a manager, I always faced spring with mixed feelings. It was nice to be outside again, but I knew that I was now looking at a very intense maintenance season, where the boards' would expect a year's worth of work to be packed into six months. You want to spend some time out on your deck or on the golf course, but the work load has suddenly doubled. And it wasn't just the maintenance work. Every homeowner now decides to start building that deck or fence, or planting that tree out in the yard and so, the violation process begins again. Ah, spring!
Those of you who were born, raised and still live in year-round warm climates can never really appreciate what that first breath of warm air means. You have to have survived three-four months of sunless, cold, dreary days, punctuated by the hope that your aging, out-of-shape body doesn't turn you into another "dropped dead from snow-shoveling" statistic. Spring says you made it, you've survived and life is good again.
So, if you call or write in the next few days and don't hear back from me, please understand that I'm probably outside somewhere, with my face to the sun, watching the new buds on the flowers and trees, seeing the grass actually turn green OR I'm at the mall buying the next size up. Happy Spring!
Posted by joewest at 3:45 PM
March 24, 2005
Boards still having a problem with "reasonable"
In the past few days I have come across articles that show that Boards of Directors are still having a problem understanding that "being reasonable" doesn't necessarily mean "setting a bad precedent". One association refused to allow a 1-foot height extension to a fence for the yard of an autistic child; another wanted the parents of a soldier in Iraq to take down a yellow ribbon; another failed at accommodating a woman allergic to chemicals, by not notifying her when chemical sprays were being used near her home, and as they had previously agreed to; two wheelchair-bound people had to sue their association to get their attention to the issue that the clubhouse was basically inaccessible to them. Because those boards haven't been reading the news lately, they all ended up ON the news and looking like the Grinch who stole Christmas.
10-1 the phrase "we'll be setting a bad precedent" came up followed by "where will draw the line after this". I used to be that way, basically because association attorneys had hammered it into me that to let someone get away with something, or to make an exception, was a bad thing. Most attorneys have since changed their tune, but there are a lot of boards and managers out there who, apparently, haven't gotten the word.
Now, repeat after me, "making an exception is not necessarily setting a precedent". If the request for exception has to do with health, safety, or security, (and today, probably patriotism) then it makes sense to seriously consider it. Make sure its documented as an exception, put a time limit on it if that makes sense and make sure that the owner agrees that it is an exception for a specific purpose. If the purpose goes away, so does the exception. If a board member has a problem with this, ask them how they thing they'll look on the six o'clock news defending their actions. You may understand that it was always about the pole, but everyone else only saw the flag.
Done right, exceptions don't hurt.
Posted by joewest at 9:41 PM
March 21, 2005
The One Law That IS Needed.
It seems that every day, one state legislative body or another is rushing to enact laws that are supposed to protect the homeowner in an association, or to correct the "abuses of the Board". The pros and cons of the various laws will be debated on both the floors of the legislatures and in the blogs of interested writers. There is one law that most states don't have that would be a help.
That law would require that associations provide purchasers with specific information prior to closing and that the purchaser sign a document stating that the documents have been received and that they agree to abide by them. What documents would they need? A current budget, the last independently reviewed financial statement, CC&R's (or Master Deed and Bylaws), rules, reserve study, current reserve status, minutes of the last annual meeting, and a statement from the board that no special or additional assessments have or are being considered. With this information, a buyer can make an informed decision about the condition of the association. It also removes a the standard "I didn't know" excuse when a new owner puts the motor home up on blocks on the street in front of their house.
Who would object to helping consumers make informed decisions? Well, real estate agents and mortgage bankers might, as they, as a rule, dislike anything that might upset a sale or closing. They have pretty powerful lobbies at most state houses, but sometimes logic prevails. If your legislature is considering changes to its condo or HOA acts, why not ask them to include something that might actually help both the associations and the new owner.
Posted by joewest at 1:44 AM
March 18, 2005
Want Your Web Site to Get More Traffic? Add Content! Get Links!
I am often asked how to generate more traffic for web sites. Everyone wants to know how to move their site up in the rankings of the search engines, especially Google. While each search engine has its own quirks, concentrating on three items should help you. The first is keywords. These are words that are placed in the heading of the code. Words that want your site to show up under if someone enters them For our industry, those would be words like: condominium, condo, homeowner, hoa, community association, management, real estate, etc. You can have as many keywords as you want, but you will want to order them with the most important words first, as some search engines only look at a certain number.
The next thing most search engines look at is how often those words appear in the content of your site, especially the first tier of pages (those linked from the home page). In other words, if you manage condominiums or HOA's, the words "manage" "condominiums" and "HOA's" better appear frequently in the main body of your pages.
The third item to concentrate on is links to your site. Google especially uses this to rank sites. If your site has a large number of links to your site, then obviously it must be an important site. If those links come from sites that are themselves ranked highly, then you must be even more important and your pages are moved up accordingly.
Our site links to articles in other sites. This helps those site's rankings. You want to move higher? Create good content and invite others to link to it. It doesn't do a whole lot of good just to post an article, you need to spread the word that its there. One of the reasons some of the groups that have negative things to say about community associations show up so high in the search engines is that they create new content frequently, often out of letters and comments posted to their site, and then blast those out all over the internet. The only way to combat this is to create a greater amount of positive content.
Posted by joewest at 8:07 PM