Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs • Hacker News Board

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#31

Post by MattGaiser » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #25

41209 wrote: post #19

This has given me serious pause on buying a condo. If I rent the moment I have unfixed issues I can leave ( breaking a lease is pretty easy in my experience). But I'd hate to buy and then deal with bad neighbors or building issues

The same issue is with houses, and the bigger the house the bigger the issues can be. For a big condo complex, if a problem is truly big, the association can do a bond offering that can be paid off over a very long time (decades).

You don't need your neighbours approval to be pro-active about repairs.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#32

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

"Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs"

As are local governments, county governments, and state governments unless they get a big grant from the level of government above them. Even federal infrastructure is in disrepair.

My locality had to redo the main street and the water and sewer lines under it. We had to get a grant from the state and they also put a 40% surcharge on our water bills to pay for it.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#33

Post by h2odragon » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #26

This has been such a tragic story to follow. Especially as they pull children out of there. I'm not a civil engineer, but have been on those subreddits and blogs reading about the investigation. Curious if anyone knows: is there an equivalent of a "blackbox" data recorder for tall buildings like this? If not, should there be? Would there have been signals given off from the columns that may have forewarned of disaste…

The columns gave off signals; there's pictures from the reports of the concrete cracking and rusting rebar. There wasn't any need for fancier sensors and data recording technology than was used.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#34

Post by zacharycohn » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #10

phlipski wrote: post #7

I sat on my condo board for a decade and was president for two years. My experience is that the board is not the problem - the non board sitting owners are. Our complex was comprised of 5 separate 3 story buildings. Three of those building had bad water leaking problems but when we tried to raise money for repairs - the people who weren't suffering any interior water damage wouldn't vote yes. Many buyers don't read t…

We recently bought a condo after renting in the building for three years. The board, management and staff of our building are phenomenal—an inside bit of information we knew from having lived here. We looked at a large number of buildings in the area, and was surprised that maybe 1% of the information you need to assess board/management competence is available online. Generally we'd have to do our own DD talking to p…

An acquaintance of mine is building https://www.upliftinc.co after experiencing similar issues.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#35

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

phlipski wrote: post #7

I sat on my condo board for a decade and was president for two years. My experience is that the board is not the problem - the non board sitting owners are. Our complex was comprised of 5 separate 3 story buildings. Three of those building had bad water leaking problems but when we tried to raise money for repairs - the people who weren't suffering any interior water damage wouldn't vote yes. Many buyers don't read t…

"Nobody wants to pay for what is a collective problem."

Yet they choose to live in a collective structure. It's essentially another level of government entered into via contract. Maybe they should choose to live in an independent residence if they didn't want that.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#36

Post by codegeek » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

phlipski wrote: post #7

I sat on my condo board for a decade and was president for two years. My experience is that the board is not the problem - the non board sitting owners are. Our complex was comprised of 5 separate 3 story buildings. Three of those building had bad water leaking problems but when we tried to raise money for repairs - the people who weren't suffering any interior water damage wouldn't vote yes. Many buyers don't read t…

One of the biggest reasons Condos are not for me. I just cannot have my life depend on decisions made by others because we share common areas. Not to mention that Condo monthly fees are still very high and they cannot cover stuff like this.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#37

Post by xxpor » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

phlipski wrote: post #7

I sat on my condo board for a decade and was president for two years. My experience is that the board is not the problem - the non board sitting owners are. Our complex was comprised of 5 separate 3 story buildings. Three of those building had bad water leaking problems but when we tried to raise money for repairs - the people who weren't suffering any interior water damage wouldn't vote yes. Many buyers don't read t…

>Nobody wants to pay for what is a collective problem. Sometimes I think condo's shouldn't even be legal because of this. They should all be apartments with a central management company.

We shouldn't have a democracy; people won't vote for reps who will vote to pay for things that don't directly affect them.

It's a problem as old as time :)

Buying into a condo has the risk of this sort of thing happening. It has to be carefully assessed.

IMO for condos specifically, the board shouldn't have to hold a referendum to do special assessments. It should be a majority of the board.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#38

Post by mdavidn » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

phlipski wrote: post #7

I sat on my condo board for a decade and was president for two years. My experience is that the board is not the problem - the non board sitting owners are. Our complex was comprised of 5 separate 3 story buildings. Three of those building had bad water leaking problems but when we tried to raise money for repairs - the people who weren't suffering any interior water damage wouldn't vote yes. Many buyers don't read t…

This. My 36-unit building undertook a massive project in recent years to repair structural water damage under (shocker) a pool deck that wasn't properly sloped. A few owners would yell at the volunteer board and threaten lawsuits at every HOA meeting. Others would idly muse that we shouldn't look for problems lest we find more structural members with damage.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#39

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #12

spoonjim wrote: post #9

It's not just condo boards, it's everything in America... physical infrastructure, corporate R&D, software security bugs. It's more attention grabbing and personally profitable to do something new than maintain something old, so people kick the can down the road and cash in, making the problem someone else's (and a bigger problem). Even worse, America's soft power / cultural influence is infecting other countries wit…

Japanese are known to think very long term as well

Housing is a big exception to this.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...

> Unlike in other countries, Japanese homes gradually depreciate over time, becoming completely valueless within 20 or 30 years. When someone moves out of a home or dies, the house, unlike the land it sits on, has no resale value and is typically demolished. This scrap-and-build approach is a quirk of the Japanese housing market that can be explained variously by low-quality construction to quickly meet demand after the second world war, repeated building code revisions to improve earthquake resilience and a cycle of poor maintenance due to the lack of any incentive to make homes marketable for resale.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#40

Post by djb_hackernews » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

This topic is interesting. I am on the condo board in a 20 unit association, mostly attached townhomes. The biggest issue is the person in the "owners" unit, the one with the most invested, not playing ball with the other units.

That said if anyone has tips on good condo management companies in the Boston area, let me know!