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Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

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Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#101

Post by fraqed »

mooreds wrote: post #81
lotsofpulp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a need for a portal? A website with the condo’s documents/minutes/spreadsheets/videos seems like it suffices. A forum can also be setup if necessary.

Things I need from an HOA portal: * ticketing system with management company * way to set up ACH/dues payments * ways to look at docs and minutes * way to communicate with the board * calendar of the board meetings * way to communicate with the other owners Sure, you could put that together mostly with Gsuite functionality, but an integrated modern product would be really great.

Have you looked at https://www.condocommunities.com, they offer most of the features you've listed and have different packages depending on the needs of the HOA. I'm not affiliated with them just sharing my experience; my HOA started using the service recently and it's very easy to keep up to date with events in my building.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#102

Post by somethoughts »

dragonwriter wrote: post #88
somethoughts wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree and perhaps a better way to frame it would be, countries mostly start out as HOAs and then experience a ton of expansion and scope creep in their charter over the 5-10 centuries of their existence. > Probably the biggest gap in this thinking: if you don't like your HOA, you can sell your house. In this market there's no lack of buyers and you have tons of options – other HOAs, unencumbered properties, etc. This…

> countries mostly start out as HOAs and then experience a ton of expansion and scope creep in their charter over the 5-10 centuries of their existence. [citation needed] > There used to be 100's of independent HOAs in the US in 1700's, they then consolidated to 13 colonies and then 200 years of further consolidation and voila - the country known as the United States. That’s...not accurate even as a very loose analog…

Excerpts from "Cities and Homeowner Associations" by Yale Professor Robert C. Ellickson

"A third candidate for the exercise of decentralized power: the private homeowners association. The association, not the busi- ness corporation, is the obvious private alternative to the city. Like a city, an association enables households that have clustered their activities in a territorially defined area to enforce rules of conduct, to provide "public goods" (such as open space), and to pursue other common goals they could not achieve without some form of potentially coercive central authority.

Although they were relatively exotic as recently as twenty years ago, homeowners associations now outnumber cities. Developers create thousands of new associations each year to govern their subdivisions, condominiums, and planned communities.

I discern only one important difference between the two forms of organization-the sometimes involuntary nature of membership in a city versus the perfectly voluntary nature of membership in a homeowners association."

https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#103

Post by giantg2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #80
giantg2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the area I grew up I was different. Economical depressed areas like much of Appalachia tend to have a good community atmosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if that's just small towns in general though. You look out for yourself, but you help your neighbors. You want something new, like equiptment in the park? Raise the money with fundraisers, find volunteers to build/install/maintain it, etc. These are the people…

That’s exactly the mechanic I’m talking about. Tribal - we’ll raise money for our neighborhood park, but of course they have money since their ancestors got there first (or maybe worked harder?) and passed down their land or whatever other structural advantages. In your example, the neighbors are the tribe. The other people on the other side of town who are poorer, for various reasons, simply will not get a park. How…

"You are likelier to support taxes and condo fees to assist others, since you yourself are not stagnating or moving down the ladder."

It depends, but I generally agree. I would say the mentality should be that it benefits the community and not necessarily any one person.

"The other people on the other side of town who are poorer, for various reasons, simply will not get a park."

I don't think you understand just how small most small towns are. Many times there's only one park. If it is tribal at all, there tends to be only one tribe (or there are personal issues).

"we’ll raise money for our neighborhood park, but of course they have money since their ancestors got there first (or maybe worked harder?) and passed down their land or whatever other structural advantages."

The current generation (and previous one or two) are worse off than before. The mines and mills have shut down. The vast majority of the factories have been offshored. The industries that have replaced them, like tech, have mostly consolidated in just a handful of large cities. Most have little to no money.

The land you talk about is really a negative point. The family farms generally get divided when handed down. Or they simply are too small by today's standards. They get consolidated by corporations. The land in these areas isn't worth very much either ($500-1000 per acre).

So what assets they get handed down are diluted, and aren't worth much in the market (even depreciated). The structure has been going against them for decades (jobs move out, people move out, demand drops, prices drop). The region is severely economically depressed. These are people working and organizing to make their community better. This is what government should be. Not some distant vague entity that wants to solve everything through taxes.

Here's an example, in the area I'm in now I am part of an organization. They wanted a few trees cut down that weren't near anything. It would be easy to do. The people cutting them down could even use or sell the wood. It would be no risk and no cost to the organization. Instead they chose to hire someone at a cost of a few thousand dollars...

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#104

Post by breck »

h2odragon wrote: post #75
breck wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There wasn't any need for fancier sensors and data recording technology than was used. Obviously there was. A common refrain in all the civil engineering discussions I'm reading is that this inspection report was in bottom 10%, perhaps bottom 1%, but not 0.00001% off the charts atypical. It's quite apparent that we need more dimensions of data—if for nothing else than to make it crystal clear when a situation is ap…

What if it wasn't atypical because there's lots of buildings showing damage like this? Coastal Florida, especially; is harsh environment for building and they've had 40+ years of "slap it together as fast and cheap as possible" construction there. It don't matter how much data you have about the tidal wave bearing down on you; you has to move out of its way regardless.

> What if it wasn't atypical because there's lots of buildings showing damage like this?

Yes, this is scary. Lots of respect for the first responders and all the engineers working non-stop right now to figure this out.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#105

Post by CincinnatiMan »

ashtonkem wrote: post #64

Condo issues aside, another takeaway is that reinforced concrete is a bad material as it’s currently used. You’re lucky to get 50 years out of it with perfect maintenance, and places like Florida are even worse because any water ingress is guaranteed to be salt water. A much more reasonable approach would be to ban iron or steel reinforced concrete in new Florida construction, but I doubt that the government would be…

As someone not familiar with large-scale building materials, what should be used instead?

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#107

Post by secabeen »

h2odragon wrote: post #33
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.

That's true, but every structural engineer interviewed about those reports says something like "yes, that should be fixed, but it shouldn't have brought the building down." The smoking gun has yet to emerge.

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#108

Post by ashtonkem »

CincinnatiMan wrote: post #105
ashtonkem wrote: post #64

Condo issues aside, another takeaway is that reinforced concrete is a bad material as it’s currently used. You’re lucky to get 50 years out of it with perfect maintenance, and places like Florida are even worse because any water ingress is guaranteed to be salt water. A much more reasonable approach would be to ban iron or steel reinforced concrete in new Florida construction, but I doubt that the government would be…

As someone not familiar with large-scale building materials, what should be used instead?

The short answer is “don’t build that tall”. There really isn’t any material available to build that tall that cheaply without it being throwaway work, so don’t.

Building tall is really only necessary because of the amount of space we set aside for cars, both for parking and roads. You can get really good density by building 4-6 story apartments close to where people actually want to live and work, plus a bit of mass transit (preferably trains).

Re: Condo boards everywhere are unprepared for serious repairs

#109

Post by lostapathy »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #66
mooreds wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I want is for someone to build a HOA portal that isn't horrible. The two I've had experience with were old old school, slow, and super painful.

Is there a need for a portal? A website with the condo’s documents/minutes/spreadsheets/videos seems like it suffices. A forum can also be setup if necessary.

I'm on an HOA board (neighborhood, not condo).

We have a management company, but working with them sucks. There's no good ticketing system or visibility from board to the management company to make sure follow through happens or is fair.

From what I could tell, most of the software in this space is marketed to management companies, not HOA boards. Of course the management company doesn't want to pay for it, so we're stuck. And this is the best of 3 management companies I've worked with.

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