Owning a condo or being a member of a homeowner association is a something many New Jersey residents know a thing or two about. In 2004, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimated that 970,000 existing co-ops and condos were so…
A giant shrub trimmed to resemble a stock car? Shutters painted an eye-shattering fuschia? Eight not-so-tiny reindeer blitzing across the roof? Some people's idea of design heaven is almost certainly someone else's idea of aesthetic purg…
Anyone who has spent time serving on the board of his or her co-op or condo knows that it is a job that no one can do alone. Even if you have the most conscientious group of board members, the job is too time-consuming for a group of vol…
Community associations, whether a homeowners' association, property owners' association, cooperative, timeshare/interval association or commercial association are legal entities that are governed by bylaws and applicable statutory and gover…
It takes a lot to run a successful building—there are employees to hire, services to contract, boards to elect, new residents to review, general technical maintenance to take care of, and all the rest on that ever-present "to do" list with …
The term "multi-tasking" may have been coined to describe property managers: their line of work requires its practitioners to know a little something about nearly everything, to have an impeccable demeanor, lightning-quick problem solving s…
Of the many responsibilities a managing agent has to fulfill for a homeowners association, one of their most vital is coordinating the flow of information between the board and the association members, and keeping that information secure. T…
Any number of things can happen to make an association question its choice of management company. The company the board originally hired might be making mistakes, or there might be personality conflicts that threaten the all-important ma…
Property managers in New Jersey are not specifically required to be licensed—although many of them do get accredited through organizations like the Institute of Real Estate Management, or IREM, and the New Jersey chapter of the Community As…
Adopted hamsters. Mysteriously empty pools. Secret bedroom habits of hi-rise neighbors. No, it's not next week's Desperate Housewives episode. It's more like Ripley's Believe It or Not, but all of these are true-life experiences of prope…