Helping you understand community association business with industry leading insight.
The Importance of Reserve Studies: What We Can Learn From The Champlain Towers Collapse
In the wake of the tragic collapse of the Champlain Towers Condominium in Surfside, Florida, many people want to know how such a thing could happen.
Frequently Asked Questions: Reserve Studies & Aging Infrastructure
The recent highly-publicized Surfside tragedy has motivated many property managers to contact us with questions about reserve studies for aging infrastructure. Below are answers to the most common questions we receive.
What is a Reserve Study and Why is It Important?
A reserve study is a vital capital planning tool for HOAs and condominium associations that provides directional guidance and an in-depth analysis of community assets.
What is Included in a Reserve Study?
A Reserve Study is made up of two parts, as defined by Community Associations Institute (CAI) and the Association of Professional Reserve Analysts (APRA) – the Physical Analysis and the Financial Analysis of the common elements.
When Should a Reserve Study be Done?
A reserve study is a tool used to provide an opinion of the annual reserve contributions required to support the reserve expenditures at a property.
How Much Should a Condo Have in Reserves?
Boards and owners alike must balance the need to keep adequate savings for future projects with the desire to keep monthly or quarterly fees at reasonable levels.
Are Your Reserves Fully Funded?
Are your reserves fully funded? It’s a great question, but at the risk of making this sound like a legal blog, it depends. In order to answer the question accurately, we first have to define the term fully funded.
What Does a Reserve Study Do?
A Reserve Study is a long-term budget planning tool that identifies the common elements belonging to an Association, and recommends a funding plan to maintain, repair or replace these common elements over a specified time period.
Three Keys to Assuring the Most Efficient Use of Reserve Funds
Community leaders, as defined within the Community Associations Institute’s Rights and Responsibilities for Better Communities, “have a responsibility to fulfill their fiduciary duties to the community they serve and to exercise discretion in a manner they reasonably believe to be within the best interests of their community.”
Three Reasons Why Your Condo Association Needs a Reserve Study
If you love where you live and your condo association is pretty great too, a reserve study can help ensure everything stays that way for you and others who live there after you.
What to Look for in a Reserve Study Provider
Anyone on a board of an HOA or condominium association knows the tremendous value of a quality reserve study. Equally important is partnering with an experienced and qualified reserve study provider. But what makes a good reserve study provider?
Understanding and Utilizing Your Reserve Study to Ensure Long-Term Success
It is estimated that more than 22 percent of the U.S. population resides in community associations. According to Community Associations Institute’s latest statistical review, these residents are represented by roughly 346,000 community associations.
Insurance Appraisals Minimize Risk
We are all much more familiar with insurance appraisals as it relates to buying our individual home, but there tends to be less clarity around the function of an insurance appraisal as it relates to homeowner and condominium associations.
What is the Purpose of Reserve Funds?
Common-interest developments or community associations are the fastest growing housing sector today. These types of associations exist as condominiums, cooperatives, vacation timeshares, planned unit developments and more. According to the Community Associates Institute, as of 2020, over 25% of the entire US population lived in a community association.
What Percent Should HOA Reserves Be Funded?
We’re often asked “what percent should HOA reserves be funded?” The short answer is that there is no “one size fits all” benchmark for measuring the health of your community association’s reserve funds when it comes to applying the percent funded model.
