087 | HOA Board Heroes: Increasing Revenue for Timeshare HOAs! - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
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Paula DiPaola (00:00):
But if you're going to run for a board, you're

(00:02):
there to you're there to work.
People who run for a boardbecause they're going to get a
free meal, are they going to geta free stay? Are they going to
get a free trip to Arda or tbma?
Shame on you. You know it'sthat's not what it's about. If
you're running for a board,you're running to help.

Jennifer Johnson (00:20):
A regular highlight of the HOA insights
podcast is our board heroesfeature, where we dedicate one
episode each month to celebratethe remarkable efforts of HOA
board members to us a board herois one of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who

(00:43):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes. Welcome

Robert Nordlund (00:50):
back to Hoa insights, common sense for
common areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here to share
the story of an unsung boardhero named Paula DiPaola. This
is episode number 87 and asyou'll soon learn, Paula is a
volunteer board member for atype of property that we haven't
yet featured in any previousepisode of the podcast. As such,

(01:12):
we felt that she was the perfectcandidate to kick off the new
year. If you missed meeting anyof our other board heroes, you
can find them easily on ourwebsite, Hoa insights.org on our
YouTube channel, or bysubscribing to Hoa insights on
your favorite podcast platform.
Now, let's hear a little bitabout Paula and her story. My

name is Paula de Paula. I have served as a
volunteer on the board of MagicTree resort for 24 years when
I'm not wearing my board memberhat, I'm a grandmother and a
somewhat kitchen expert. Twowords I would use to describe
the job of being a board memberare satisfying and difficult.
The main story I'd like to tellis that we haven't raised our

(01:55):
maintenance fees in 24 years.

Magic Tree resort is a 92 unit timeshare
resort property in Kissimmee,Florida, two miles away from
Walt Disney World. The propertyis 42 years old, has an annual
budget of $700,000 and it hasapproximately 3 million in
reserves. Unlike most of thecommunity associations featured

(02:19):
in our board hero episodes,Magic tree is a resort property,
not a residential property, andas you just heard, Paula made
the bold claim that theassociation hasn't raised their
maintenance fees in the 24 yearsthat she served as a volunteer
on the board. Now, while wenormally like to start these
interviews by getting to knowthe board, Hero a little bit

(02:40):
more, we were so impressed ordistracted by this fact that we
had to know more about how sheachieved it.

It's very simple.
I basically buy everything. Ibuy the toilet paper. I buy the
paper towels. I don't just calla restaurant supply or a resort
supply or a towel supply house.
I shop three or four or fivedifferent vendors for each thing
that we buy. I make sure I'mgetting the best deal possible.

(03:10):
I make sure I'm getting amilitary discount. I'm a
disabled veteran, so I getmilitary discounts at Lowe's
Home Depot, you know, placeslike that. This Labor Day Past
Labor Day, Lowe's had a sale forLabor Day, and they had $400
grills for 299. Being a militarymember, they gave me an

(03:34):
additional $100 off. So I wasgetting $400 char broil grills
for 199 I purchased 10 becausewe're going to use grills
forever. We love grills at Magictrade. So at 199 How can you
leave something like that? Youtake advantage of when there's a

(03:56):
sale, and that's what I do. Mygirls, my housekeeping team,
they, most of the time, don'teven have to say to me, we need
toilet paper. We need papertowel. Because I walk through
the housekeeping department, Icheck how many boxes, how many
cases are there, and if I seethat it's running low, I go and
buy some more. And I again, findCostco or Sam's Club or BJs or

(04:20):
Amazon, and I shopped the finestprices I can find. We have been
under budget, probably for thepast 20 years, every single
year, and we take what we'reunder budget and add that to our
reserve account. So Magic Treeruns like a very fine tuned

(04:42):
company. What was

great about Paula's solution was that
nothing came at the expense ofthe amenities or common area
components at the resort,maintaining the same fees year
after year came down to beingthrifty and hands on with her
devotion towards staying full.
Far enough under budget thatthey could transfer their budget
surplus to their reserveaccount. We were surprised to

(05:05):
learn that Paula actuallyreceived some pushback about
this during her Associationboard meetings, despite the fact
that she was clearly deliveringvalue to the community at large.
Here's what Paula had to sayabout that. We used

to go to the tbma meetings, the timeshare board
members, association meetings,and probably four to six years
ago, each meeting, twice a year,would have a managers. Let's
see. How would you call it? Itwould be a sharing of ideas. And
Michael, my husband, who's thegeneral manager of magistrate,

(05:43):
would be the moderator of that.
I would be the moderator of theboard members that were
attending the meeting when Iwould talk about not raising
maintenance fees for X amount ofyears, I would get a lot of
disdain, to be quite blunt, itwould be that they would say,
you know, if you're hurting theresort, it's not good. What

(06:06):
you're doing, you're making anexpectation that isn't good. And
boy, I really, I would, I woulddefend it, because I feel what
I'm doing is a wonderful way ofrunning the resort, and I worked
very hard to keep those feesdown.

We were happy to hear that Paula was holding
her head up high and defendingher method of keeping costs down
from her detractors. After all,one only has to look at the
numbers to see that she wasclearly delivering value to the
community and keeping theirreserve balance strong. However,
it did make us wonder how magictree resort was keeping their

(06:45):
fees down when every othercommunity association is
fighting a constant battle withinflation. So we next asked Paul
about what she was doing tocounteract inflation and price
increases. Well,

I find different ways to make revenue about four
years ago, and this is, this ismind blowing. It really is. And
I don't know how many resorts doit, but I decided with my board,
not I. I decided with my boardthat we were going to do a
resort fee, and we were onlygoing to do a resort fee for for
people who were not on a deed.
Now this was double sided. Soif, if you're not on a deed,

(07:23):
you're paying $150 a week. Well,what do you get for that 150 you
get freemium Wi Fi. That is 4999already per week. You get
unlimited supply of all papergoods, unlimited supply of
coffee, of tea, of breath,mints, of sunscreen, shampoo,
conditioner, chapstick, lots ofcoupons to different

(07:44):
restaurants, and I go outpersonally and make sure I get
to know the people and themanagers in the restaurants and
ask them for at bonefish, we geta free Bang Bang shrimp. At
Coronavirus, you get a freeappetizer or a free dessert. At
different restaurants, they allhave given me perks to give to
this resort fee bag. We have abeautiful organza bag, nice

(08:07):
colors, and when they check in,they get that organza bag. Now,
owners want to send theirchildren, so this is the two
sides. Owners want to send theirchildren in, and I tell them,
are your children on your deed?
No, they're not well. They'regoing to pay a resort fee. Do
you know how many owners all ofa sudden want to change their

(08:27):
deed and put their children onthe deed, which helps Magic Tree
sustain in the future? Becauseif we don't have younger people,
then we don't have a future. Sothese owners that have been
there for 40 years are now intheir 70s, 80s, 90s, and all of
a sudden, we now have 35 to 50year old children on the deeds.

(08:47):
So we don't pay the resort fee.
They don't pay the resort fee.
So what has this resort fee donefor us? Last year, it grossed US
$150,000 so that 150,000 extrarevenue makes up for the
delinquent accounts that peoplehave died or people have passed,
you know, passed away or justfallen off because, you know,

(09:11):
they're elderly, or, you know,whatever reason that someone
just stops paying. And I say,why are we going to take this
unit to foreclosure and pay anattorney $1,000 when I can use
that for rental or for exchange.
We give a lot of inventory toseven across to RCI II. We do
that so we have bulk inventory,a bulk bank, excuse me. And then

(09:37):
we also collect the resort freefrom all those people coming in.
So I'm not only getting morethan a maintenance fee, I'm
getting rental income and I'mgetting a resort fee on top of
it. So it works out reallywonderful.

We love that Paula's idea of implementing a
resort fee had the added benefitof getting future timeshare
owners through the door. Andonto the deeds of their units.
This investment in the future ofMagic Tree meant that there
would be a constant influx ofnew owners to both use and fund
the maintenance of thecommunity. We next asked Paula

(10:13):
where all these great ideas toincrease revenue came from.
Well,

it, I mean, it's very simple, um, my my vice
president, who is from Canada,owns, I believe, 14 weeks at
Magic Tree. Now, before I movedto Florida, I lived in Boston
and Rhode Island, and I wouldcome for at least eight weeks a
year. So I of course, ownedeight weeks. And then other
things happened, and at thispoint right now, I believe I own

(10:39):
about 15 weeks. So 15 weeks. Andif you go, if you want, if, if
the budget says you have toraise the maintenance fees, $50
to me, that's times 15. So it'svery simple. I'm going to find
all kinds of way to keep thatmaintenance fee low. And my
owners really, really, reallyappreciate that. I do the

(11:00):
Facebook page. I write on it,maybe not once a day, but I
write on it four times a week atleast. And I just, I tell them
happy Monday. Or I say, here's apicture of the new pool
renovation. Or I say, don'tforget to send in your proxies
and your ballots. Or, you know,Happy Veterans Day. Or almost

(11:20):
take this morning was happyHalloween almost. I mean, I
don't even know why I did that,because I found a picture of
Mickey sitting in a pumpkin, andI couldn't resist but post it.
And then my, my, my bottom partwas, don't forget to send in
your ballots, because we needabout 1200 votes by November 2.
And this crazy law in the UnitedStates or Florida or wherever it

(11:41):
is, says you can't send outballots more than 30 days in
advance. Now, you know that'sgreat for an HOA apartment
building because everybody livesthere, but when you're dealing
with people all over the world,that really puts a strain on
you. So so I just, I just keep,keep at it, and just just keep
talking to them, keeping yourowners informed. Isn't that what

(12:04):
we talk about at all theconferences, and it's so
important. And I probably out of4692 owners, I probably know
1000

of them. At this point, we felt like we had
a good idea of the type ofperson Paula was and what had
motivated her to serve thecommunity at Magic Tree resort.
We next decided to ask her whatinitially influenced or
motivated her to join thetimeshare board of directors at
Magic Tree. Well,

that's that's an easy it's an easy question. My
mom and my dad both loved MagicTree. My my sister bought magic
tree in 1982 but she wasstationed in Hawaii. Her husband
and herself were both in theNavy, so they kept calling my
mom and saying, you know, wehave a week at Magic Tree. And

(12:51):
my mother, of course, would takemy two girls, my husband and I,
and she paid the maintenancefees every time we went. My
mother would be in the salesoffice and should say, Oh, guess
what, I just bought a week. AndI'd be like, Oh, great, Oh,
guess what, I just bought aweek. And blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. Now my mom, her lastfive years, was handicapped. She
was in a wheelchair, and shewould never want the door closed

(13:14):
to the suite. And we alwaysowned a two bedroom. We have two
bedrooms and one bedrooms. Iwould say, Why? Why are we
leaving the door open. And shewould say, because I don't want
to be closed in, I want to feellike I am enjoying the outside.
And she would grab every personthat walked by our door and talk
to them and teach them how tocrochet or give them a recipe.

(13:34):
You know, I would walk back tothe suite, and there'd be three
or four people in there talkingto her. After my dad died, we
went to Magic tree everyChristmas, and at Christmas
time, it was it was wonderful,and it was beautiful, and it
made you not think of what youleft home, you know, what you
didn't have at home? Blah, blah,blah. And so we went this this
Christmas. It was 1997 and wegot home on the 28th of

(13:58):
December, and she wasn't doingwell. Her eyes were really
bloodshot, and her hair hadturned white and and she was
diabetic, and she called Chipand Dale over to her when we
were at Hollywood studios totake a picture. Now, my mother
never wanted a picture. I thinkthe only picture I have of her
is in her wedding gown, so thatwas long before I was even born.

(14:18):
But she never wanted pictures.
She called Chip and Dale overand said, take my picture and
then go buy me an ice cream. Wegot home on the 28th and on the
20 on the 30th, she said, Mylast wish is I want to go back
to Magic tree. And I'm like,What do you mean? Your last
wish? We just left that. I kindof lost my patients. She said,
I'll pay. And I said, I don'tcare who's paying. January 5, we

(14:38):
went back. January 12, we camehome in january 22 she passed
away. So it was her favoriteplace in the world. And for
about two to three years, Icouldn't go to Magic tree
because I would walk down thestairs look at the unit that she
would be in, and I would just,you know, I. Was very sad,
buying anyway. Couple yearslater, I we were building our

(15:02):
home. We live only two milesfrom Magic tree. We were
building our home. My husbandwas working in California. He
was he was at the Palm Springstennis club being the manager
over there. I was over here, andwe had sold our house in Rhode
Island, so I needed a place tolive. The company put me up in
at Magic Tree. I lived there fora year and a half, and I never

(15:24):
had my door closed ever. My doorwas open all the time, and
people would visit me, and Iwould cook for the team, and I
would cook for the people, and Iwould would have sing alongs
around the fire pits, and it wasjust wonderful. So, um, it's,
it's just a family, familyresort, and there's lots of
stories like that from all theowners. Paula's love

for the same community that her mother took
part in and cherished was veryevident in her answer. We wanted
to know more about how shecontinues to foster that
community atmosphere. But first,let's take a quick break to hear
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And we're back before the break, we heard Paula
explain how her love for thecommunity atmosphere at Magic
Tree was what motivated her torun for president of the board
of directors. We next askedPaula how she has continued to
foster that same communityspirit in others during her time
as a board member.

Well, a few things that we've done
differently is we had a we had atennis court, and we decided,
well, you know, I'm really big.
And then I kicked myself after Ido it, but I'm really big on
putting things out on Facebookand taking a vote. Well, that's
kind of kicked me in the rearend a couple times. So of
course, when I put out, whatshould we do with the tennis
court? Most of the the middleage people so ages 45 to 60,

(17:20):
let's say they all wantedpickleball. Okay, everybody
wanted pickleball. So I and Iwasn't very popular then,
because what I kept saying toeverybody was very simple, I
want something that a two yearold and a 92 year old can enjoy
together. And that was a ninehole miniature pot, pot. And we

(17:42):
took the whole tennis court andwe put a beautiful, old
fashioned pot pot on it. We havevery antique looking metal
animals and fake palm trees,even though we have plenty of
real palm trees, just littlethings that our landscaper found
at different who knowsdifferent? You know, flea

(18:03):
markets for all I know. And hedid a beautiful job. Put some
beautiful planters out. We havebeautiful foliage. We also
bought a brand new playground.
It's one piece. It's all thathigh grade plastic. And I was
going to match the resort andsee I go to other people for
advice. I was buying one thatwas forest green and beige. Now

(18:26):
I'm not a forest green or beigeperson, but I was trying to
match the landscape. And myfront desk supervisor, whose
name is Savannah, she said, No,go with the primary colors.
That's what will attract achild, because she had, at that
time, a four year old. So I wentwith the bright red and the
bright orange and the brightblue and the bright yellow. And

(18:47):
the place is beautiful. If yougo to our Magic Tree website,
that picture is art and Facebooktoo. That picture of the putt
putt in the playground is rightthere. And it's just beautiful.
Just beautiful.

We often ask our board heroes if they have
any practical advice to sharewith the many HOA board members
that tune into this program, andPaula certainly had some to
share. However, Paula's passionfor the community at Magic Tree
was so infectious that we firstdecided to ask her if she had
any words of wisdom to sharethat would help other board

(19:20):
members reach that same level ofpassion and dedication to their
own communities. Here's whatPaula shared with us. What I

feel is, I'm sure board members don't have the
time to give that I give, but ifyou're going to run for a board,
you're there to you're there towork. People who run for a board
because they're going to get afree meal or they're going to
get a free stay, are they goingto get a free trip to Arda or
tbma? Shame on you. You knowit's that's not what it's about.

(19:50):
If you're running for a board,you're running to help, it's
just like running, well, it'sjust like running for office. I
don't want to get political, butyou know, if you're just going
to get the title and say, Oh. A,you know, a city council, or I'm
a school committee, or I'm aSenator. You know, if you're not
doing work, you know, what areyou doing there? So if you're
not going to work on a board,why are you there? Now, I am the

(20:12):
board president, and I have beenfor 24 years. Paula doesn't know
anything. Paula knows that shehas a vice president who's HR
and legal. Paul has a treasurerwho's been in the the the IT
field, in the in business forthe past 3540 years. I have a

(20:33):
contractor who tells meeverything I need to know about
paving and elevators androofing. I have a nurse who
tells me things about safety andADA and items like that. And
there's also another woman thatrecently has come on, and she
owns three or four businesses inCincinnati, so she has the

(20:56):
business sense. So I always saya board president is only as
good as the people that surroundher, and I take all of their
knowledge and I make it work.

Paula displayed an attribute that frequently
comes up in my conversationswith my co hosts, Julie Adelman
and Kevin Davis, and that's thewillingness to listen and learn
from the expertise of not onlyyour fellow board members, but
the expertise of the peopleoutside your community that your
board interacts with, such asthe legal counsel, landscapers

(21:27):
and insurance experts, itappeared that she was also
invested in maintaining long,lasting relationships with these
outside vendors. So we nextasked her to tell us more about
her vendor relationships. Well,

my landscaper. He is a gym His name is John Kling.
He owns H M farms, and he hasbeen our landscaper. And he'll
they'll see this, and he'll go,wow, I didn't even realize this.
He hasn't raised our monthlycost or our yearly cost in over
12 years. He has free reign onthe resort. He, he, he charges

(22:04):
us a very fair price. He comesin and takes care of the whole
resort and and lot of ourreviews say that the landscaping
is absolutely gorgeous, which itis, he's also a GC, which is,
which is a general contractor.
And he's the one who built theputt, putt. He's the one who did
the playground. He gives meadvice on everything. I'll give
you a real good one which hehad. This one, our water bill

(22:26):
was $10,000 a month. And everysingle month, I would be like,
Why is this water bill so high?
Well, come to find out, we hadold drainage, old pipes, you
know, spouting water, rustedwater under the ground, and we
could go on and on and on. Johncame to me, and he said, the

(22:47):
$17,000 we're going to drill andwe're going to build and put in
a well, and the well will be forall the irrigation, for the
landscaping, the well cost usabout 17,000 our bill dropped to
2000 a month immediately. Soafter what eight and a half
months, the return on investmentwas done, and our bill has

(23:09):
stayed at about 2000 per monthever since.

That last anecdote was another example of
Paula finding a way toproactively act in the best
interest of the association anddeliver savings directly to the
other owners in the community.
For most other associations,this would have resulted in a
costly special assessment. Onthat same note, we next decided
to ask Paula if magic tree hadever tried to pass a special

(23:33):
assessment in the past.

I've been an owner for 41 years, and we did
have one special assessment.
Don't fall off your chair. Itwas $125 we did quarterly
billing then, which I got ridof, because that was a waste of
postage. But anyway, we hadquarterly billing then, and we
had to pay $25 for fivequarters, and that was to repave

(23:57):
the parking lot. So that's theonly, only special assessment
we've ever had. Paul

had already spoken very positively about the
skills and experiences that herfellow board members at Magic
Tree brought to the table.
However, we wanted to know moreabout the culture at Magic trees
board. So naturally, we askedPaula if there was anything
specific that she and the otherboard members do to ensure that
their board culture stayspositive and productive while
they continue the hard work ofmaintaining their association.

I'm very lucky my vice president. I don't know how
I could do it without her. She'sphenomenal. She is on property
now, and it's just it's a joywhen she's there, because she
appreciates everything she sees.
She appreciates the financials,like when, when the financials
come out, there's nothing betterthan for one of your board
members to send you an email andsay, good job. And there's some

(24:51):
board members that don't dothat, and shame on them. Shame
on them. This is, this is hardwork. This isn't, um. So, you
know, this isn't me trying to,you know, look good. I do it
because it's what's right formagic tree. And I think every
owner appreciates, I appreciatesthat because, you know, it, it's

(25:11):
their checkbook, and they canwrite the same amount of check
year after year after year. Wehave to be doing something
right.

Finally, we decided to close out this
interview, as we often do, byasking Paula if she had any
advice to share with the boardmembers that tune into this
program, stay

in communication with your owners as much as you
can. You know an informed ownerpays dues. Okay? Have a really
good collection company, becausewe do, and the collection
company will come back to me,and I feel very strongly about
this, the collection companywill come back to me and say,
well, this owner, Jen, is anowner, and she owes $2,000 and

(25:51):
she wants to pay 1000 and say,let's start all over again. And
I absolutely 100% say no everytime I say no, because it's not
fair to other owners. Why shouldsomeone who hasn't paid their
bills all of a sudden get a 50%discount? What we do is very
simple. We have our budgetmeeting in June, we put put out

(26:13):
all our bills in July, whichgives every owner six months to
pay their maintenance fee. Wetell them, pay $100 a month. Pay
50 every two weeks, whateverfits your budget. That's how you
should pay your maintenance fee.
And it works. It works. I justdon't think giving people a
discount is it's not fair to theother 4691 owners. So I in the

(26:35):
collection company keeps sendingme emails, will you take this?
And I say, No, no, I'll take offall the late fees. I'll take off
all the interest. I'll take offall that, but the maintenance
fee must be paid in full,because that's the only fair
thing to do. We

want to publicly acknowledge Paula for
performing a thankless job welland compliment the entire board
of directors at Magic Treeresort for taking their
responsibility seriously to actin the best interests of their
association. We hope you gainsome HOA insights from Paula's
story, and that it helps youbring common sense to your
common area. Thank you forjoining us, and we look forward

(27:19):
to another great episode nextweek. And remember, if you match
our definition of a bored hero,or know someone who does, please
reach out to us. Our contactdetails are provided in the show
notes

Jennifer Johnson (27:34):
you've been listening to Hoa insights,
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(27:56):
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(28:18):
of providing general educationabout the Community Association
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087 | HOA Board Heroes: Increasing Revenue for Timeshare HOAs!

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