097 | 70% of Homeowners Regret Buying in an HOA. What’s Going On? - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
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Julie Adamen (00:00):
Don't forget, 20% of your pro 20% of your people

(00:03):
are going to cause 80% of yourproblems. So let's look at what
we can do to help mitigate someof that 20% 20 to 30% in there
and so and do the best that wecan and honestly with with
technology now, using AI of somesort, you really have no excuse
not to communicate with yourhomeowners more often and more

(00:24):
easily for you, Hoa

Announcer (00:26):
Insights is brought to you by five companies that
care about board members,association, insights and
marketplace Association,reserves, community, financials,
Hoa invest and Kevin Davis,Insurance Services, you'll find
links to their websites andsocial media in the show notes,

Robert Nordlund (00:42):
Hi, I'm Robert Nordlund of association
reserves,

and I'm Julie Adelman with Adam and Inc. And
this is HOA Insights, where wepromote common sets

for common areas. Well, welcome to episode
number 97 where we're againspeaking with management
consultant and regular co host,Julie Adaman. Today we'll be
talking about the challenge ofimproving homeowner
satisfaction. According to arecent survey by front door,
approximately 70% of peopleliving in an association would
rather not live in anassociation governed community,

(01:13):
and that's going to take a bitto unpack, but that's a lot of
dissatisfaction, so follow alongwith us today as we address this
challenge and what you can doabout it at your association, we
want to help the associations ofour listeners thrive, hoping
that you represent the 30% wherethe homeowners are satisfied,

(01:33):
and lead the way to growing thatnumber to 40% and 50% and on and
on. This is a follow up toepisode number 96 another of our
bonus episodes. You may or maynot have noticed that in a month
with four Mondays, we follow apattern of myself and co host
Julie like today, myself and cohost Kevin Davis myself with a

(01:53):
subject matter episode and anepisode featuring a bored hero.
So in a five Monday month, wehave room for something special.
So if you missed that bonusepisode number 96 take a moment
after today's program and listenfrom our podcast website, Hoa
insights.org, or watch on ourYouTube channel, where you can

(02:15):
give it a like or better yet,subscribe from any of the major
podcast platforms so you don'tmiss any future episodes. Those
of you watching on YouTube cansee this HOA insights mug that I
have, proudly, really has onetoo, very nice that I got from
our merch store, which you canbrowse through from our HOA

(02:37):
insights.org website, or thelink in the show notes, you'll
find we have some great freestuff, like board member zoom
backgrounds and some specialtyitems for sale, like mugs. So go
to the merch store, find the mugyou'd like, and if you're the
10th person to emailpodcast@reservesday.com with
their name and address and mugchoice, mentioning episode 97

(03:00):
mug giveaway. I'll ship it toyou free of charge. We enjoy
hearing from you responding tothe issues that are facing your
association. So if you have ahot topic, crazy story, or a
question you'd like us toaddress, you can contact us at
805-203-3130, or email us atpodcast at reserve say.com, but

(03:23):
this episode is our choice,because Julie and I wanted to
follow up with our thoughts onthis survey that you might have
read about. So Julie, what do wedo? Well,

you know, the survey was really interesting,
and everybody you could find itat front door.com, but I read it
so you don't have to if youdon't want to. But it was very,
very interesting because itindicated that 70% of people
living in a homeownersassociation would not recommend
a homeowners association tosomeone else. In fact, they
would like to be able to moveout and have a single family

(03:55):
home. And I just thought thatwas really interesting because,
you know, obviously someassociations have a lot of
problems, and others just arenormal associations. In our
world, there are some problemsyou're always going to have
that. But for 70% I mean, I livein a huge Hoa, and I like it so
but maybe I

Why do you like it?

Because I know what things cost, and if I had
to pay for all the amenitiesthat are available to me, and
that's food and beverage, I haveseveral restaurants, golf,
pools, pickleball, everything Icould never afford to do that on
my own. I have an inside I guessmy mind goes to the insider's
track. I know how much thatwould have would cost for me to

(04:39):
personally have a swimming poolin my backyard, and have to pay
to go to the tennis court or payto go wherever I don't play
pickleball. But I mean, whereelse you gonna find 800
different people to playpickleball with? Because that's
what they have here. So it'sthese type of things. But and
having managed for a long timeand been around, you know, in
and around and consulting andall that, there are. Are. There

(05:00):
definitely are people who justdon't like living in an HOA, and
some people shouldn't, but Ithink most people don't like it
because they just don't know howan HOA works. They don't know
well, and this is, let me goright to the big problem that
everybody had. Number one, thenumber one thing they don't like
are the assessments. They thinkthey're too high, and number

(05:22):
two, they think they don't knowwhere the money's going. So if
they think they're too high andthey don't know where the
money's going, that makes peoplereally touchy as a and
forgetting all the other thingsthat people are, as I say, are
suffering for PTSD, after COVID,and last year was an election
year, and you know, everything'sdialed up to 11 billion. So you
heard those two things together,hurricanes, wildfires, yes, or

(05:46):
people in LA, I mean, and just,my goodness, it's so much stuff
going on. So I got to thinkingabout this survey and the things
that people didn't like. And asa board member, having, I've
been a board member a few times,but as a board member, what can
you do to to kind of smooth thisover with people? Well, the only

(06:10):
thing you really can do, I mean,you can't control them. They're
going to think how they think,but you can maybe mitigate some
of those feelings by my favoriteword in the world, communicating
what I would consider probablyabove and beyond what you would
think you have to do, but that'sthe only way you're going to

(06:30):
bring the people who areunsatisfied with the amount of
assessments, just take it whereit is. It's everything's too
high. How are you ever going toget to them the information
they're going to need to know,that the assessments aren't too
high. In fact, they probablyshould be higher at the moment,
like most associations, but, buthow do you get that information

(06:53):
to those people in a form thatthey can readily understand and
that would fit in the amount oftime they want to spend looking
at it. Now I know all you,Robert and I were just talking
for we went on the air that he'sa numbers guy loves numbers. If
you hand Robert a financialstatement, he is in heaven and
he's just going to sit down andread the whole thing. It speaks

(07:13):
to me. Yeah, it speaks to you.
Now I'm on the other end ofthat. I mean, I can read a
financial statement, but I'm onthe other end of that. I would
prefer, if it's me. I wantsomething quick and simple,
because I have other things todo, and I'm thinking I prefer to
see something like a pie chart,if unless I really wanted to
drill down. But if you'relooking at the macro, a pie
charts a great way to go. Solet's start with the first

(07:35):
thing, I think, is that simplifyhow you present financial
statements to people and sendthem out. Send out that
information in the simplifiedversion every single month, more
often, if you need to, and ifpeople want that information. So
I know if you have a managementcompany, typically your
association will have a websitethat has the financials on the

(07:58):
website that the homeowners canaccess. But that's a it's either
a full financial statement,which a lot of people don't
understand, or it's just thebalance sheet and maybe the
check register and you know, andit tells you that, which is good
for a lot of people. You look atit this way, if you are a
homeowner and you have a spouse,you have kids, you have a job,

(08:20):
your spouse has a job. Your lifeis really, really, really busy.
You don't have time to sit downand read five pages of financial
information and absorb it andhave it makes make sense to you,
and in the way you'll be able toprocess it. So I have this in my
online classes for board membersas well, as far as presentation

(08:41):
of budgets and that type ofthing. But I think with every
month with your financialstatement pie chart, something
simple that they can absorb andabsorb quickly and understand
that. You know, administrativecosts are not the ginormous
expense, the landscaping costsare the ginormous expense. Or
nowadays, of course, insurance.

(09:02):
Let's riff on insurance here,Robert for a minute, yeah, while
Kevin's not here, well, Kevin'sand I, we should do, we should
have all three of us on or forour for our 100th episode. That
would be

fun. That, yeah, hour long episode. It
would Yeah, well, we don't

want to bore everybody to debt, but, but
anyway, I mean, for those of youwho don't know, I would suspect
most board members are aware ofthis now that the cost of
insurance has gone way up foryour association, and even
though you may tell people thator it's a footnote down at the
bottom of the budget, why theInsurance is high. I think all

(09:41):
of these larger costs peopleshould understand. I would be
very specific about it. Why isinsurance high? Well, Robert,
why is insurance high? Or youcan't get it right now. Why is
that?

Kevin and I have talked about why insurance
is high. It's inflation. It'sthe awards, the damages. Going
up. It's lots of things likethat, but something struck me in
what you said, and I want to goback to it, that there's there's
people that are dissatisfied.
And if I go back years ordecades, I have this number in

(10:12):
the back of my mind of thepercentage of people that should
never buy a home in anassociation, just because
they're they don't, they don'tplay well with others, they
don't get along with others. Andthat's always been a single
digit, three to 5% and I thinknow we have people like you
said, who are anxious, they'refeeling pressure, they're

(10:35):
feeling discontent. It's theCOVID effect of the COVID
Hangover, yeah, yeah, the COVIDHangover, yeah, where you just,
you're not trusting largeorganizations as much. So
there's these factors. And so wehave 70, and now we're talking
about 70% okay, what can we dowith that? Well, there's
something and, and you also saidthere they don't have enough

(10:58):
time. So there's magic andsimplicity, there's magic and
brevity. And if you can do whatyou can't, because not
everyone's going to readclearly. You're going to send
out a newsletter. You're goingto do have monthly board
meetings. You're going to do allthe normal things, and people
aren't going to go to boardmeetings. People aren't going to
read the newsletter. But whatcan you do? Hit them from every
angle. Maybe you have a noticeat the mailboxes. Keep doing it

(11:20):
and make it simple and brief,all these different things you
can try, because you need topoke one way or another way to
try to get that information tothem. And like you say, Julie,
comparing to how much more itwould cost if they own their own
home, is you got, you got to doall you can, yeah.

And so when I'm talking about this, we talk
about financial specifically andand to simplify what you send
out to people, you need to sendout, what you've got to send
out, or it's on your website.
But to simplify, when it comesfrom the board, it's got to be
brief. And I have to tell you,as everyone knows, people don't
have a very long attention span,brought to you by these devices,
but so you have to address that.

(12:08):
We can't just say, Oh no,they're gonna read seven
paragraphs. They're not if theyget through paragraph two,
you'll be very lucky, and that'swhy now, and believe me, board
members, I can hear you outthere right now going well, by
heavens. I wrote that, or wewrote that. We want everyone to
read it all. That's where allthe information is. You are
absolutely correct. But thatdoes not change the fact that

(12:29):
they're not going to read itwhen the information is way down
in paragraph seven, and it's,you know, it's hard to absorb
and takes time to read. It's notgoing to get any better, yeah,

you need to lead off with the headlines.
Inflation is real here at HappyValley Acres, and our insurance
is X percent higher than lastyear, and we have a roof project
coming up, and we need toincrease our reserve funding
now. For more details, see belowjust things like that. It's a
community you want to build theidea that it's a we, it's not

(13:04):
the board versus them. Theboard, yes, the board spent an
hour or two trying to summarizeit to one page, and they have
every right to want people toread that. They tried hard, they
did their level best. Is thereany way we can ask homeowners to
try to do a better job, or isthat just deflecting
responsibility?

Well, doing a better job of listening

and reading and attending? Well,

oddly, in that survey of 41% of people said
they had attended boardmeetings. So I thought that was
really high. I was surprised.
But so if, even if they'reattending, they may not be
liking what they hear. And ofcourse, the board meeting is not
so where you're going to givedetailed explanations or
specific explanations, otherwiseyou're going to be there for
five hours. So I think,honestly, I think it's, it's

(13:54):
incumbent upon us as theleaders, as board members, it
would be incumbent upon us toreach people where they are. And
if your folks are single parentswith kids, or, you know, a mom
dad, or whatever form that takeswith jobs, they just are so busy
they don't have time for this,right? So it's very difficult to

(14:14):
absorb it. So I think it'sincumbent upon us to be to
communicate continuously,continuously. And I know it
sounds like a lot we're talkingabout that just a sec,
communicate continuously, do itin the simplest form that you
possibly can another way,especially if it's a contentious
issue, finances are often itwhen it comes around budget

(14:35):
time, or maybe even a coupletimes a year, just have a town
hall, kind of a financialworkshop, if you will. And board
members don't think it all hasto be you bring in some experts.
If you have a as you have a firmthat produces your financial
statement, bring them in. Yourinsurance has gone up 60 70%
bring your insurance agent. In,and they're typically happy to

(15:00):
come in and chat with thehomeowners at a town hall about
about why that is, bring yourreserve study expert in to say,
Okay, this is where we're at inreserves. This is what we're
going to need to do. And bringyour attorney in if you want
someone to talk about theboard's fiduciary duty, and
that's why they have to raiseassessments and keep up with

(15:20):
inflation, you know, preserve,protect, maintain, so you don't
have to be the lone rangers outthere taking all these slings
and arrows, neck hitting andpitchforks that can be tossed at
you and an expert testimony, ifyou will, in this type of
situation. Works really well,really well,

right? Because then it's not you the board
being the bad guys. It's theseother people saying, These are
the realities in the world thatwe live in. Julie, in the back
of my mind, yes, I'm a numbersperson. You said over 40% are
attending board meetings. Do youthink that's because we've gone
virtual with so many boardmeetings, and board meeting is
easier to

go to I would say that's probably true, because I
know most associations now aredoing that, unless they're
documents specificallyprohibited or state law does
here. I'm living in Arizona, andin fact, we're just just get
ready to send the legislaturenow, but they're going to pass a
law that everybody can now havevirtual meetings, because it's

(16:21):
been so good for attendance. Ibelieve that's one of the
reasons so good for attendance,and it's fantastic for people
who are managers of communityassociations, because those of
you folks out there who have amanager, if your board meeting
is at seven o'clock at night, weshouldn't have those anymore,
but we still do. But if yourboard meetings at seven. Well,

(16:41):
your manager may get off atfive, and depending on where you
live and what the commute is,they could be driving, you know,
an hour to your property to beat a meeting, and then it
doesn't get out till nine or 10,and they got an hour home. This
is much better for the people inmanagement. I will say, though I
like the old school, I likebeing with the people. I think
having in person meetings isimportant.

Something about the physical presence it is.
It's that. It's the feel. Well,Julie, I was leading because I
was wondering, if you don't wantto go to all this effort to have
a nice budget meeting, and noone attends, because at just a
budget meeting, I'm not anumbers person, would it be
helpful to record that? Would itbe helpful? That's, I guess, one

(17:23):
idea. Another idea is to havethe treasurer or the president
or someone just say, Hey, folks,in three minutes or five
minutes, here's a nice littleYouTube summary of what's going
on here at Happy Valley forFebruary. The budget is this. We
got the, as you all know, we gotthe tennis court resurfaced

(17:45):
while it's winter time. We'regetting a new Pool Heater so we
won't have the cool pool that wehad last year. Just a little
update on what's going on, fiveminutes, little video absolutely

and five minutes is perfect, because it doesn't
take long to record, and for youboard members out there
thinking, oh my god, I have toget a script. Well, that's what
AI is for. It's a tremendoustool. If you're not using chat,
GPT or grok, which is on x, orif you have a Microsoft product,
it's a you can use copilot. Youcan just put in a few bullet
points of what you want tocover, and ask it to make a

(18:18):
script, and boom, it comes out.
If you want to adjust it, youjust tell it to adjust a little
bit. And you can tell it howlong you want the script to be.
So there's really no reason. Andyou can use your phone to record
yourself, buy yourself a selfiestick, talk on it. You could do
it in your house. Like, like, Ilike, we do these podcasts as I
have a home office, so it's whatwe do. Like Robert does too,
yeah,

yeah. And I just want to encourage people,
Julie and I do this a lot. So wehave, we some equipment. We
have, well, we have some goodequipment, yeah, but for a board
meeting, they're not expectingyou to be the nightly news, no,
and it's okay. Get reasonablelighting, get reasonable sound,
and just keep it nice and directand smile and like we said

(19:03):
earlier, short and sweet andeasy to consume, easy way. They
don't have to say, I can't getthere because we have dinner
with the Johnsons, or have totake Susie to soccer practice or
whatever, that kind of stuff.
Yeah.

And I will tell you, though, yes, we do have
really good equipment becausewe're doing these podcasts, but
you absolutely this is probablythe best camera in your house
right now. If you have an iPhoneor Samsung product or something
like that, very simple to use.
You can set it up. In fact,don't forget, for like, the
first two years or three yearsof the Joe Rogan pond podcast,
largest podcast in the world,they used an iPhone. That's all

(19:40):
they used, was an iPhone. Yes, Ididn't know that. Yes.

Okay, wow, Julie, we've talked about
numbers. We've talked aboutcommunication. At this point in
time, let's take a quick breakto hear from one of our generous
sponsors, after which we'll beback with more HOA insights. On
related topics.

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and we're back well before the break. We're
talking about the cost of livingin an association. We talked
about communication. But at thispoint in time, there's another
friction point at associations,and that's rules. So what can a
board do to make rules lessonerous, onerous, onerous,

or we make it, make it somewhat more user
friendly? I guess I want to say,you know, that is one of the big
sticking points that peoplehave. It's the finances and it's
rules enforcement, and they feellike the rules are enforced
unfairly. So that is somethingthat we can address as board
members, and that is, make sureyour rules are being enforced

(21:16):
fairly well. Okay. How do we dothat? First of all, make sure
that the rules themselves aresimple and easy to understand
and that they go out to theowners. I would say all the
rules some some states make youdo it once a year. But I think
that's a really good that's agood benchmark, once a year
rules go out and then inenforcement. We really need to

(21:40):
try to be as fair as we possiblycan, and a part of that is
keeping track of everythingthat's going on. If you have a
management company that theyshould be keeping track of that
for you, those rules things gothrough their system, and that's
really good. But another thing Iwant to bring up, as far as
rules go, so let's rules andregulations, architectural
guidelines, other major policiesand guidelines, I would advise

(22:02):
all boards to go through everyounce of those every year,
because what has a tendency tohappen is that, you know, rules
that were, and it is, it's a lotof work to redo them, but rules
that were, you know, put forth678, years ago. Some of those
may not even be applicable. Somemay be highly out of date, and

(22:22):
of course, that makes the boardlook out of touch. You know,
you're trying. You may be tryingto enforce something that really
doesn't matter anymore.

Yeah, that might be like, oh, when your
kids grow up, you have differentrules for different times in
their lives. And if, well, I it,could it be asking the
management company, what's thenumber one rule? That's getting
broken? And do you focus on thatonce a month? You say the number
one rule this month is the firelane violations. Folks, think of

(22:50):
what happened in California. Wegot to have the fire lane clear.
We can't have people parking onwhere it's a red curb. It's for
your own safety. So please,please, please, don't park in a
red curb, even if you're justbringing groceries in. Is it
something like that, whereyou're communicating the why?
And you're not, you're not thebad guy. The bad guy is fire

(23:11):
danger, not the board, exactly.

And you know, a lot of people don't understand
that. They're just, they're notlooking at they're like, I'm
only going to be here for 10minutes, you know? And then, but
God forbid that was the timesomeone needed that, or not even
just fire. I mean, think of, youknow, rescue, ambulance, that
kind of thing. So yes, and Ithink a lot of people don't
understand why they can't havethat third car parked on their
lawn. And oddly, in the samesurvey, it says that the number,

(23:37):
but Okay, people don't like theway rules were enforced, and 30
to 40% of them, they've gottenthose nasty grams from the HOA.
On the other hand, the numberone reason people do like their
Hoa, and it's almost 60% isuniformity. They like, they like
the rules enforcement. So

the place is nice. The place, yeah, we don't
have

a car up on block somewhere, you know? Yeah, front
and

there is a little bit clean and the there's
not people having a wild partyin the pool at midnight, because
you have and there's guestparking because people like to
have guests, and people are notparking their third or fourth
vehicle in guest parkingpermanently. Yeah, there's good
things

that push pull is definitely a cognitive
dissonance, and it's having beenin the industry for I counted it
up. It's almost 40 years. I'vebeen saying 35 for, like, the
last well, you started when youwere five. I did. I did 40 so,
but it is a cognitivedissonance, and yes, it's very
frustrating, but you but it'sthe truth. And the only way to

(24:40):
even mitigate some of that, somepeople just like to have that.
They like that turmoil in theirhead. But the only way to
mitigate that is this type ofcommunication. So if you're
going through your rules andregulations, your architectural
guidelines, yada yada, once ayear, making sure it's well
written, making sure it's notoverly complicated. In fact.
Worked in association. I sat onthe board for, oh, before we

(25:02):
moved for, gosh, the last fouryears, and I'd sat on it for
about four or five years. 10years prior to that, is that I
rewrote because it needed to bedone, the rules and regulations,
and they were so full ofgobbledygook and this things
just went on and on and on, whenreally all you need to say is
quiet time is after 10pm I canthat's all you need to say. And

(25:25):
so

even that, it's not that you said no noise. You
said, quiet time. Quiet Time isa good thing. No noise is
punitive. And so just the waythat you write them, oh,

it's the tone, the tone of how you write these type
of things and your newsletters,all we have people. I have all
kinds of stuff on my websiteabout this. If you ever wanted
to go in and look Adam and dashinc.com Just google me and
you'll find me. But about theway boards and I get because
you're frustrated. I mean, pickup after your dogs. You know,
there's dog poop everywhere. AndBaba, you know, people feel like

(26:00):
they've been hit up with arolled up newspaper. Well,
that's you don't. People don'twant to do that. They don't want
to be feel that way. They don'twant to be talked down to, and
they sure don't want to beshamed on that. So what you want
to do in that type of situation?
And I know we pulled this, weeven used the the slide I used
before, but it's not clean upafter your dogs. It's like, Hmm,
maybe there's not enough petwaste stations where people walk

(26:20):
their dogs. Wow. All of a suddenwe have a solution to the
problem, and the board is beingproactive and positive, and
people want to be a part ofsomething positive. They don't.
They don't want to be smacked,you know? They just so it's
always be conscious of how youare, the tone of your
correspondence, even yourpersonal interaction, the tone

(26:43):
is everything for boards.

Yeah, well, we're back to communication, and
that's what I want to finish onhere. It's not just
communicating hard news, butcommunicate good news. Can you
communicate things like a twobedroom just sold for a record
price of $575,000

how? How much value is there to communicate?
Huge value. I mean, it's a youdefinitely have things you want
to, you know, guide peopletowards following within the
community. But you absolutely,I'm a board member years and
years ago who used to say, spinthe halo. That's what he called
it. Yeah, it's very descriptive,celebrate the victories and give
people the kudos that they need.
So real estate, if the realestate market is going up in

(27:28):
your area, that's definitelyreflective on how your community
is valued. I don't mean that. Imean how it's valued, yes,
dollar wise, but it's also itsperception of value for the
people who live there. And soprice is going up yet. The the
pool has been replastered, or,you know, whatever, that type of
thing. The roofs are going to beredone. People like to see that.
And you know, folks, youaccompany that with a picture,

(27:50):
even if it's just a quick eblurb. Here's how the new pool
looks. It opens on Tuesday, orwhatever is, and people love to
see that shows them. That bringsus right back to finances. It
shows them where there's money.
Their money is going. It's goingto keep the upkeep. And yes,
it's these things all worktogether. All work together.

(28:13):
Yeah,

I'm I'm liking this, because if you're finding
people because of pet waste,then just why don't you spend
the $200 $250 and get a new petdoggie bag? What do you call it?
Waste station, pet wastage?
Yeah, buy a new one. And so youfix the problem. And I hear the
voice of Kevin Davis in my brainof the pool gate that doesn't

(28:33):
close. That's annoying. And youcan say, Oh, by the way, we
heard you, and we fixed the poolgate. Here's a picture of it,
where it automatically closesand it doesn't bang with the
force of a strong man when itcloses, just communicating the
good things you've done for theassociation and giving them a

(28:54):
little feedback, saying, Yeah,we heard you, and this is what
we can do. And

that people, they honestly they just want to know
they've been heard. I mean, wethis whole thing about, if
you're a board member and you'reactually getting hope if you get
emails at home, many, many ofyou do on your home email
address, you know, off, ifyou're like, Oh God, I don't
want to do that, because I'lljust get all these emails I
can't answer. You know, if youput an auto response on that, a
very nice one, you know, this,if this requires my personal

(29:20):
attention. I will be returningit within, you know, 72 hours,
something like that. People justwant, they just want that
touchback, and for board membersto physically say and tell
homeowners, look, this was notworking. We know it didn't work.
It's been, you know, we couldn'tget a part to spend two months.
And it's working. Yes, and thenthank the committee that did it,

(29:42):
if they were the ones that didit, or if there was an
individual board member that youknow spearheaded that we want to
thank you know, we want to thankBob over here, for Bob right
there. Yeah, yep, always, alwaysspin that Halo yours and theirs.
And you will find that over aperiod of time, it will build.
Up the morale in your community,because, and don't forget, 20%

(30:04):
of your pro, 20% of your peopleare going to cause 80% of your
problems. So let's look at whatwe can do to help mitigate some
of that 20% 20 to 30% in there,and so and do the best that we
can, and honestly, with withtechnology now, using AI of some
sort, you really have no excusenot to communicate with your

(30:25):
homeowners more often and moreeasily for you. Yeah,

and I like this idea of thanking the volunteers,
which is a reminder to theresidents that this place is run
by volunteers, and thenmentioning the association here
at Riverview villas, we're happythat the pool gate is finally
fixed, or something like that.
That reminds them that we are acommunity. We are different than
the houses down the street.

(30:51):
We're different from the otherhouses down the street. We're
different from the apartmentsacross the street. We are river
What did I just say Riverview?
Yeah, we are, and that helpsbuild so many good things. Well,
it does. Julie, as always, it'sgreat talking with you. Any
closing thoughts to add at thistime? No,

I'm just going to go back to the to what we said.
And we talk about this all thetime. And having been in this
industry now for 40 years,everything does come down to
communication, what youcommunicate, and how you
communicate it, and when thepeople are unhappy, it's
typically because they don'thave all the right information.
And it's up to us as boardmembers to give them that right

(31:31):
information as often as isnecessary, whether you do it
through management or throughyourself, and watch how we say
things and make sure that ourrules are being enforced evenly,
because that's goes to yourcredibility board members. If
you don't enforce rules evenly,you lose your credibility, and
people don't want to follow you.
So make sure those are to makesure and look at your stuff
every year, make sure you'rewhat you're enforcing is even

(31:52):
relevant now. So these are thetype of things that will make
your community much easier foryou to manage. It'll help you
stay happier, and it will andhelping you stay happier is
having more happy homeowners.

Fantastic.
Well, we hope you learned someHOA insights from our discussion
today that helps you bringcommon sense to your common
areas. We look forward to havingyou join us for another great
episode next week.

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097 | 70% of Homeowners Regret Buying in an HOA. What’s Going On?

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}097 | 70% of Homeowners Regret Buying in an HOA. What’s Going On?