Last Saturday, the Charleston South Carolina Battery won the United States Soccer League Division Two Championship against the Richmond Kickers, and one of our own has reason to celebrate! Maintenance Coordinator Maria Garcia's step-son, Lamar Neagle, helped lead his team to victory and was named league MVP!! To see the story and video interview, click here. (Courtesy of Live 5 News)
WELL DONE LAMAR!!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The Carrot Approach to Collecting Assessments
Courtesy of Valerie Farris Oman, Attorney with Condominium Law Group, PLLC
Association attorneys can talk all day long about the “stick” approach to collecting delinquent assessments, because that’s what we do – we get involved after a delinquency already exists. However, the “carrot” approach to collecting assessments – essentially preventing or at least reducing delinquencies – is equally important and can save associations a lot of time and money spent trying to collect delinquent dues.
The first way an association can adopt the carrot approach is to educate and inform your owners about the reasons behind a particular budget decision. Are you raising the dues? Educate your owners as to why. Considering a special assessment? Hold an association meeting to discuss the reasons for the special assessment with your owners. Well-informed owners are far more likely to pay both regular and special assessments than owners who feel like they are being “taken for a ride.”
The next piece of the carrot approach is to make paying assessments as easy as possible for your owners. Some ideas include:
Have the option of automatic withdrawal for monthly dues;
Have a drop box on the property where owners can put their monthly payments;
Use payment coupons so owners have a concrete reminder they can see.
Next, consider somewhat unusual strategies that encourage payment and even pre-payment of dues. For example, at your annual budget meeting, discuss the idea of offering prepayment incentives, such that owners who prepay their dues for a year in advance can receive a “rebate” or “discount” of 5%. Or, offer prizes for on-time payment of dues or for pre-payment. You might purchase raffle prizes and give all owners who pay that month’s dues on time the opportunity to win a prize. A more valuable prize, such as a free round-trip plane ticket or a free annual gym membership might be a tantalizing incentive for owners who can pre-pay their dues a year in advance.
Finally, consider offering “amnesty” from penalties under certain circumstances to reduce a high delinquency rate. An association with 200 units with a 25% delinquency rate, for example, might offer that for a period of 60 days, all delinquent owners who pay their accounts in full may receive a one-time forgiveness of all accrued late fees and interest charges. We have heard of at least one association that successfully reduced their delinquency rate as a direct result of an “amnesty” program.
Collecting assessments on time is (Captain Obvious alert!) much easier than collecting delinquent assessments. Associations should employ all strategies available to them to educate owners and make paying assessments easy and convenient.
If you have any questions we can answer, please feel free to leave a comment on the Condo Law Group Blog or contact us directly.
Association attorneys can talk all day long about the “stick” approach to collecting delinquent assessments, because that’s what we do – we get involved after a delinquency already exists. However, the “carrot” approach to collecting assessments – essentially preventing or at least reducing delinquencies – is equally important and can save associations a lot of time and money spent trying to collect delinquent dues.
The first way an association can adopt the carrot approach is to educate and inform your owners about the reasons behind a particular budget decision. Are you raising the dues? Educate your owners as to why. Considering a special assessment? Hold an association meeting to discuss the reasons for the special assessment with your owners. Well-informed owners are far more likely to pay both regular and special assessments than owners who feel like they are being “taken for a ride.”
The next piece of the carrot approach is to make paying assessments as easy as possible for your owners. Some ideas include:
Have the option of automatic withdrawal for monthly dues;
Have a drop box on the property where owners can put their monthly payments;
Use payment coupons so owners have a concrete reminder they can see.
Next, consider somewhat unusual strategies that encourage payment and even pre-payment of dues. For example, at your annual budget meeting, discuss the idea of offering prepayment incentives, such that owners who prepay their dues for a year in advance can receive a “rebate” or “discount” of 5%. Or, offer prizes for on-time payment of dues or for pre-payment. You might purchase raffle prizes and give all owners who pay that month’s dues on time the opportunity to win a prize. A more valuable prize, such as a free round-trip plane ticket or a free annual gym membership might be a tantalizing incentive for owners who can pre-pay their dues a year in advance.
Finally, consider offering “amnesty” from penalties under certain circumstances to reduce a high delinquency rate. An association with 200 units with a 25% delinquency rate, for example, might offer that for a period of 60 days, all delinquent owners who pay their accounts in full may receive a one-time forgiveness of all accrued late fees and interest charges. We have heard of at least one association that successfully reduced their delinquency rate as a direct result of an “amnesty” program.
Collecting assessments on time is (Captain Obvious alert!) much easier than collecting delinquent assessments. Associations should employ all strategies available to them to educate owners and make paying assessments easy and convenient.
If you have any questions we can answer, please feel free to leave a comment on the Condo Law Group Blog or contact us directly.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Why Use Bell-Anderson?
by Vickie Gaskill, CPM®, MPM@, RMP@, Owner/Broker 
As you can see, our properties are spending about 22.1% of their income in operating expenses. There are a number of items that are not included in this analysis. Collection costs as well as Professional Services for the owner were less the .2% so I didn’t see a need to add them. Also, because we do not pay the mortgages of our owners, one would have to include their debt service when looking at a complete income and expense analysis.
A friend of mine did this same type of analysis for the properties that he manages in Boise, ID. He found that his total expenses were running at about 30% of the income collected. That might seem a bit higher then my figures. However, Tony included the apartment communities that he manages as well as his single family homes in his overall analysis. Multi-family communities will tend to have higher turnover rates then single family thus lending themselves to slightly higher operating costs. His figures also did not include debt service.
As far as how Bell-Anderson is doing in the marketplace, here’s a couple of graphs that demonstrate that overall in the past seven months we (green line) are slightly below the surrounding area (yellow line) in our vacancy rates. Also, our rental rates were running above the local and national rates but seem to have tapered off to meet other management firms in the local area, yet are still above the national average for rents. As you can tell, this is a great area of the country to invest in single family home rental property.
Recently, I had the opportunity to evaluate the income and expenses of the single family rental homes that we manage. If any of you are thinking about investing in real estate and want to take advantage of present day purchase prices as well as lower interest rates, here’s what I found out after looking at the past five year’s history:
As you can see, our properties are spending about 22.1% of their income in operating expenses. There are a number of items that are not included in this analysis. Collection costs as well as Professional Services for the owner were less the .2% so I didn’t see a need to add them. Also, because we do not pay the mortgages of our owners, one would have to include their debt service when looking at a complete income and expense analysis.
A friend of mine did this same type of analysis for the properties that he manages in Boise, ID. He found that his total expenses were running at about 30% of the income collected. That might seem a bit higher then my figures. However, Tony included the apartment communities that he manages as well as his single family homes in his overall analysis. Multi-family communities will tend to have higher turnover rates then single family thus lending themselves to slightly higher operating costs. His figures also did not include debt service.
As far as how Bell-Anderson is doing in the marketplace, here’s a couple of graphs that demonstrate that overall in the past seven months we (green line) are slightly below the surrounding area (yellow line) in our vacancy rates. Also, our rental rates were running above the local and national rates but seem to have tapered off to meet other management firms in the local area, yet are still above the national average for rents. As you can tell, this is a great area of the country to invest in single family home rental property.
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