It may be a surprise to some that Chicago is a rather youthful city. Only about 10 percent of Chicagoans are over the age of 65, compared to 13 percent of the entire United States. Forty percent of the city's seniors have a disability, acco…

It's Chicago, baby. We're talking about the City of Wind. The beloved town by the lake. But what if one of the Second City's famous blustery gusts blows a piece of condominium facade onto some innocent passer-by? This is perhaps the worst-c…

The most important aspect of managing a building is keeping it, its residents, and their property safe. In days past, 'safety technology' consisted mostly of well-lit exits, the installation of panic bars and glow-in-the-dark stripping on e…

Whether you live in a suburb or in the heart of the city, life is expensive. Sometimes it can feel as though everybody from the barista at your favorite coffee shop to the kid who sacks your groceries is trying to nickel-and-dime you half t…

How much water do you use in a month?  If you live in a Chicago-area condominium or cooperative with a single meter for the entire property, you probably don’t know. Your association includes its monthly water and sewer bill in the monthly…

Q.  My condo unit seems to have developed a pretty substantial water leak. I cannot find the origin of it but I know it’s a definite problem. How do I know whether I am responsible for the water leak or whether it is located inside the wal…

The contractors who helped dig out the region’s condo properties last winter agree on one thing: the associations that were ‘rescued’ first were the ones with solid vendor relationships.  “You should probably start looking for a contractor…

Regardless of whether you're talking about a reputation, a design, or a lobby, the word clean implies an absence of dirt, germs, and unattractive clutter. If your home happens to be a condominium, a co-op, or other multi-unit building with …

In the context of multifamily communities, there are two kinds of budgets: a capital, or reserve budget, and an operating budget. Capital budgets apply to long-term, big-ticket projects like new roofs or an HVAC overhaul. By contrast, the o…

Whether you live in an urban high-rise in the heart of a large city, or in a more spread-out suburban HOA development, security—for both property and physical safety—is an important issue in any condo community. Who can come in, at what tim…