Category: Association Operations

 Choosing the right property management company is a tedious but important task  for any Board of Directors.    The use of a Request For Proposal (RFP) process by a cooperative board will  greatly enhance the selection of the most a…

There's no denying it: the housing bubble has definitely burst. And while there is still some speculation on how, when and why, most financial experts agree that the correction and balancing process has begun—though it will likely be lo…

 Chicago has a long tradition of being culturally diverse, and that tradition  continues to evolve today.    The Metro Chicago Immigration Fact Book reports that the Chicagoland area added  1.4 million immigrants in the past decade,…

Years ago, when apartment residents wanted to do laundry, they gathered their basket and detergent, loaded up their pockets with quarters and perhaps a good book or their Walkman and trudged downstairs to the dark, dingy laundry room. A…

 As the mass media reminds us almost daily, staying fit (or even just getting fit  in the first place) is on many people's minds. The risks of a poor diet and  sedentary lifestyle are being taken more seriously, and that seriousness is  be…

It’s a different world for amenities, these days. Just a decade ago, if you were fortunate enough to live in a building with a gated entrance or a nicely-landscaped swimming pool, you thought you hit the jackpot. It was easy for the bu…

You’ve all seen the ads—whether you’re over 55 or not. They’re called “active adult” communities, “retirement” communities, “over-55” communities, “active-lifestyle” communities or any number of other names. Popular locations fo…

According to a recent poll of 1,000 consumers conducted by telecommunications company Frontier, p rivacy concerns around smart home tech devices are on the rise. Sixty percent of respondents to the poll reported being “very” or “extremel…

 The American Society of Landscape Architects—ASLA, for short—was founded in 1899 by eleven prominent landscape architects, among them John  Charles Olmstead, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Downing Vaux,  second-generation landscape archi…

Finding a new management company for your co-op community can be a daunting task—every building has its own personality, needs, and expectations, and the management field is crowded with prospective providers. In the search for the righ…