Dear Board Members,
As we near the end of winter and the beginning of spring, many of you will face the reality of snow expenses that have surpassed your budget. With most associations receiving upward of fifty inches of snow, this was not an easy winter. While snow totals are only slightly higher than the average, the cost of this service was significantly more than ever before, due to labor shortages along with higher equipment and material costs. Your property manager will be visiting this topic with many of you at your next meeting. Although most associations made appropriate increases in their budgets and condominium fees for 2022, additional increases may be warranted for the 2023 budgets as well. We will certainly have more planning information for your 2023 budget later in the summer, but there are a number of indicators already pointing in this direction. The good news is that with the weather improving, spring clean ups are being scheduled with your landscape vendors. Your property manager will let you know when yours is scheduled.
The rising cost of gas is impacting all of us. A regular gallon of gas has risen on average from $3.60 to $4.25 in Massachusetts over the last three to four weeks. You can expect fuel surcharges from vendors if this is sustained. We are watching that closely and will have to do likewise if needed.
Some of you are aware that the landscape for selling and refinancing has changed significantly since the turn of the year. All mortgage companies are now requiring condominium and homeowner associations to complete additional questions in their Questionnaires before providing financing, that specifically relate to the building’s structural integrity and levels of deferred maintenance. Not only do they require information about the current status of these items, but also want an opinion on whether these issues may arise in the future. Basically they are asking you to look into your crystal ball and predict the future. These new questions all stem from the terrible Surfside building collapse in FL last year, and they are doing what they can to shift the liability for the mortgage to the association or management company. As your agent, we are completing these forms on your behalf and now providing reserve studies and engineer reports when they exist. We have had to increase the fees to unit owners to provide this service, as many of these questionnaires run seven to eight pages long. Some of our customers are having a difficult time understanding the impact of these new mortgage company regulations and we have already seen a couple of transactions canceled due to a lack of financing. In these instances, the association is working through repairs that have arisen from normal wear and tear or from an engineering report. The knock-on effect is increased maintenance and repair costs in a shorter period of time than may have previously been imposed. Click HERE for an article that further explains the current environment in this regard. Feel free to give me a call if you would like to discuss this topic in greater detail.
We welcomed two new associations to our portfolio on January 1 including Summer Reach, a 112-unit 55+ community in Plymouth and Edgewood Village, a 60-unit community in Marshfield. The outlook for the remainder of this year is very strong with a number of communities already committed to our services. They will be coming on board in May, July and September. Stay
tuned for more details in the coming months. To effectively manage these new communities we have hired two new property managers. Please join me in welcoming Marianne Kinsella and Rob Cuoco to the company. Both are joining us with over ten years experience in property management. They will be great additions to the team! I’m sure some of you will be chatting with them in the coming weeks, if you have not already done so. We also have a staffing change in our accounting department. Jaryd, who had worked with us for two years, has followed his dream of public accounting and moved to a mid sized CPA firm. We wish him the very best for his future and expect great things. I’m delighted to announce that Justin, one of our maintenance technicians, has transitioned into this role. He has lots of experience from his days as an accounting clerk in the Army. I’m delighted to see one of our own employees fill this position.
As the company has continued to grow, we are looking for strategic partners to align with, that best support our customers. We are currently reviewing our banking relationships, in light of the increasing costs to process receipts from unit owners making their monthly fee payments by check. While we offer an online automated payment portal, roughly 40% of unit owners don’t avail of this service. Rather than consider processing fees, we are looking at automated solutions provided within the banking sector, including lockbox services. We will keep you informed of any changes we plan to make with significant advance notice.
As we all emerge from Covid and the public arena seems to become more polarized than ever before, we are seeing a small number of unit owners using the discussion board on their portal as a forum to abuse their volunteer board members and our employees. Many of these unit owners appear to be oblivious to the reality of inflation and the rising cost of services. Increased condominium fees are a fact of life today for many reasons. I should point out that we don’t monitor the discussion boards as they are intended for unit owners to share helpful information such as restaurant or babysitter suggestions. If requested, we can disable them for your association and unfortunately we had to do that for one customer recently.
Our website update is in full swing and we will be unveiling the finished product in early summer. It will include updated photos, bios of our employees and video footage explaining our services and experience. We’re excited to hear from you when it goes live.
Feel free to give me a call anytime if you need advice or just want to chat. My direct line is 617-752-1922. As always, I very much appreciate your business and wish everyone a Happy Spring!
Slainte,
Ronan
