Dear Board Member,
Fall is upon us and most of you are getting ready for budget season. The majority of our customers have fiscal years that start on January 1, and we have been busy over the last 6 weeks collecting snow removal and landscape bids for the upcoming year. These providers have been hit hardest for staffing as we all come out of Covid. The reality is they cannot get enough help and keeping their existing staff is proving expensive. I chatted with two large landscape companies last week and both have seen their payrolls increase significantly this year. This is a fact of life in 2021 and no doubt you’re seeing it in your own grocery bills. Inflation is running somewhere between 4.7% and 5.3% depending on the source, so everyone should be thinking about the rising costs of running their community. We’ve seen it too. Our annual subscription costs for the Buildium Portal is increasing almost 10% this year.
This has been a busy summer for capital projects. Four of our customers commenced projects ranging from $450,000 to $1,000,000, three of which required loans to fund them. One customer, who updated their building heating system at a cost of $475,000 had the funds in their reserve account to handle the project. This customer has systematically budgeted increased condominium fees annually and developed their reserve account to handle such expenses. Others choose a different approach and maintain lower fees, choosing to borrow the funds for larger projects. Both work, and we’re happy to help you navigate either approach.
We all read about the terrible Surfside condominium building collapse early in the summer and the significant loss of lives. You may be asking yourselves, what should we be doing to safeguard our buildings and our residents? The simple answer is stay on top of your reserve studies every ten years. These include an engineers survey which will help to identify any significant issues before they become a serious problem. Secondly, act on the information. Just because the outcome may be increased costs for the community, it’s your responsibility as a board to take action.
Over the last six months, we have moved the reserve accounts for a number of our customers, where the combined balances of their funds exceed $250,000, to a bank that offers both FDIC and DIF coverage. This ensures the association’s funds are protected and fully insured. Please reach out to your property manager if you would like to address this matter for your community.
We welcome two new luxury properties to the RGR family this fall. Brio, a beautiful 77 unit building in the Hingham Shipyards and River Village, a 56 unit gorgeous stone building in Canton. Jon is managing Brio and Dominik will be at the helm at River Village. Both will be assisted by Mitch during the transition phase.
This fall we will be updating our website. Look out for lots of new pictures and updates on our team. We continue to grow and we’ll be adding another maintenance technician and property manager in the next couple of months.
Remember, we’re here 24/7/365 to serve you and your communities. 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 I hope in return, you appreciate the service from our team.
Regards,
Ronan
