When you close your eyes and picture any building, you are quite likely imagining its facade – the outer shell which protects and contains all of the hustle and bustle that goes on within. In a residential property, the facade is what separ…
Home is where the heart is, sure – but it’s also where most of any given owner or shareholder’s money is. For most people, their home represents their single biggest investment. And in a community association, both individual units and the…
Whether it’s a balcony, terrace, patio or roof deck, outdoor space is many an apartment owner’s dream. Desirable – and valuable – as they are, these spaces do present specific maintenance considerations for individual owners, co-op corpora…
Cities are crowded. That’s a simple fact. In the best of circumstances, there’s noise, dirt, dust, and the usual urban pests. Add to that the construction of a new building next to or nearby yours, and annoyance can quickly become overwhelm…
The signs, they are everywhere. They give elegance and style to the names of our buildings and communities. They earn extra income for our buildings with advertisements, and they point out the location of our commercial tenants on the groun…
A residential property could have triple-reinforced titanium steel walls and it still wouldn’t be worth a darn without a sturdy roof. It’s through the latter that many problematic elements can enter a building, from wind to rain to ice to d…
They say that a stitch in time saves nine. But when dealing with exterior maintenance and repairs for your condominium, cooperative or homeowners’ association, that proverbial stitch can save nines – or tens – of thousands of dollars. Small…
If you’re a co-op, condo or HOA board member or manager, you have to deal with vendors and service providers constantly; it’s a routine part of the day-to-day running of any building or association. There are always inspections to be done, …
Constructed as they are out of materials like brick, concrete, or even stone, the exterior walls of an apartment building or row of townhomes might seem nearly indestructible. But despite their hardiness, walls are not immune to assaults fr…
Even if your condominium or homeowner's association (HOA) is a fortified castle atop a hill and surrounded by a moat, one day, someone will hit it with a really big rock, and thus it’s inevitable: work will be done, repairs will be made, th…