Is Your Co-op or Condo Really so Different?
As co-op and condo board consultants, we speak with board members on a regular basis. And if we had a nickel for every time we hear – “But you don’t understand, our building is different!”, we would have had a lot of nickels. So we felt that it would be appropriate to share all those “special” situations so that for all the board members out there, you can see that you are not alone. Here are the top 5 “special situations that we see over and over again:
Our building is special because…
1) We have one resident who always complains that her apartment is too cold.
EVERY building has at least one resident who is freezing. Often times the biggest complainer have the… ‘most interesting’ stories. These are some actual examples:
The elderly woman in the sheer negligee, complaining that it was ‘ice cold’. “But ma’am, we’ve taken the digital temperature and it’s 76° in here.” “Well I don’t care what the temperature is, I care what I feel like! Turn up the heat!”
The woman whose studio apartment was admittedly quite cold. “You have all of your windows open and it’s below freezing outside.” “But I want fresh air! Turn up the heat!”
2) We’re in the middle of a façade inspection so we cannot do any capital projects right now.
All buildings above 6 stories are required by law to do their façade inspection (FISP) every five years. This may actually be the BEST time to do additional work. People are already being inconvenienced, so why not piggy-back additional necessary work in the same time-frame? Also, you may be able to realize some serious savings as you may be able to use the same vendor(s) for additional projects and thus get a volume discount, and may be able to overlap on some necessary expenses, for example if you are required to put up a sidewalk shed for the façade inspection, you may want to combine other work the requires the shed and eliminate the need for renting the (very expensive) shed an additional time in the future.
3) We operate on a tight budget and do not have funds to upgrade the building.
ALL buildings operate on (or should operate on) a tight budget. Many upgrades not only add value to the building, but can also reduce expenses. We find many upgrade projects that not only pay for themselves in less than three years and continue saving after that far into the future, but also immediately LOWER the building’s expenses on day one of installation!
4) We have a lot of elderly people on a fixed income.
Many buildings have a lot of older people on a fixed income (and let’s be honest, most contract workers are technically on a “fixed” income). But why would that stop you from saving money or doing required repairs? They are only going to get more expensive (and possibly dangerous) if they are put off. The most interesting example of this situation came from a building that was resisting implementing programs that would both save money and upgrade the facilities and services. “You talk about making this building more like a Park Avenue building, but we have people here on fixed income who can’t afford Park Avenue.” “But we’re talking saving enough money to live like Park Avenue at the same price as now. Do they not deserve better living because they are on a fixed income?”
5) The demographics in our building are changing so we have more needs than other buildings.
Most buildings’ demographics change over time, that’s the nature of the older generation “moving on” and the younger generations buying their first apartment. The one constant in real estate is… Change!
We hope these examples will help make you feel not so alone. The Folson Group provides co-op and condo cost reduction services including Energy Efficiency Consulting. Contact us directly at info@thefolsongroup.com or call us at (917) 648-8154 to find out more.