Residential communities such as co-ops, condos, and HOAs are unique in that they take the governance of their properties into their own hands. While most properties do have managing agents to oversee staff and to handle the day-to-day opera…

By its very definition, insurance coverage is planned protection against both the expected and the unexpected. Life insurance clearly provides financial security in the event of death, which of course is an eventual certainty. But at the sa…

The arrival this past spring of an easily transmittable, frequently life-disrupting, and sometimes deadly virus profoundly impacted day-to-day activity for busy New Yorkers - including a certain socioeconomic bracket accustomed to the conve…

COVID-19 has caused more far-ranging, persistent anxiety than any other event in recent history. It has affected our jobs, our living situations, and the way we interact with others, and it’s not done with us yet. Scientists and public heal…

According to a recent notice from New York City-based firm RAND Engineering & Architecture DPC, following the precedent set at New York City's restaurants, building owners will now have letter grades posted outside their entrances as well. …

A few years ago, I was on the phone with a homeowner. He was irate with how his community’s money was being spent. He was unhappy with the budget increase. It was a call I took regularly from any one of my homeowners (and more often than no…

Occasional clashes over questionable grass-mowing technique or noisy neighbors notwithstanding, according to the  2020 Homeowner Satisfaction Survey , a new report conducted by the  Foundation for Community Association Research  (FCAR) …

Reserve funds are a normal - and crucial - component of the budget for any co-op and condominium community. Lenders of all types, whether it be the banking institution that holds the underlying permanent mortgage on an entire co-op building…

On Thursday, July 16, NBC 4 New York reported that a scaffold on a residential building in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood collapsed onto a sidewalk shed below, killing one worker and seriously injuring three others. All four men w…

Compared to previous generations, Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996, give or take) have a conspicuously low rate of homeownership. While the ranks of millennial homeowners have expanded slightly over time, the numbers still fall…