I often wonder what my life would be like if I had complete and total control over it. Would I be able to deflect all the curve balls life throws at me? Or would I still be floating on the sea of life like so much flotsam and jetsam, subject to all the vagaries lurking in the shadows, just waiting to trip me up? Happily we can take control of many things in our lives but unfortunately for those of us living in America’s ever growing number of residential associations, we seem to be losing the war. It is just a handful of people who make the major decisions that affect our lives and more importantly, our wallets.

Robert Nordlund joins us On The Commons. Robert is the founder and CEO of Association Reserves in California. In his professional life he studies the common elements in an association, be it a condo, HOA, Co-op, dockominium or parkominium to determine whether or not the corporate entity responsible for maintaining the common elements is adequately funded.

The news isn’t good. According to Robert, 70% of all associations are underfunded, which means only 30% are not in immediate danger of incurring special assessments. We’ll talk about the reasons for underfunded associations. Are artificially low assessments the (only) reason for this dilemma or could other common practices be responsible for this predicament? Could better business practices help? And is there a “quick and dirty” way for housing consumers to figure out what the financial health of the association they are considering buying into?

I have to wonder whether throwing more money at something that is broken is the only fix or is it simply the easiest short term solution for a problem? Are there other ways of dealing with it that we are overlooking.

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