Prioritizing what we do as an HOA

We have completed a homeowner survey and received a lot of good and interesting feedback about our community.

Now, as I go to process the results, present to the remaining board members, and discuss what we want our priorities to be for 2022, I am a little stymied about my input on setting our priorities. In a general sense, the comments related to the following:

1. Actionable items that have a direct impact on home values. (Things like rules enforcement, compliance, maintenance of community features, etc).

2. Actionable items on things that probably have little impact on home value (parking)

3. Actionable items on things on how our homeowners association is run (transparency, communications, homeowner involvement).

From my perspective, #1 above is why I join the board. Simply put, I want to volunteer to help improve the value of our homes.

Items #2 and #3 I have little interest in volunteeering for.

Do you have any comments or suggestions on how we/I should prioritize my time and effort on the board? I'm the most active, so if I simply do the things that I want, we will keep improving our community in such a way that helps improve home values, through my lens.

If I am less selish and respond to the homoewner demands, we'll work on structuring our association in a manner that makes it more transparent, more homeowner involvement. We also will work in fixing the neighborhood parking issues. However, I don't have doing those things in my heart.

Any thoughts or comments from others?

I held a workshop meeting with the board (so open to the community but they are not required to be allowed input in the discussion) and we put together our priorities for the next few years. It's impossible to do everything in one year, so a long-term plan is a great planning tool and laying it all out gets the whole board involved and in agreement. You can split your priorities into things that you need to budget (things that cost money) and things that don't (rule enforcement).

Or you can prioritize it by difficulty. Take your list and put them in order easiest to hardest, then start working on the easy items.

Don't be afraid to ask for help or assign projects. Tell the rest of the board you need help and to pick something off the list they want to do. Or assign them to be in charge of a committee of volunteers to take care of items.

Finally, we found that talking very openly about what the board has done and is planning to do in our monthly newsletter has made a huge difference in the reponse from the community. Being as transparent as possible, even while the board is in the beginning stages of a project, gets people excited and more willing to participate in the community without much additional effort. It's just good PR - communication is key.

You gave an opportunity for feedback. You found it not particularly helpful or realistic. I say: Continue to try to comply with the governing documents. Continue inviting members to share their concerns at board meetings. If an owner really wants change, he/she will be willing to serve on the board.

Else proceed as you describe below. One of the few "perks" of the job is that, as long as you are complying with the governing documents, you get to do things your way and ignore input. Proceeding differently may result in going down the path to burn-out.

Henry,

Keeping in mind that the Association can only maintain or increase the perceived value of individual homes, I think you will find that your second category (actionable items that have little impact on home value (parking)), will have far more impact then you think.

When I was looking for our retirement home, and being an informed buyer about HOAs, there were many developments I drove through that I would tell the realtor that we simply don't want to look at the homes due to the parking. Seeing cars parked on the street, garage doors open showing that the garages were being used as storage vs. housing vehicles, new developments with short driveways and narrow streets were all signs of parking issues (current or future).

Maintaining properties so the perceived value to potential buyers will help raise the monetary property value. This is likely why you identify your first category as having direct impact. However, different buyers look at different things and what you see as having little impact may have a great impact to others.

I would also caution you to try and identify the unintended consequences.

Transparency, communications and homeowner involvement will help to instill or fortify the members confidence in the board. Unintended consequence is members thinking - they got this, no need for me to do anything.

Maintenance of the community (I expect you mean common areas) is the Boards #1 function. Doing it right may require higher assessments in order to not postpone needed maintenance and properly fund the Reserves. This may have members grumbling and looking to move. If a lot of homes go on the market at once, buyers might shy away not knowing the reasons why.

Parking - that affects everyone. If the developer didn't design the property with enough parking, it will always be a challenge and someone will always complain. My advice, identify what is needed for emergency vehicles and plan to accommodate them. This will not stop the complaining, but it will be the best for the community as a whole.

Rules and covenant enforcement may divide the community. It may also increase expenses (if legal actions are required) causing increases in assessments. If you enforce something that makes the news, you may lower the perceived value and scare away potential buyers.

Glad you had a good response on your survey.

Tim

This is not always true. One example is when we re-wrote our governing documents we changed some of our rules. An example is allowing people to leave their garage door open when they want to sit outside in it. Before, the door had to be closed except for when they entered and left the car in their garage. There were other examples as well that we changed based on survey results of what they wanted. We also converted one tennis court to a pickle ball court. My point is I understand wat you are saying but sometimes what the community wants is relevant.