Energy is money. And in big co-op apartment or condo buildings, energy is big money—we’re talking thousands upon thousands of dollars in waste...or savings. Most folks know that turning off lights in unoccupied rooms, taking shorter shower…
New York City is trashy. Literally. Every day, the people living in the Big Apple produce hundreds of tons of trash—12,000 tons, according to GrowNYC, a nonprofit organization that strives to improve New York via environmental programs. Th…
As the 2012 federal legislative fiasco over the debt ceiling—as well as any number of other spending bills proposed since then—demonstrated, balancing a budget can be like pulling teeth. Balancing a condo or HOA community's budget can some…
Running the day-to-day business of a co-op, condo or HOA of any size—be it a self-contained high-rise in Manhattan or a sprawling, multi-building community in Queens—requires not just a functional board but a team of competent outside prof…
As we hopefully move into warmer weather, lucky New Yorkers living in condos or co-ops with pools can spend all day tanning and swimming in the indoor or rooftop pools housed in their buildings. A swimming pool is a rare and valuable…
While the era of massive, NASA-sized satellite dishes is long past (unless you’re in a very old building, or have held on to an antique dish out of nostalgia), the advent of smaller apparatus—as well as rooftop cell phone towers—has brough…
Suffice to say, parking is a big deal in New York City. On any given day, you will find hoards of people swarming the densely populated city streets in hopes of getting a good parking spot—or any spot, for that matter. Tourists circle madl…
In New York, buying a co-op or a condo goes something like this: Your realtor takes you to see your dream home. You put in an offer—along with a bunch of other people. After a ferocious bidding war, your offer is finally accepted. You subm…
You may love your building. You may even love your neighbors and the members of your board. But there are few people who can say that they love their monthly board meetings or annual owner or shareholder meetings. That’s because these meet…
When you decide to run for a board, you’re usually thinking about all the great changes you’re going to make to your building, along with all the time and effort that you’re prepared to sacrifice for the good of your home. Of th…