The responsibilities of property managers include a wide array of tasks, from the physical to the administrative. While many of these jobs involve concrete things—like sending out monthly bills, filing paperwork, or going to meetings—eq…
Election season typically starts around Labor Day, when we start to be bombarded with reminders to cast our ballots to choose who we want to be in charge of our city, town, state and country. It ends on Election Day in November, when th…
Even as condos and co-ops around the Northeast have loosened pet restrictions to increase marketability during the recession, only a limited segment of New York City buildings have jumped on the bandwagon. Co-ops, most of whic…
According to U.S. Small Business Administration statistics, over half of all small businesses begun in the last decade have been home-based—that's more than 24 million in real numbers—with a new home-based business being launched every 1…
As a shareholder or condo owner, you’ve got a gripe. Whether it’s about Mrs. Smith’s poodle barking all day, the neighbor’s teenaged son who blasts his heavy metal music full-volume when his parents aren’t home, or a long-coveted parking…
Getting elected to the board of one's co-op or condo building is usually a very positive thing: it gives a person the chance to play a part in the preservation of their community, and also gives them the opportunity to leave it in bette…
As the snow and ice melts away and the city readies for signs of spring, it’s time to turn our attention to The Cooperator’s 2011 Co-op & Condo Expo, a must-attend event for the tri-state area’s property managers, board members, real esta…
Most of your buildings have a shareholder—or maybe two or three—who fit into a particular mold: you know, longer hair, Birkenstocks, vintage Woodstock t-shirts; or maybe yours has the $5,000 suit, $1,000 shoes, and starched attitude. Th…
Few things can be as upsetting as discovering that the funds that fuel a co-op or condo have been mishandled—or worse yet, stolen. For residents, fraud undermines their sense of trust in the men and women who oversee and manage the plac…
Every co-op and condo community has a board of directors in charge of governing the community’s finances, physical maintenance and other day-to-day business. Part of the board’s responsibility also is to keep the community fiscally soun…