2013 July
Focus on... Budget & Finance

Finance Watch Your Language
2013 July Watch Your Language

 The vast majority of both one-time projects and long-term service contracts  involving vendors and service providers and their condominium or HOA clients go  smoothly and either conclude or continue without incident. However, a small  per…

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Finance Coping With Arrears
2013 July Coping With Arrears

 The foundation of any properly run condo association or co-op building rests on  residents paying their monthly maintenance fees on time and in full, with no  delays or delinquencies. However, thanks to the lingering effects of the  reces…

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Finance Follow the Money
2013 July Follow the Money

 If you want to find out about the history of a town, region or country, head to  a museum or look it up on the Internet. If you want to find out about your  family’s history, look at your photo album, whether it’s in a book or online. And…

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Finance The Chicago Cooperator's Condo, HOA & Co-op Expo
2013 July The Chicago Cooperator's Condo, HOA & Co-op Expo

 The Chicagoland Cooperator's Condo, HOA & Co-op Expo second expo last fall was by all accounts a huge success as the  event attracted thousands of attendees from all across the region for a full  day of education and networking.   …

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Management Let's Be Perfectly Clear
2013 July Let's Be Perfectly Clear

 When summer rolls around many Chicagoans can be found at any one of the 33  beaches along the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. There may not be any waves but the vast blue waters can rival any Florida or  California beach. Illinois’s n…

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Real Estate Trends Living Social
2013 July Living Social

 When you were a child, you probably tuned into the PBS show Mister Rogers  Neighborhood, where a homespun sweater-clad Fred Rogers often sang “Won’t you be my neighbor?”    Mr. Rogers might be singing a different tune today if he w…

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Management That's Criminal!
2013 July That's Criminal!

 Serving on a condo board has its challenges—mostly of a relatively mundane, everyday sort, like how to pay for new carpet in  the clubhouse, or what kind of flowers to put in the new beds out front.  Occasionally however, a much more sens…

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Design Making New Things Old
2013 July Making New Things Old

 It’s a sad fact that the artisans and craftspeople who created some of the most  beautiful, distinctive interior and exterior architectural elements for  residential buildings are an endangered species. The proliferation of sleek,  glass-…

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Q&A: Are Online Meetings OK?
2013 July Q&A: Are Online Meetings OK?

Q With the proliferation of media such as Skype, OoVoo and FaceTime for online  audio and video conferencing, I was thinking that community association and  board of directors’ meetings probably could be conducted remotely. Can associatio…

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