DHA
Construction Management

Here's the meeting. Some version of it is happening in a clubhouse somewhere this week. It's the second week of September. The board approved the exterior repaint in June, the RFP took longer than anyone expected, the contract got signed in August, and the contractor can start the last week of the month. Everyone's tired of the topic. Somebody says the sentence that shows up in every one of these meetings: "If we push this to spring, we're looking at another eight months of i

Here's a conversation I've had more times than I can count, in some version, at some community, in some month of budget season. The roof is leaking again. The board gets two numbers: $38,000 to repair the failing sections, or $210,000 to replace it. The room does the arithmetic everyone does — replacement is five and a half times the cost — and votes for the repair. Reasonable. Responsible, even. Nobody wants to be the board that spent $210,000 when $38,000 would do. Two year

Most of what I write about—bid leveling, contractor interviews, closeout—happens after a board has decided to do a project. But there's a decision that comes before all of it, and it quietly determines whether your community is ready when that roof, those roads, or that pool finally wears out. It's your reserve study. And if it's sitting in a drawer getting dusted off once a year at budget time, it isn't doing its job. Here's the uncomfortable backdrop: an analysis of more th

When I first joined my HOA's board of directors, I had one mission: keep the monthly assessments down. I thought I was the hero. Every budget meeting, I was the guy pushing back on increases, looking for places to trim, proud that our dues were lower than the community down the road. I genuinely believed I was protecting my neighbors' wallets. I was doing the opposite. It took me a few years — and a few painful capital projects — to understand that a board obsessed with keepi

Every HOA construction project has a part you can't see coming: the damage hiding behind the surface. Rotten sheathing under the stucco. Soft decking under the roofing. Corroded framing behind the siding. You don't know how much is there until the contractor starts tearing things off — and by then, the leverage has quietly shifted away from your community. Here's how we handle it instead. The wrong way: a price now, a surprise later The instinct is to ask the contractor for a