Some owners have spoken out about how the building is being maintained by making posts to this blog and by posting on a new website. I saw the flier in the mail room today. I completely agree that our building needs a some TLC. You tell us what should be upgraded, fixed or replaced and we’ll add it to the budget for 2009.
Attendance at our HOA meetings
Each month we have an HOA meeting where we discuss these issues. Each year we create a budget for capital improvements, maintenance, etc. Let us know what enhancements you recommend we make to Park North and we will add it to the budget. However, we have had limited to no attendance at these meetings so it’s challenging to make decisions which will affect all of you without your input.
Do you Think Carpets Need to be Replaced?
We received a couple of different proposals to pull up the carpet and stain the concrete. If we remove the carpets all together this will save us money in the long run. By removing the carpets, we will no longer have to carpet clean and vacuum. The building staff will need to sweep and every six months the floors will need to be treated. This style looks very sophisticated; the Portfolio Hotel floors are stained. This process will take about four weeks while the floors are being replaced and treated. The cost is about $235,000. We will be able to use a small portion of the reserve funds for this capital enhancement. The rest will be special assessed and added to next year’s budget. This means our HOA fees will increase. We also have the option of replacing the carpet for carpet. The expense will be less initially, but we run the risk of having our carpets look the same way they do now in less than two years. Uptown next door to us has exposed concrete floors. I have asked number of tenants if they hear anything in the hallways and they said it was minimal noise. Go visit and see for yourself and then let us know which you prefer.
Painting the Interior Hallways
It’s challenging to move forward with painting the interior when we have not made a decision about the floors. Once the floors are redone then we can repaint the interior of the building. The color will be decided later. Please attend our HOA meetings to share your opinion on what color palette we use and when we should paint. We have not received a proposal for this yet so I have no costs to share with you.
Other Enhancements
Without anyone’s input, the Board is running blind. We are unable to take your opinions into account since no one attends the HOA meetings. Personally, I do not feel comfortable making capital enhancements to the property which will increase everyone’s HOA fees without the input of other owners.
HOA Fees
Last year we were told that our owners needed the HOA fees to go down. The only reason they were lowered is because our insurance went down. When we purchased our condo units from the developer in 2004 the property insurance was $140,000. In less than a year our insurance was raised to over $380,000- this happened to everyone in Florida. We were not able to budget large capital maintenance improvements because of this property insurance increase. Our insurance has gone down which is why our HOA fees were lowered. However, we did not go back down to $140k. We broke the middle.
Your Recommendations…?
What improvements should we make? Is there a limit on how much we should spend in one year? Should we prioritize the improvements? How would you prioritize the improvements?
A side note, Property Values
Some of you have stated that our property values have gone down because of the maintenance issues. Even though I do agree our building needs some TLC, I do not think it is the reason that property values have gone down. I snagged a few paragraphs from an Orlando Business Journal article that mentions the real estate market sentiment. Having lower HOA fees then most condos downtown is a selling point! If we drastically increase our HOA fees then we might force some people into foreclosure which will cause our values to continue to go down. Also, if we increase our fees then buyers might not want buy in Park North. We need to think of all of this when deciding what to do for next year.
Market Sentiment
Orlando Business Journal article June’s edition
The Florida Association of Realtors on Thursday reported its first jump in sales in Orlando-area monthly home sales since late 2005.
Association members in the Orlando metropolitan statistical area reported a total of 1,641 homes sold in June, a nearly 3 percent increase when compared with 1,595 homes sales in the same month a year prior.
The existing median sales price was $219,500 in June, a 15 percent decrease from $258,100 in June 2007.
The existing condo market, however, continued to see sales decline. June condo sales totaled 172 in the Orlando MSA, an 8.5 percent drop from the 188 that sold in the same month in 2007. The condo median price was $132,900 last month, a 15 percent drop from June 2007’s price of $156,900.
The declines we are seeing Park North are happening everywhere. So no amount of paint will fix these declines. The overall condo market will need to improve before we see our prices go back up.
Snippet take from the Orlando Sentinel
Statewide, Realtors sold 11,700 homes in June, off 5 percent from a year earlier, and the median was down 16 percent to $205,500. That means about $2.4 billion worth of single-family homes were sold in Florida during the month, down from $3 billion in June 2007.
Another 3,628 condominium units were sold statewide in June, down 6 percent from a year earlier, with a median price of $183,700 — off 14 percent. Metro Orlando’s condo market was fifth-best in terms of sales: 172 units, down 9 percent, with a median price of $132,900, off 15 percent. Fort Lauderdale recorded the most condo sales in June — 591 — down 1 percent, though the median price was down a sizable 20 percent to $156,200.
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.
Tim Ramsey
On the subject of the floors:
While commercial carpeting may need to be replaced every 5 years or so it does provide a benefit in terms of sound insulation. Consider the additional hallway noise that would come from an echoing sound waves if the carpeting were not in place to dampen the noise. In addition, the carpeting also dampens noise that could travel to the floor below. How much will it cost to replace the carpeting? I am guessing that the current surplus would cover the expense.
If owners are considering an assessment to make improvements to the property I would recommend involving a local Realtor or two such as Cassidy Higgins who keeps listings in the building. She would have an objective opinion regarding how improvements will affect a unit’s value and the overall quality of life in the building.
Valuation:
I would recommend that unit owners view the listings on zillow.com or realtytrac.com to get a pulse for the bank owned properties in the building. Whie the Orlando market and real estate nationwide is seeing a bit of bottom fishing there is considerable inventory to sell and buildings like Park North will face a greater challenge than most other properties in the area due to the high concentration of investors during the initial sale. It’s great news for buyers as Park North is a nice place to live.
Best of luck to all and thanks for reading.
Steven,
I completely agree. Getting the floors re-carpeted or stained is still up for discussion. We walked over to Uptown who has concrete floors and the extra sound from having the concrete floors are minimal. Check it out for yourself. This was my biggest concern of going with concrete.
The challenge we face in our building is that people allow there animals to defecate on the carpet and not clean it up. Also, people spill their drinks and permanently stain the carpet. Each capital improvement in our building has a life span including the carpets. Unfortunately, our carpet is getting weathered too quickly. My fear of replacing the carpet is that we run the risk of the carpet looking the same way it looks now in a year or two. If our tenants and owners keep treating it the way they do.
-Renee
I agree with both comments and, while I am also concerned about noise, I think a change in flooring will greatly enhance both the aesthetics of the building and make it easier and more cost-effective to maintain. Having attended several board meetings I have learned that the carpet allowance built into the budget is for new carpet every 7-10 years. The problem is that the carpets seem to be getting trashed much more quickly and the blatant disregard for the building by some tenants and visitors is adding to the problem. I have been present at the meetings where the floor presentations took place and the stained concrete work that is being done is really nice (much nicer than our sister building on Marks, in my opinion). As far as addressing the potential noise issues, maybe there are ways to better sound-proof the doors or put up “please be noise-conscious” signs on the stairwell entrance doors (of course in some cases I know they won’t do much good). I think its the right move to get the floors done if it can be done right and for a minimal additional cost and inconvenience to our owners and tenants. Check with the office for the proposal pics of the stained concrete. It really does look good. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
Lee
I have one estimate on the painting for $11K, included is the wall color change for each floor.
While the flooring improvement will cost some, if PN finances the project it will be minimum hit on the budget for the next few years -this could possibly be offset somewhat by the current requirement to set aside funds in reserves for the flooring replacement (so the cost would not effect the overall budget). We are obtaining further advise from PN’s CPA on the options available – if the Board and owners want to make this move.
Bridgette Ross PA LCAM
As an ex-owner of a building maintenance and carpet cleaning company in Central Florida for over 28 years, I do not recommend concrete flooring due to the noise level and maintenance expenses. However, carpeted flooring requires routine maintenance and upkeeping. If board is interested, I am willing to share my experience and recommendation in how to maintain the carpets to preserve the appearance and the life expectancy.
For everyone information I am not looking for a carpet cleaning business or contract except that I am a concern owner of two units in Park North and only am looking for everyones pocket in this hard economy time.
Agree on the concrete. It a great look, but it has to be noisy. Many commercial venues today are going with carpet squares which have come a long way since the 1970’s! This enables a permanent stain to be removed by removing the affected square. And by keeping overstock, this becomes a part of routine maintenance.
UPDATE: The 4th floor laundry room floor is almost complete. This is a test area for the hallway proposal and will give everyone the opportunity to see the end product – please check it out starting next week and forward your opinion!
WATER BEING SHUT OFF – NOTICE TO RESIDENTS (you will be receiving a post on your door) Friday, Aug. 15th the water will be shut off from 10:30AM to 1:00PM for repairs to the main backflow preventor.
Please plan ahead!
On the 2nd floor, someone scratched or wrote on the interior hall wall from the stairwell door northwest toward the fire alarm pull station. The fix may be a simple vinyl pencil eraser … or paint.
Stephanie- thanks for letting us know. I’ll reach out to maintenance to check on this and let you know when this can be resolved.
The marks are permanent marker. We tried erasing, scrubbing and chemical remover – nothing worked. We will be touch up painting the areas. Note that just as Renee stated, this is an additional expense of resources to repair damage from vandalism. If anyone has any information on the person(s) who did this – please let the office know. Several floors and areas are being damaged this way.
Thank you for fixing this so quickly. I appreciate you!