I am excited to announce that I am retiring from active condominium management. My colleague Ashlee Henry has taken on leadership of Alwington Communities in the role of Executive Vice-President of Condominium Operations.

As the weather warms up, it’s time to start thinking of spring and summer maintenance! From fixing pavements to cleaning carpets, changing filters and more, Alwington breaks down the essentials for a Condo Corporation’s spring to-do list to keep your building in tip-top shape.

Every year, a condo corporation is responsible for drawing up a budget for the coming months. Many condos underestimate their budget for the year in an attempt to keep costs down, but Alwington Communities recommends another technique to better prepare yourself for the fiscal year. This blog breaks down the essential elements of the budget that must be considered, and the best practices for a Condominium Manager budgeting for their clients.

Hiring the right Condominium Management Firm is tough. This guide breaks down the dos and don’ts of finding the perfect match for your community to make sure the needs and wants of your condo owners are met, and your condo corporation is run successfully into the future.

A financially healthy condo community requires a delicate balance. This blog breaks down the steps to ascertaining whether or not your condominium is financially healthy, what that means, and why it’s such an important factor. This way, your community is prepared for any unexpected hardships, and runs smoothly year after year.

Monitor the state of icicles during the winter, and if they reach a concerning size, make sure they are safely removed from the building to avoid falling ice.

By staying on top of your outdoor maintenance, a Property Manager keeps the entire community safe throughout the winter months. It’s important to start early, so make sure you’re winter-ready before the weather turns severe.

A staple of winter weather, icicles can form along any horizontal surface on a building. Some may look harmless, but depending on the location of your building and the seasonal weather, large icicles can become a serious safety hazard and even damage your eavestroughs.

Monitor the state of icicles during the winter, and if they reach a concerning size, make sure they are safely removed from the building to avoid falling ice.

By staying on top of your outdoor maintenance, a Property Manager keeps the entire community safe throughout the winter months. It’s important to start early, so make sure you’re winter-ready before the weather turns severe.

Condominium Managers of the future are condominium management students of the present. We know that these students are taking the four courses currently mandated by the Condominium Management Regulatory Authority (CMRAO), but precious else is known about them. To date, little systematic research has been conducted to better understand these students, their demographics, their backgrounds, their skills, and their experience. This article is the result of primary research conducted by the author with the help of the Association of Condominium Managers of Ontario (ACMO) and Mohawk College. It aims to bring timely and relevant knowledge to the broader condominium community to help the industry better understand trends as they relate to staffing, and to allow them to build inclusive companies for a diverse body of incoming condominium managers.

Coexisting with our environment is more important than ever. As a community, it’s essential to evaluate the impact we have on the planet, and reevaluate our practices to be able to lessen our carbon footprint, reduce waste, and save energy. There are many ways a Condo Corporation can adjust to make positive change with sustainable practices, materials, and policies. Alwington Communities has prepared this comprehensive guide to help individual condos identify issues, adjust policies, and enact strong sustainable practices for long-lasting environmental change.

The final article in our sustainable condo series gets down to business by breaking down the final stages of the process. When making big changes within a condo corporation, there are many permits, contracts, and construction specifics to follow, but Alwington breaks it down step by step to help condo corporations move forward and build towards a greener future.

A condo corporation is a complex system with many moving parts. In order to effectively enact change, there are procedures to follow. In the fourth installment of our sustainability series, we discuss the policies, governance, and stakeholder buy-ins involved in implementing environmentally responsible systems and upgrades.