Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Replacement Reserves Consultants

[Casey Morrigan (cjmorr]

Kathleen:

We recently had a reserves study done.  It came out o.k.  I learned a couple
of things.  We got bids from 4 firms and the range of prices was
unexpectedly broad (from about $1000 to about $1500.)  I called a couple of
the references, and the references were positive in all cases.  We tried to
find someone who'd worked with cohousing before, and couldn't. We ended up
going for the high bid cuz he seemed to have the most experience and seemed
easy to work with and returned calls/seemed to want the work.  Unlike
others.  It turns out that in this case, the "high-priced spread" was
probably not worth it, given the mediocre level of service we received.  In
the end, we got a report that seemed fine but the journey was a tad rocky.

Anyway, we had to clarify up front what was different about cohousing than a
traditional condo that related to his task.  First, that there were some
items where labor costs needed to be excluded, because we expected to do it
ourselves.  We had a couple of non-traditional building materials that he
had to be educated about.  Also he was used to working with the hired
property/association manager, and so our contact person and the approval
process (approval of his draft report) seemed, I think, odd to him when I
described it.

He came and spent a good chunk of time on site measuring the property and
documenting the physical condition of buildings - the on site visit was key,
of course.  I heard that not everyone does one, but I don't see how a legit
reserves study could be done without it.  In the end, he turned out not to
have good customer relations skills, and we needed some significant
corrections in the draft plan which I think took him aback.  He'd never sat
through a cohousing meeting and had no idea that people might be reading the
small print, heh heh!   I wish we'd just found someone who was nicer and
less defensive about his mistakes.  My goodness, I wondered, how do you
screen for that ahead of time?  None of his references mentioned it!  And as
usual, the issue wasn't how technically good he was or whether his
methodology was o.k., it was how he could handle differences of opinion and
do relationships.

One other thing - we wanted someone with building trades experience to bring
us neutral yet informed information regarding replacement of some items.  We
continue to have tensions in our community that are leftover from
construction times (which ended three years ago) about quality of original
work, replacement needs, improvement needs.  We made sure that the reserves
study guy did have that experience, and I think it was a plus in the study.
We wanted a planning tool that would tell us if our withholds were
sufficient, and we got it.  By ze way, he told us that our reserves needed a
small increase, which we obtained not by raising monthly assessments, but by
putting the reserves that had been sitting in a savings account into some
interest bearing CD's.

Don't know if this helps.  Good luck.

Casey Morrigan
Two Acre Wood
Sebastopol, California

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Kathleen K.
Groshong
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 6:58 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_Replacement Reserves Consultants


I was interested in the reference to consultants who make recommendations
re: replacement reserves schedules and costs.  Has any cohousing community
worked with a company they would recommend?  What did you learn from the
review?  Please include company contact info if you have a recommendation.

Our replacement reserves schedule is a BIG part of our budget, which is also
increasing due to rising insurance costs.    Thanks for your help.

Kathleen Groshong
Puget Ridge Cohousing
Seattle, WA
kkgrosh [at] attbi.com

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