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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back for another great week. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
[00:00:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–
[00:00:05] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:00:06] Sarah: And this is the–
[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.
[00:00:08] Questions: Hello. I’m Julie. On Instagram, I’m @jules762, and I was wondering if you had any tips on working with an HOA. I own a condo at the beach, and there are a lot of things that are ongoing, construction projects and whatnot, and I just don’t have any control over it, and I would love to find a way to work with the HOA to help communicate better so that we’re all on the same page as to what’s happening. Um, it’s just tough when you don’t have control over those projects. And you need to know timeframes so you can inform your guests better. So any tips on that and communicating with the HOA would be amazing.
[00:00:51] Sarah: Julie, if you can’t beat them, join them.
[00:00:54] Annette: You got to join them. I was just telling Sarah right before we jumped on here that I have a friend, shout-out Michael, him and his wife actually bought a condo. And this is an association where they weren’t even allowing short-term rentals, but they joined the board. They led the board. They have now turned over the rules of the building because they banned with other folks in their building.
[00:01:13] His wife is an attorney. She’s rewriting the bylaws because the fees were something that was holding the HOA back. They didn’t want to pay an attorney to change the bylaws, and so she volunteered her time to do that. And I have a lot of different friends, Julie. They are all presidents of their homeowners association because they want to have a say in what’s going on. And I don’t know if that’s an option for you right now.
[00:01:37] But the first thing is, again, what Sarah said, if you can’t beat them, join them. Um, I think definitely trying to join, go to the meetings. Um, show up. You have to show up to those meetings because we’re all humans. And once you can put a face to that unit number, that condo number, that address, it really humanizes everything.
[00:01:58] And also for you, working with the board, who are these board members? I’m sure they have the same objectives as you. So I think showing up. If you can’t join the board, at least being in all of the meetings or trying to attend those. The next thing I would offer is joining– if you have other neighbors that are also short-term rental hosts, find out who they are. Band together with them.
[00:02:21] There’s power in numbers. Because if you’re in a building, if you’re in a condo, if you’re in an association, this is not going away. There’s constantly going to be some construction. There’s constantly going to be upgrades. There’s constantly probably going to be new neighbors. So I would just try to get as involved as possible.
[00:02:40] That’s really the only thing that I can offer there, is figure out how you can get involved. And there might be something too, like, maybe there aren’t any board seats available, but figure out what your niche is. What’s a superpower of yours that you could volunteer on the board or help assist?
[00:02:59] Sarah: Julie, whether this helps you or a listener right now, if you have a partner in your short-term rental, maybe one of you joins, or one of you attends a meeting, or you go back and forth. But getting involved is truly the only way to make change. You need to be the change. You need to be a part of it, and show up, and participate.
[00:03:16] And even if it’s not your thing or you’ve never done anything like that, get out of that comfort zone, and you will be shocked. You don’t know who you’re going to meet, what conversations are going to come of it. It could be the next best decision for you. So with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
[00:03:33] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–
[00:03:34] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:03:35] Sarah: We’ll talk to you next time.
