1887 – Empowering HOA and Condo Boards for Success with Tina Larsson

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0:59with us right now tina larson tina you are the co-founder of the folson group now the folson group is found on the web at the folson group.com tina thank you so much for joining us thank you josh so much for having me yes so tell me a bit about um what you do what is the folson group and what is the impact that you have in the world? Thank you. That's a great question. So we are consultants. We specifically consult HOA boards or co-op and condo boards. In New York City, it's co-op and condo, but elsewhere in the country, it's HOAs. So they're nonprofits and they are board members. So just like any other nonprofits, they're volunteering their time and they need some help.

1:45Yeah. Tell me about the typical person who joins, let's say, HOA leadership or a board. My suspicion is that a lot of people aren't like they're coming in. I don't think that that's what they do professionally. Let me just say it right there. No, it's not what they do professionally. And they have a full-time job. They probably have hobbies. They probably They play golf or whatever they do, tennis, and have family. So they're very busy people. And then they volunteer their time to handle things that they have limited knowledge about in many cases. Yeah. So they're owners in the HOA or co-op or condo, and they're just volunteering their time.

2:32Usually, I would imagine, you know, they're not doing it for fame. They're not doing it for glory. They're pretty much doing it just to, you know, kind of serve and kind of maybe advocate for, you know, their fellow residents. And so where does the Folsom Group come in then? Yes. So every other industry has a consultant. In the HOA or co-op and condo space, there's almost no consultants. There are some consultants reducing the energy use. There are some other consultants. And nowadays, there's a lot of prop tech that's trying to fix all the not so efficiently run nonprofits. But for the most part, there are no consultants.

3:16So we consult them on reducing their expenses and getting their project stuff. And in New York City, to our knowledge, we're the only ones who take a holistic approach on consulting every aspect of them running their nonprofit. So what are generally some of the main issues that a board may be working on or dealing with? Or, you know, some of the biggest things that might take, you know, might happen over the course of, you know, a couple of years tenure. So there's no end to this. OK, this is going to be a very long. Here we go. We got a list. so in New York City as in many other large cities Chicago and well in Florida there's a lot of so buildings are typically very old and because they're old there's a lot of systems that are breaking down so the traditional way of handling their board engagement or their volunteer position has been to take care of emergencies as they happen.

4:23So you remember the condo that collapsed in Surfside, Florida, which was actually the reason I wrote my book, because that's the worst case scenario. So they're basically taking care of emergencies. So there's electrical lines and plumbing and sewer that are behind the walls that you don't really know if they're functioning or if they are in the 80-year position that the building is in. And they're not so easy to change. They're not so easy to change either. Inspect and change. So we're helping boards get ahead. So they're currently operating in a reactive mode, only taking care of emergencies, to helping them navigate to become a proactive board so that they can take care of issues before they become emergencies.

5:14Yeah, right, right. And I'm sure that, you know, what I've seen in my experience, so I'm in Florida, so I'm well familiar with HOAs. And I'm sure that there's quite often, if, you know, when you do have the opportunity to come in, oftentimes you're probably seeing a lot of discord or disagreement, we should say, you know, between board members. And my observation is that a lot of those points of view are based on maybe some evidence, but mostly opinion. Again, because I think, you know, you're seeing just well-meaning citizens that are just doing this work and maybe don't have the wisdom or hindsight that you would in having been through this a couple of hundred times, or at least looked at hundreds of case studies of here's what happens when you don't replace or you don't get those pipes checked out.

6:14Here's what happens. Yeah, absolutely. So how do you navigate personalities, which I'm sure come into play? A lot of personalities. So navigating personalities. So it's just like the country. 50 % think this way and 50 % think the other way. um so what we we act as a little bit of coaches and therapists in addition to and helping them make decisions that are tough i mean it's very often very tough decisions to make a decision to we're going to assess each owner forty thousand dollars i mean that's not an easy decision to make right and you're not going to be very light if you make that decision so it's just with expert with just with experience that we have developed a way to help them navigate it and the more we have built our credibility so we've been in business for 10 years the more we have built our reputation and credibility and our confidence the more the easier it has gotten to unify boards to make the right decisions.

7:29My book is also about how to take over the board. So if you have that one difficult person or two difficult people who you can't make those headwinds, then in my book, I talk about how to get them out of there. Make their life miserable so that they leave. No, that's horrible. But yeah, I mean, that's got to be frustrating, you know, when there's this imminent problem and you have someone that's just being a stick in the mud. Yeah, I would imagine, you know, and so I would think that, you know, one of the big things that you likely advise on is just simply having great communication with residents.

8:17then. I've seen that, like, thankfully, I think we live in a community where the board does a really, really great job. Not that everybody agrees with them, but man, they seem to work very, very hard for us. And obviously, again, they're not doing it for pay. They're doing it, you know, just kind of for the good of it. And, you know, we're lucky that, you know, we've got a, you know, maybe a wide variety of experiences, including some attorneys who no contract law, You know, they happen to be on the board. So that's pretty helpful. What happens when you're dealing with a board or leadership where, I mean, there's just, I mean, God bless these people.

9:00But, you know, there's just really, you can tell like, oh boy, these folks are pretty green here. Yes. And that's a great question. And Pretty Green is one thing because we provide a lot of resources so we can guide them. So not knowing is not an issue for the most part because we can help them and educate them. So we do a lot of education. But the one time when it's not so easy is when they are too risk averse to making changes. So for instance, we had a board where I would say that there were nine board members. We were able to save them quarter of a million dollars within the first six months of them hiring us.

9:47They had three attorneys on the board. And those three attorneys, they stopped everything. So in our experience, having one attorney is a good thing, maybe two even. But three, they were so risk averse that they didn't want to make any changes. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. So that was not a good partnership. So nowadays, what we have learned is that if there are too many attorneys, then it might not be a good fit. So are most of the issues dealing with things like infrastructure? Yes, it's heating, water, electricity that we reduce how much they use. But then it's also, and insurance is another one, insurance premiums we are very often able to reduce substantially.

10:37And then it's also all of their projects. So it's the cost of their facade replacement or repairs or their roof replacement, elevator replacement. So any kind of projects, yeah, we have a building that needs to change all of their sewer, their entire building, all their sewer lines, inside of the walls, going to the toilets. All of them needs to be replaced. So it's some major projects that then need to be, the cost of them need to be passed on to the owners. Have you ever stepped into, and maybe this is just way overstated or way over feared by residents, but have you ever stepped into a situation with a board and you're looking at the, I don't know if you get into the numbers, a whole lot of budgets or that sort of thing, but maybe you're seeing some either negligence or gross mismanagement or even stuff that's like, that might be a little shady there.

11:36I don't think you should be spending money like that. Have you ever seen stuff like that? No. Oh, OK. Yeah, because everyone always freaks out about that. I think most I believe most board it's not a position of huge authority and influence. Right. We get the question all the time. But we have not. And we get very often where the one board calls a board member calls us and they said, oh, we just took over the board and we think that there's all kinds of shenanigans going on. and then we dig and there was nothing, no real shenanigans at all. There might be that they weren't paying attention to details, but it's a complex organization and they're taking care of emergencies.

12:23So they don't really have time, right? But it's very common that they call us and say, I think that the board president is stealing money. And we have never found this. We hear about it. We hear about it. And from time to time, we read about it in the newspaper. But we have never had any kinds where it was that bad. It's I would have to imagine like, you know, you think about like boards or positions, you know, where people are, quote unquote, officials, right, that get oversight. And I have to believe that a choice have to be the most oversighted type of because it's just so local. Right. It's a it's a small group of people.

13:05And, you know, these are people that know each other. These are people that live together. They're very interested in outcomes as opposed to maybe budget for something that barely affects us. We're just not as emotionally connected to observing the outcomes. That's kind of my observation on that. And that is the case that it's very personal, right? So it becomes more political and a little controversial than maybe it should be. But I mean, it's understandable. So we do a lot of listening to make sure that we're really listening to what is the real issue here? What is it that we need to get that?

13:46Yeah, to make their community safer and better. Yeah. So, Tina, tell me about your book. And let's see, I was just pulling up trying to find the promotional image for it. Living the High Life. Can you tell me a bit about it and who should be reading this book? Yes, absolutely. So Living the High Life, How Smart Co-op and Condo Owners Protect Themselves and Their Investment. I wrote it two years ago. It's available on Amazon. And it's a guidebook for co-op and condo and HOA owners on how to take a proactive role in their community. And the guidebook has all kinds of tips and templates how to best be an owner in a community and how to get on the board.

14:39Worst case scenario, Surfside. Best case scenario, operate proactively. And yeah, I've gotten a lot of good feedback on it. It's my first book. I might write one. I have a little bit, I talk a little bit about New York City specific items in this book. Not Surfside, of course, But so I might do a second version, which will be more national. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Well, there's a lot of people that could use your help. How do you typically like where are you just running around attending board meetings or how do you generally I don't say drum up business, but where does your business come from?

15:20So it's word of mouth and we do do a lot of networking. So it's my husband and my business. We do, we're very active on social, specifically on LinkedIn, not so active on the other platforms, although we probably should be. We do a lot of networking and we have been doing this for 10 years. So a lot of our clients come from other clients recommending us. The book has really helped. The book has really helped. Yeah, excellent. To get the word out there. On your website, thefoulsongroup.com, and to our friend that's listening, you can go there, you can follow along. You can get the book from there.

15:59There's a workbook that goes along with it too. Very, very cool. Free one. Yeah, the workbook is free. Wow, look at that. And also the first chapter, you can grab that as well. Looks like the book, it's on Amazon. You've got a lot of five-star reviews, that's for sure. Again, it's called Living the High Life, How Smart Co-op and Condo Owners Protect Themselves and Their Investment. Tina Larson, again, your website is thefolsongroup.com. Anything else you'd recommend someone do after they've listened to this conversation and like, I'm ready for the next step? Go to our website, contact us there, and I would love to hear from you.

16:39I want to hear every single co-op and condo owner or HOA owner, what they're the problems that they're facing or if they don't like their board president. They want to volunteer to the board. They don't know how to do that. and also from every board member out there. Yeah, awesome. All right, Tina Larson, co-founder of The Folson Group, found on the web at thefolsongroup.com. And your book, of course, is called Living the High Life. Tina Larson, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for having me, Josh.

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