Kevin Davis: 0:00

Right now, from insurance point of view, AI is scarce us all because we don't understand it. So whatever question you put in the chat TBT, they answers all it can be Yes, and it's designed to say yes, and no matter what. And chat GP is not a defendable position. A defendable position in court for a nonprofit volunteer is I listen to experts. Chatgpt is not an expert. Hoa.

Announcer: 0:23

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies

that care about board members: 0:25

Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You'll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 0:39

Hi, I'm Robert Nordlund of association reserves.

Kevin Davis: 0:41

I'm Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis Insurance Services,

Julie Adamen: 0:44

and I'm Julie Adam, and with Adam and Inc and this is HOA Insights, where we promote common sense for common areas.

Robert Nordlund: 0:51

Well, welcome to episode number 140 I've got a cold, but this is a special day where all of our regular co hosts are together, insurance expert, Kevin, management and leadership expert, Julie and me as your reserve study expert, and today, we'll be sharing what we believe are the top trends facing community associations that we want you to be prepared for. We want our listeners to have a head start on being ready for what's coming and to be well equipped to lead their associations forward successfully. Well, last week's episode 139 featured a rare event, the second board hero episode in a row. We're glad to have an opportunity to celebrate board heroes. And in Episode 139 it was a great conversation we had with Lisa pirapan on her role helping her association cut costs and increase a sense of community through communication and transforming the landscape at their association. And a hint, if you haven't heard that episode, they have a lot of edible landscape. Well, if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcast. Website, Hoa insights.org, or search for HOA insights on YouTube, but better yet, subscribe, and you can subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms, or subscribe to our podcasts YouTube channel so you don't miss any future episodes. More subscribers means a higher search ranking, which means means we can reach more boards with the free educational and inspirational episodes we provide here. So don't just visit subscribe. Help us to improve the future of the community, association industry. Well, those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA insights merch that we have here. I have a mug, and Kevin and Julie have mugs part of our lives that we got from the merch store, which you can browse through from our Hoa insights.org website with a link on the show notes, you'll find we have some great free stuff, like board member zoom backgrounds and some specialty items for sale, like mugs. So go to merch store, download a free zoom background, take a moment, look around and see if there's anything that puts a smile on your face. Well, we enjoy hearing from you responding to the issues you are facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, and there's plenty of them out there, or a question you'd like us to address, you can always contact us at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast at Hoa insights.org Today's program is a preview of 2026 suggested by Kevin. And before the program, he was reminding us all that if you're a regular listener and if you've put into practice all the things that you learned here the different topics we've addressed from leadership and insurance and all the subject matter experts, you're already good to go, right? You're all set up for success. And so this, this is kind of meaningless, but we wanted to welcome everyone here, and we want to put it out on the table. We want, again, you to be ready for what's coming, and we want to share from what's on our heart and what we see with our radar. So Kevin first, what do you think are the top trends in 2026

Kevin Davis: 4:07

Well, the number one trend and continue as our discussion from last year is the way we treat each other. Last year we talked about load of temperature, so that board members and unit owners and renters, we all can communicate this a little bit better, to stop yelling at each other and stop creating the animosity that battle between each other. Well, I think that hopefully in 2026 we have gotten the message that the lower temperature a little bit more, but from right now, I don't see it happening. I still see a lack of trust between the people who live in community association and board members, the institutional trust that we need in order for association to be more effective. I think that is that number one problem. We say, don't you agree?

Julie Adamen: 4:49

Julie, I do. In fact, that was my, that was my, that was my number one, top one. I just called it incivility, and it's pretty bad. You know, we were kind of heading in that direction. Anyway. But then we went through covid, and that seems to have really ramped it up. I will say, in the community that I live in, you know, I belong to a swim club, and so evidently, during Cove, they had a whole bunch of people before covid, and then covid happened, and it went down to nobody, and then it came back up. And just this year, people are starting to join again. I mean, we got 20 or 30 new members this year, which was fantastic, but everyone who's been here a while was amazed that we got that many. So I think maybe people are starting to maybe a little bit get back to that kind of normal. But if you add our political climate nationally and worldwide, in fact, if you add that climate to it, I think everybody is a wreck. Social media is really, you know, you guys, whether you're on X or on anything like that. But if you start going to the HOA space social media, like next door, I mean, it is, it's pretty nasty, really nasty. And so I just think lowering the temperature is a perfect way to put it. But how do we do that we can't control? And this is, this is, course, is this exactly what we're saying we can't control other people if they're going to be a complete jerk. That you cannot control them, what you can control is your reaction. And I think, over the years. And you know, you're sick of just being quiet about it. You want to get right back in their face. And believe me, I believe me, I get it. But if you're a board member, or you're any kind of leadership position in management, whether you're a business partner in our industry, a board member, committee member, or, frankly, just a homeowner who's out there, someone can be nasty to you, but you don't have to react in kind. And I think that's a place where we all need to maybe take the first step. I mean, I'm as guilty as everybody, but I just think so. What do you guys think

Kevin Davis: 6:45

now, at one point, before you guys say, I think you hit the nail on the head with our ability to react to everything that's in front of us, if we are board members, we understand that the people in front of us, they don't believe we're looking out in their best interest. And so we have to understand out front so that we can take an extra step to maybe communicate a little bit better, because we all face that same you know that our temperatures are high, that low level depression here? Yes, I agree. I agree, so that if we as board members of our association can understand that and not react to it. I love that word, do not react.

Julie Adamen: 7:21

It just control your reaction. Can be one of you can let it go. It can be a kindness, or it can just be that's interesting. So another thing I want to just dovetail onto that, sorry, Robert, just give me one second, Robert, you're out. I know

Robert Nordlund: 7:35

I spoke first, and so now I'm out for the rest of the episode.

Julie Adamen: 7:39

Anyway, I was gonna say that as board members or anyone who's in a leadership position in a community association, you know you're you're like the parents. I mean, everybody is watching you. Everyone's watching you, whether you think so or not so. At a board meeting, that's where they see you normally. Some some associations broadcast their board meetings or record them and broadcast them later, but everyone is looking at you and how you react and deal with your fellow board members, and if you have staff with your staff and all that, everyone looks to you, and if you are putting forth that kind of negativity, and I don't mean you, mean to it's just because you're a human being, and we've all been living through this, that really be advised that everyone's looking to You, and when your temperature is lowered, it's just like parents, if the parents temperature is lowered, the kids have a tendency to be calmer. And I think that is a thing to think about in in in a board position for sure.

Robert Nordlund: 8:33

You both were talking, it sounded like primarily between the board and the homeowners, but I want to extend it, Julie, I think you said, the business partners, the people that provide services for the association, I want to talk specifically about the managers. They're seeing stress. They're feeling stress, and they're tense about what's going on at the board meeting. And so there's these different layers about managers, board members, homeowners, and there's friction at each one of those points. And I was thinking, Yes, we need to react less, but can we do a better job of setting the stage? And Julie, you've spoken about it so many times. Have effective communication, transparency just to be available so that if someone has a question, they can email you or see you in the hallway or whatever it is. We had one gentleman on the show that set up floor captains in his high rise that were the ambassadors for the board. And so there's, there are those release of the pressure points before they get big. But I agree, at every Association you're going to have the thorns, the thorns, the 3% the

Julie Adamen: 9:45

serious 3% that right. 10% is not happy. 10% is really not happy. Usually the vocal is about three to 5% and you're always going to have it. So how are you going to react to them? Yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 9:57

But if we can do a good job. Of, I don't know, at the board meeting, shaking hands, welcoming people as they come in. What? What other things can we do to lower the temperature before it gets to a reaction point?

Julie Adamen: 10:13

I think one of the things is, I think both you guys would agree with this, is that for board members, you know, you're a volunteer, and obviously you're not getting paid. You're spending a lot more hours than you thought you were, and you're thinking, Oh, my God, I don't have time to do this. But especially for board members who maybe may not be as comfortable in a public position, they're doing it because they felt the need to do it, and they needed, you know, the community needed their services, but you know, they're not really good at that. You know, shaking hands and kissing babies you really need to get out of. If you can get out of that your comfort zone and do it, you are in a very political position. And let me just put it, whether it's an HOA, whether it's a church which is operates very similarly, because, you know, everything is political because we're, I don't mean that in a bad way, because we're people. And if anyone who has read history, any kind of history, knows that human beings are basically the same. I mean, read about ancient Rome, it's the same. We just have technology, we have electric lights and stuff, but we're as people. We're actually the same. So we're not going to get away from that. And I think you have to acknowledge where we are. This connects everybody. Your phone, they're on social media. They can get everything immediately. A lot of it. Kevin, hit the nail on the head about everyone having a low level of depression. I would completely agree with that. I think a lot of people still suffer from PTSD, from covid. I know I did for actually, I had to move from where I was before, because their covid restrictions were so difficult for me to deal with, down to Arizona, where it was much, much fewer restrictions, and people were actually pretty normal that it was, it was very hard on me, so I had to recognize that and do something about it. I mean, I moved at everybody moves, but I'm saying, if you understand, if board members understand, it's not you, you're it's not specific to your community as an industry. Kevin Robert, me and everyone we talked to, who is service provider, management, all that kind of thing, and other board members as well, everyone's suffering from the same thing. They're all seeing the same thing. So you're not alone. And we tell them all the same thing, you can't control them. Control your reaction. Temperature lowered is always the best way to deal with that 3% in particular, because you're never going to change their mind.

Kevin Davis: 12:34

But just let me add something into that idea. I think that if you have a goal as board members, if you say our goal is to whatever it is to maintain the association, to have increase the value of our association, have a reason. Have a goal, a play a North Star. So every time you have a meeting, are you doing what's right to get your North Star? That means that 3% who comes and annoys you and bothers you, you go, Wait a minute. We want to lower our assessments, or we have our assessments greater. We want to have a special assessment. We have made sure every unit here has increased their value. If you keep going back to that North Star, it kind of gives you a purpose for your meeting, as opposed to have a meeting. And guess what? Now we dealing with all the fires out there, so we're reacting to fires at every meeting. Don't react. Have a meeting and say, This is where we want to go. This is our purpose. This is where we're gonna go. And now we all going towards that direction. Now you can communicate better. You can do the things you need to do just a little bit better by having a

Julie Adamen: 13:34

goal absolutely, you know, what you then you end up operating like a laser beam instead of a soft, white light that's out of focus, you know, and that Robert, we've talked about this many times before, is that that goes back to boards, having yearly goals and objectives of what they want to achieve, and also having a mission statement, a vision statement, because then everybody ends up singing, at least you're in the same church. You may not be in the same pew, but you're all in the same church, so at least you're moving, you're hurting the cats in a direction. Well taken. That's very well taken point. Thanks, Kevin,

Robert Nordlund: 14:03

yeah, no, we had a couple episodes on vision and mission statements, yep, and this is just the exactly the the right thing. You know, had that sense that, what can we do better, to set the stage, to lower the temperature, and it's starting the meeting with your your vision. You know, this is what we're about, the your mission statement, and if you indeed are saying that every time at the beginning of a meeting, this is what binds us together, that we will do this. We will be civil, we will be welcoming community, whatever it is, then all of a sudden, it lowers the temperature in that board meeting, and it unites everyone, and it creates a we. We are here. We are doing this. This is what we are about.

Julie Adamen: 14:46

It's a we. It's not us and them. That's where you bring people in, and that is that's for board members, that is bringing people into the process. But you just start out doing that vision mission, and then if you want to read it at the beginning of each. Meeting, that would be great, but it starts bringing other folks into the process. Because, don't forget, and Kevin, I think you said this at the very beginning about institutional distrust, and that's another ginormous problem in our country, nationally and internationally. We things that we grew up with. I mean, the three of us are old people. We're old, but we grew up with, you know, when we we grew up with trust in our institutions, in our government and the governmental institutions in media, in even in entertainment. You know, we were just probably like lambs to the slaughter. But we were thinking, This is great. Everyone's kind of on the same page, no, no, and, this, this, this device right here, has let us all know how things are actually working in the real world. So I think creating your own little pocket of institutional trust is really the goal of every board. So and what do we do with that? It's communication, it's transparency, it's openness, just we're coming. I know we if, for those of you who've been watching us for a while, you've probably heard all this before, but this stuff really works, and I've done some consulting jobs with HOA that have had huge problems in every one of these, every one of these aspects of community management. And you can come back from that brink. You can, it's not easy, but you can,

Robert Nordlund: 16:21

how what are we talking about? We talking months? Are we talking a year or two?

Julie Adamen: 16:24

It could be yes, all of the above. It just It depends on the severity of the problem, the willingness of the board and the severity of the problem has been going on a long time. You have a big hill to climb up before you can get to that top and then start. Oh, my goodness, we get to go downhill. Now, here a little bit. So it could be easily, a year easy, but, and that requires tremendous focus on the part of the board members

Robert Nordlund: 16:53

and committee members and commitment. And commitment. Yes, repetition, repetition. Well, we talk a lot about incivility, that it's normal. We've had attorneys on the podcast here that talk about how their practice has shifted from revising governing documents and things like that, too much more rule enforcement and lawsuits between Association. Yeah, they say it's amazing how their practice has changed in the last five years, so it's real. That's not an excuse, but that's why we're here to say, okay, what can you do to lower the temperature? Let a little bit of pressure out. And I want to go to break but I want to get you starting to think, Julie, you said everyone has a low level of depression to start with. Kevin said it first, but he's right, yeah, okay, and this came on a little bit harder with covid 19. But I think one other angle that we haven't spoken about is money finances. We've had a few years of high inflation. We've had supply chain instability, things like that, and so scarcity causes stress, and so you have all these different factors. And I'd like to take a break and then come back and see if we can talk about stress and maybe some technology things. Are you okay with that? Yeah, let's do it cool. Now it's time to hear from one of our generous sponsors, after which we will be back with more common sense for common areas and discussion and a discussion about top trends here in 2026

Paige Daniels: 18:26

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Robert Nordlund: 18:57

And we're back. Well, we had a interesting discussion in our break that we had to stop because we want to share it with you guys. But really this is there's a lot of these big factors out there. We've talked about them. We've talked about covid We talked about a growing level of depression, the technology issues of the cell phones and the rising prices, all these kinds of things. But Kevin, talk to us more about technology, and specifically

Kevin Davis: 19:21

about AI right now. From insurance point of view, AI is scarce us all because we don't understand it. From a community association point of view, a lot of people are getting a lot of information from chat, GBT and all different versions of AI out there. The problem we see is that AI is not designed to say no. It's signed to say yes, and so every time you answer the question, it'll say yes, and it's how you do it. For example, I sell insurance. If I give you a what I believe is a good quotation on my insurance policy, you can go to chat TBT and say, Guess what? I don't believe Kevin's insurance. Rate is high. It's pretty high. Don't you agree? And what should I do about it? Yes, it could be high. These are things we should do about it. So whatever question you put in the chat, TBT, they answers all it could be yes, and it's designed to say yes, and no matter what and chat, TP is not a defendable position, meaning this, if you get a lawsuit coming in because you didn't look listen to Robert Nords, you know, reserve study and you got your own off of chat. GBT, that's not a dependable position in court. A dependable position in court for a nonprofit volunteer is, I listen to experts? Chat. TBT, is not an expert.

Robert Nordlund: 20:38

Kevin, is this driven again by scarcity, that you don't want to spend money to ask your attorney, or you don't want to spend money and ask the owner of the management company a very technical question, is it things like

Kevin Davis: 20:52

that we just talked about, there's a lack of trust in institutions and lack of trust in our people. I got trust, but we trust chat TBT, don't we? We trust we shouldn't.

Julie Adamen: 21:02

Why? Well, here's the thing. I mean, I don't know. I Yes, I would say some people for sure do. I wouldn't trust any of it. I've used it extensively chat, grok and co pilot a little bit, but I've used those extensively for different projects I'm working on, but not, not for input of information, more for formatting issues or clean it up or but you can. It's funny, you should say yes, and it should say yes, but because the problem is, is that it's, I mean, technically, could you do your own reserve study? Yeah, you know. So saying, Yeah, you can. But the problem is, if you're the person putting that and saying, I could do my own reserve study, you don't have the knowledge or the skill set. That's the problem. And when you are paying for an expert like Robert, like Kevin, like me, like your attorney, you're getting their years of experience. And don't forget, chat, GPT, grok and all those they are searching the internet. They're basically a giant, ginormous search engine, right? When you use it like that. They're searching the internet for answers. Well, we all know the internet's correct all the time, right, right? Yeah, yeah. Must be

Robert Nordlund: 22:07

true. I read it on the internet Exactly.

Julie Adamen: 22:09

So I would say the real the way I use it more than anything, like I just said, is to format things or to you can write articles very, very quickly with chat GPT or one of those. Just put in some bullet points and say, Hey, make this, you know, make this for my community association newsletter. Make it newsy, make it fun, make it eye catching, and make it about 300 words. Boom, it's out. Make sure and proofread it. Proof it every time. Prove it.

Kevin Davis: 22:33

Yes, it's not at the end of the day though. It's not a defendable position. If you were in court you want Robert Norden said I analyze my reserve study. I have years of experience in reserve. This is what I've came up with. The judge is going to say, I accept, Robert, you did a good job, board member. You found an expert out there. I went to chat TPT for a roofing contractor who I put all the information in there, and I asked, Can I get a better deal? And chat TPD will say yes, and this is how you do it, but that wherever that yes and is that, and usually is not the lot knowledge and experience necessary to protect you at the end of the day,

Julie Adamen: 23:11

not at all, not at all because, like I said, they're giant. They're just like using Google. I mean, they're meaning that the search engine function of Google not their AI, but it's just because all they're doing is searching the internet, and so that's they're putting all kinds of things together, or AI can hallucinate. And if you guys are all familiar with that, you guys out there, I mean, they can give you bizarre answers. I put something into crock, oh, I don't know, probably within the last week. And I'm like, This answer is completely dumb. And then you say, hey, that is not the right answer. Oh, sorry. And then it'll tell you the same answer again. So it's not infallible, and it absolutely is not a substitute for for your experts, because they are not qualified experts to testify in court like the three of us are, you know. So it's just completely different in the future maybe, yeah, so important.

Robert Nordlund: 23:59

Go ahead. Robert, yeah. Well, I was gonna say, let's bring it back. We want to talk about what are the trends. Well, we talked about incivility. We've talked about Be careful with AI. It can be a good assistant, a virtual assistant, but don't let it run your show. It can go run errands for you. It can find information for you. But, yeah, you have to be very, very careful. And so I feel like that's driven by scarcity of time. You want to answer quick scarcity of dollars. You don't want to pay a professional service fee. But remember, YOU ARE board members. You have a fiduciary responsibility for your association, and that does take time. You know it. You know it more than anyone. It does take money, and you have a dog in the hunt. You have your personal can we say it here? Your your liabilities at risk? Yeah, you have somebody. We're not, we're not attorneys here, so we want to be careful, but we play one on TV. Yeah, there we go. That's, that's why make sure, yes, we know where the borders are. And. And we have a responsibility to run the association. Run the association well, so it becomes a community, a community of they're not all going to be like minded, but you want a peaceful and productive community. So we got AI. What about other things?

Julie Adamen: 25:15

Staffing? Staff? I say, so I think a big problem, and I'm not staffing, yes, definitely in the management end of things, for sure that management companies can't find enough people who are good at doing this business. It does take a certain skill set. It's not rocket science, but if you don't have a heart for people and you're not a good communicator, this will probably not be a good business for you. But it's also board member staffing, meaning getting new board members in, or getting board members to even stay through their term. I did a keynote for a large management company in Southern California last, the last two years, actually, for their board retreats. I mean, we had like 400 board members in there. It was huge. They asked me to talk on this topic because their board members, I mean, back in, back in the day, when we all started out in the 80s and 90s. I'm completely dating us, but the cameras dating me well enough anyway. So it's

Robert Nordlund: 26:07

but the we can get AI to clean that up for us.

Julie Adamen: 26:10

I wish it could. I wish it could live like this anyway, is that, you know, back then you'd have board members that would be on a board, you know, 10 years, eight years, 15 years. I mean, a lot of times that was really good. I had a lot of good long term board members. Sometimes that's a problem but, but other times it's really good because they have all this institutional knowledge. And now this company was telling me it's hard enough to because, because of the incivility, it is hard enough to get people to run for the board, let alone keep them for more than one term, or even to finish out their term, and I thought that was fascinating, and it's all a part of the same thing. So I think recruiting new volunteers is going to be a big deal as for your boards, and there's a whole process about that. And then also understanding that management firms, management companies, include, actually, even if you're in house on site, finding really good staff. I mean, it's really, I'm in, part of my business is staffing those kind of places, and it's really hard. There is nobody out there. So it's, it's a tough one, and AI will not replace your general manager or your community association manager ever.

Kevin Davis: 27:17

Yeah, yeah. Let me, let me add that, yeah, if the boards understand they have a fiduciary responsibility to manage that association, it takes a different spin on it, as opposed to, guess what, it was my turn to be on the board. I'm on the board. I have no idea what's going on. They didn't train me. They throw me in to be the treasurer or something I don't know anything about. And it's end up being a social club. We talk about what's on Netflix, or we talk about talked about, what's on Netflix. So we talked about, you know, golf game. Yeah, it's a business. This is a business. Guys. We have a fiduciary responsibility to manage Association in certain ways. You know, we have to make sure assessments are paid. We got to make sure associations are maintained. We we have to enforce the rules. If you had that mentality, I think it's a lot easier to keep everybody engaged. And again, it goes back to this is our goal. This is our vision. If people start that way, it continues through every year you get somebody and you train them to do the right you make sure they feel that they're part of the board and they matter, then I think they will stay. You have a reason to stay. If you let people know you have it for you sure responsibility. We want to maintain it. When we leave here, the value our units will increase.

Julie Adamen: 28:29

Yeah, you know, I think that you're so right, Kevin, that is spot on. The problem with it, as you know, is that, who's telling them that? Yeah, nobody. We are. We're telling you that, but every single week we do every single week because it's hard, and we've all, Kevin, you've sat on a board, an HOA board, have you not Robert has I have, and it just is. It is a thankless job. But why did you do it? Kevin, why did you do it? I already heard it's a

Kevin Davis: 28:57

funny thing. My first board I served on, I got a reserve study from Robert Norlin. But 35 years ago, didn't know Robert at all, but I went to a cn, no, Kevin, a trade show, gi trade show, and I learned to be what it takes to be on the Oh,

Julie Adamen: 29:14

that was when Robert used to go to the trade shows, the

Kevin Davis: 29:18

regular ones. First thing I did, and the reason why I did it is because I had to understand what it was that they did on board boards, what they do. And the first thing I learned it was the most thankful job we worked all year round. We replaced the self fencing porches, because it's suddenly we had our annual meeting, and we got yelled at the entire time that we paid too much money. The pool wasn't taken care of the furniture in the pool, you know, the heat, you know everything the roofs need to be and after a whole year, well, I thought we did a good job all we just got beaten up. So I understand every board member out there in their frustration, because that was 30 years ago or 35 years ago.

Julie Adamen: 29:58

Again, it hasn't changed. It's just got. Faster. We didn't

Kevin Davis: 30:02

have, or worse, phones back then, or we didn't have chat. We didn't have x, you know, X, or whatever that is, Facebook, none of those things.

Julie Adamen: 30:09

Hey, we had to use pay phones. And had a pager.

Robert Nordlund: 30:16

Yeah? Managers had pagers. That was,

Julie Adamen: 30:18

yeah, well, it was better than what we have now. You're not 100% available all the time. That's tough.

Robert Nordlund: 30:24

Okay, well, I hear some good things here. This reminder that the board members have a fiduciary responsibility. It is a you are running a multi million dollar real estate Corporation, multi million dollar nonprofit real estate Corporation, and keep everyone on the same page. Is wonderful to have a vision and mission, and it could be a thing starting with, we're here to make sure the association is fiscally sound. The assessments get paid. We maintain the place, and we enforce the rules fairly. You know, you can say some of these things, and you keep them cycling around and around around, people start to realize this is what we're all about. And you show the owners to your financial show them a pie chart where your money goes. And so they begin to know that, oh, this is, yeah, they are running a business here. And this is not an apartment house. This is, wow, we we own this place. Just amazing ideas. We're going to see more things in the future. We're going to see, well, the world continues to be more expensive. Prices are going to go up. We know that. Everyone knows that. Our listeners know that. I wonder if we're going to have more and more concerns for mortgage compliance, where lenders start squeezing homeowner associations, trying to get them to comply. Do things. Of course, they're they're the ones right now. Yeah, AI staffing cyber risk, Kevin, you've spoken about that many times, where you have people just making mistakes, thinking that the internet is nice and the internet is not nice. You have to get past that.

Kevin Davis: 32:00

Yeah, we're missing one thing there, Robert, as you said, there's money issues. We always have money issues, but we also our associations will always get older, and that's that's a critical piece right now. Association are getting older, and they have not been maintained the way they should have been maintained. And now you're talking about that financial problem has gotten a lot larger because the association has gotten older. We just, we kind of missed that one.

Julie Adamen: 32:26

Yes, we did miss that. And actually, that is always one of my thing I did in my online classes. I have reserves, lack of reserves, as the number one finance like operational problem that as opposed to the incivility that is and financial problem that is facing communities throughout the country, because the first associations, I mean, the first one was, you know, that's a long time ago, but if you're talking about most associations being built in the 70s, 80s, 90s, places built in the 90s, they're old. Now they need stuff done. And what always happens with boards is that people want to get on that board early, because then they can segue off before something needs to be done, you know, and the boards that are left holding the bag now, they're like, what's, what is this? Like musical chairs, the one who's left standing that's boards today. And you're not alone. It's a problem. It's a serious problem.

Kevin Davis: 33:11

Yeah, if I'm an insurance point of view, anything that was built before the century, you know, 2000 is considered old. And you know, for the past 25 years, you know, it's the line there that insurance is saying, Well, it's kind of old. Now we need X, Y and Z, and all of a sudden, deferred maintenance. We start looking at things that we haven't looked at before from the insurance point of view. So it has to be dealt with, you know, and that's going to be a big issue upcoming year, and a future that we have to add to that list there.

Robert Nordlund: 33:43

Robert, yes, running an association is expensive, and that means that the homeowner assessments need to go up, and you need to be communicating. You need to have the political capital, the trust with the homeowners, so they understand that, yeah, it's getting more expensive. The world is getting more expensive, and so our homeowner assessments need to go up. They need to be able to get that Well, looking at the time, we need to start to see how we can bring this episode to conclusion. Well, one other thing that we haven't spoken about is the podcast itself. We have some ideas for perhaps changing the schedule a little bit in 2026 we expect you'll still be hearing from Robert and myself and Julie and Kevin on different episodes, but maybe branching off a little bit still have some subject matter experts board heroes, and Kevin may be diving into a claim of the month or something like that. More leadership things that you hear from Julie, but we're trying to follow the lead about what you've been telling us about and what we think best suits the needs of our podcast audience. So as always, thank you, Kevin and Julie, it's always great talking to you individually or together together seems like a whirlwind of information. It's a three ring circus. Yeah, it's a treat to have us all on the same stage together. So any closing thoughts to add at this time

Kevin Davis: 35:06

again, the trends are easy. If you listen to us all last year, you will have a great 2026 don't even worry about it. And if you haven't listened to this last year, just pick up any old any of our previous podcasts, and you will learn a lot. And you too will have a good 2020 26

Julie Adamen: 35:23

You sure can. And I totally agree with Kevin, that's true. If you've listened to us, you know what's coming up already, and you've pretty much been armed to face 2026 if you need any help with that, we're always here. You could email us at Robert, what's our email

Robert Nordlund: 35:37

address? Podcast at Hoa insights.org.org,

Julie Adamen: 35:41

yeah, Hoa. And so we've changed a little bit, so it's that. And if you have any questions, feel free, just like all the rest of the board members out there that email us about anything. So we look forward to seeing you all in 2026

Robert Nordlund: 35:51

Yeah, we're here to help you have success at your association. Well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussions today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to bringing many more episodes to you, week after week after week, we'll be here, and it'll be great to have you join us on a regular basis. Spread the word.

Announcer: 36:13

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