Crittenden Report Editors
Last week marked one year since the tragic collapse of Champlain Towers South Condominium in Surfside, Florida.
By 2025, Florida state law will require association-governed boards to set aside funds for future major repairs, according to state legislation approved in May. It starts with a Reserve Study (fee is only 1% of the association’s budget) to ensure the health of the property.
Association Reserves Inc, the nation’s leading provider of Reserve Studies, recently announced the launch of Association Insights & Marketplace (AIM), an online database that identifies over 400,000 association-governed communities, including condominiums, co-ops and homeowner associations. Using AIM, Boards of Directors can learn their FiPhO™ health score at no cost, after providing the financial, physical and operational details of their association. It’s the first-ever national database that provides such an assessment.
“Last year’s tragic collapse of Champlain Towers South Condominium in Surfside, Florida, is the most extreme example of what can happen when deferred maintenance is combined with an underfunded reserve account, and the Board of Directors and Owners are working at cross purposes,” said Robert Nordlund, PE, RS, AIM’s co-founder and the founder and CEO of Association Reserves. “Pioneering the FiPhO™ health score was the natural extension of three decades of subject matter expertise in the area of reserve funding.”
Similar to a FICO® score that measures consumer credit risk, the FiPhO™ health score, a term coined by AIM, distills the financial, physical and operational health of an association to a single number.
Nordlund recognized the initiative to create this scoring model, and it became more imperative after the Surfside collapse in June of 2021. Providing the score is the solution to improve the overall health of these shared-ownership communities, as well as to help interpret a vast array of real estate disclosures for the benefit of buyers and their real estate agents.
The FiPhO™ health score is revealed once the Board of Directors or their Fiduciary Agent claims their association at no cost (similar to claiming a home on Zillow®) and completes their financial, physical and operational profiles.
A buyer can then decide on their purchase based on the overall score or by purchasing any of the reports within the ratings package. They can then share this with their lender, which helps close their mortgage. A second mutual benefit is the cost of the report is income to the condo’s reserves.
It’s a very positive trend forward, ensuring the long-term viability of the property—and, of course, safety.
The FiPhO™ health score is featured in an in-depth report that normally sells on the site for $49.99. As an introductory offer, AIM Reports will be available complimentarily until Labor Day 2022.
Association Insights & Marketplace was founded in 2022 to introduce unprecedented transparency and forever change the way people think, talk and make decisions about association-governed communities.
