We Have a Winner!

Tonight Simple Guy was elected on to the Board of Directors of our building! He made a run for it last year but did not get enough votes, but tonight he was the star of the evening with everyone in our tier (there are three tiers that make up our entire Association, our tier has the largest number of residences than the other two tiers combined) giving him their support and well wishes.

In order to fully appreciate the importance of the Board of Directors at our building you have to live here. This building is as political as Washington D.C. and those that serve on the Board and the decisions that they make are either loved or not so loved by their constituents and fellow tenants. Most often, the Board ends up being comprised of mostly residents from the other two tiers simply because their votes have more weight than ours and people typically like to vote for people in their own tiers. The reason theirs votes have more weight is simple: the bigger your unit, the higher percent of ownership you have in the building and votes percentages are based on unit sizes.

And tonight we were facing the possibility of having all of the Directors be only from the other two tiers if Simple Guy would not have secured his spot on the Board. There is no doubt that Simple Guy will do a fine job on the Board; he will be a fair voice of reason and financial responsibility (the Board manages a budget over $1 million!) and he has the advantage of being liked by both sides of the aisle (we do not have Democrats or Republicans here, but rather those that are for capital improvements and those that are opposed to them).

Life in this building is very different than life in our apartment that we lived in before we bought this place. There are expectations of buildings where we live that other buildings do not have to worry about and when you live on this stretch of property there are even expectations of you. We never sought out to live here- it just happened that way and while we both feel very fortunate to be here (you know real estate- location, location, location!), we do not take it too seriously that we are here.

At the end of the day, it’s not a big deal- the whole Board thing and all- but we are trying to be the best stewards of our money and investments (and this place is our largest investment) and it seems wise to have a voice in how things are being run around here.

Congratulations Simple Guy! Or should I now be addressing you as Mr. Board Member?