Condominiums and townhouses are the first to feel a break in housing prices in times like these for whatever reasons.
HOA boards can use their membership meetings, newsletters and community marketing and public relations talents to let the world know why people should want to live in the community.
It's not as obvious as you might thing. Many bright new developments are offering great price discounts to potential buyers these days.
How do you do this?
1. Publish and maintain a strong web site that keeps members and their friends up on the community's news and people. An HOA blog would make sense, but who will write it? A retired PR, marketing or news person, perhaps?
2. Make the periodic newsletter mailed to members a vehicle for promoting the community and reminding home owners to visit the web site and tell their friends how much they love living here.
3. Encourage a resident Realtor™ to mail promotions for homes on the market to a wide audience.
4. Get home owners to sit down for home design and garden design interviews with the local paper.
5. Oranize annual house tours that allow neighbors to visit and bring their friends to see the great places that they might buy some day.
6. Make sure that your community is well maintained, provides outstanding customer service to residents and has a strong balance sheet with competitive maintenance fees, and promote those benefits on your web site/blog and in your newsletter.
7. Have your HOA president serve on regional HOA boards and spread the word about your great community.
These are just some quick ideas. More will come in due time.
