Episode #161
Is Your Reserve Study Already Out of Date?
An $80,000 special assessment nearly cost Steve Laidlaw his first condo. It cost two of his neighbors theirs. In this episode of Beyond Rent, the founder of Stelor explains how a reserve study written to keep fees low set an entire building up for a financial shock nobody saw coming, and why that same failure is now playing out across North America at scale. Steve breaks down the structural flaw in the traditional reserve study: it is a static document, written once and relied on for five years while costs, conditions, and priorities shift underneath it. Studies written in 2020 and 2021 assumed 3 to 4% annual inflation, which was reasonable at the time. Construction costs did something very different. Associations coming up for renewal now are being asked to raise contributions by 50, 60, even 70% at once, and some are far enough behind that a special assessment is still coming. The conversation covers what boards actually need to understand before they vote on fees, why volunteer boards lean so heavily on their property manager and engineering firm, and how Stelor turns a 50-to-100-page PDF into live forecasting, scenario modeling, and annual updates against actuals. Steve also walks through Stelor's Rent Manager integration, which pulls reserve account general ledger activity so actuals and budget stay reconciled, and explains why engineering firms are moving from writing a report every five years to serving as ongoing capital planning advisors. Beyond Rent listeners: mention the show when you contact Stelor and receive 25% off the standard reserve fund study package, which includes a five-year subscription to the client portal.
