For HOA & condo board members.
If you are looking at your reserves and worrying they are not where they should be, you are not alone — and you are already doing the right thing by paying attention.
Concerned about your reserve balance?
Underfunded reserves are one of the most common situations we see, and they are almost never the result of one person’s mistake. We help boards understand exactly where they stand and build a realistic plan to strengthen their funding, without alarming the membership.
Reserve gaps build up quietly over years. Construction costs rise faster than dues, components age on their own schedule, and earlier plans were often built on the best information available at the time. A board can inherit all of that and only see it clearly once someone looks closely.
Whether you have just joined and opened the books for the first time, or you have served for years and want a clearer picture, the path forward is the same: a current reserve study tells you what you actually have, what is coming, and what it takes to get on track — in plain English you can take to the membership. We have walked many boards through exactly this, and we stay with you through the decisions, not just the report.
Your fiduciary duty.
A reserve study is a long-term plan that inventories your association’s major components, assesses their condition, and forecasts what it will cost to repair and replace them over time — then measures that against the reserves you are setting aside.
Your board has a fiduciary duty to maintain the association’s common property and fund its future obligations, and a current study is how you meet that duty with confidence rather than guesswork. It protects both the board and the membership: it shows you are planning responsibly, and it gives owners a clear, defensible basis for the decisions you make.
Avoiding special assessments.
Special assessments blindside owners and strain the whole community. They are usually the symptom of years of quiet underfunding — not a single bad decision — and they are largely avoidable.
A current reserve study plus a disciplined funding plan is how a board gets ahead of the big repairs, spreading costs smoothly over time instead of scrambling when a roof or a parking lot suddenly needs replacing. It will not guarantee you will never face one, but it dramatically reduces the likelihood and removes the surprise.
What working with NSR is like.
You get a reserve study you will actually read — clear, visual, and board-ready — not a dense report that ends up in a drawer.
We present the findings at your board meeting, walk through the numbers, and answer questions until the path forward makes sense. And we stay with you through the funding decisions, not just the delivery.
It is all backed by our 4/10 Guarantee: Your report within 4 weeks of inspection, or 10% off your invoice.
See a sample.
You can see our work before you buy: four annotated pages from a real study, with notes on what each one tells a board.
Percent funded is a band, not a verdict.
Most associations sit in the middle. A number below it is where planning starts, not evidence that the board did something wrong.
Seven questions from the board table.
Start by getting an accurate, current picture of where you stand. Many associations are underfunded to some degree, so this is common ground, not a crisis — the goal is a clear plan to close the gap over time. A current reserve study shows you what you actually have in reserves, what repairs and replacements are coming and when, and what funding level it takes to get back on track. From there, most boards adjust contributions gradually and prioritize the most urgent components first, rather than making one drastic move. We build that plan with you and help you explain it to the membership in plain English.
First, know that you did not create the situation and you are already doing the right thing by looking closely. Reserve gaps build up quietly over years — costs rise faster than dues, components age on their own schedule, and earlier plans were based on the best information available at the time. Your best first step is a current reserve study, which tells you exactly where the association stands and what a realistic catch-up plan looks like. It also gives you a clear, defensible set of numbers to bring to the rest of the board and the membership, so you are not carrying the worry alone.
Percent funded is the ratio of your association’s actual reserve balance to its “fully funded balance” — the amount you would ideally have set aside based on how much useful life your components have used up. It is the single number boards use to gauge reserve health. On the scale we use, below 30% is poor, 30–50% good, 50–70% strong, 70% or above very strong. It is a useful gauge, not a legal standard — and a lower number is a starting point for planning, not a verdict on your board.
There is no universal dollar figure — the right amount depends entirely on your specific components, their condition, and how much useful life they have left. That is what a reserve study calculates for your association specifically. Rather than chasing a single target number, most boards aim for a funding plan that keeps reserves healthy enough to handle upcoming repairs without a special assessment, and adjust it as conditions change.
Being underfunded does not automatically mean a special assessment is coming — it means you have less cushion, and it is worth acting on sooner rather than later. Many associations are underfunded to some degree and close the gap over time with a disciplined funding plan. A current reserve study reduces the likelihood of surprise costs and removes the guesswork, though a board that is significantly behind may still face a special assessment for a large, near-term repair. The point is to see it coming and plan for it, not to be blindsided.
Timing depends on the size and complexity of your community, but we back our turnaround with the 4/10 Guarantee: Your report within 4 weeks of inspection, or 10% off your invoice.
Requirements vary by state and have changed in recent years, so it is worth confirming your state’s current rules. Our state pages cover the specific requirements where we work, and we can point you to the current statute for your state — just ask.