Homeowners’ newsletter 101. (part VI)

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11. You have to choose the font of your newsletter wisely. Some of the fonts such as Times New Roman, Garamond or Arial are easier to read compared to Curlz, Jokerman and other narrow typefaces. You should also not set the font style to all caps since this can intimidate the reader. You can use the bold and italics feature but only sparingly, just to emphasize some points. You can of course, change the font of your newsletter but be sure that you will limit yourself to no more than 3 styles so as not to make the readers dizzy.
12. Add humor to your newsletter. There is nothing better than making the residents feel at home just by reading your newsletters.

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Homeowners’ newsletter 101. (part V)

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9. There are templates available on the internet nowadays for your newsletter design. Some are even for free and all you have to do is to just fill in the blanks of the template. If you are a bit creative and full of ideas, you might want to do a design of your own. There are a lot of programs out there that allows you to do newsletters from scratch.
10. Not matter how colorful you want your newsletter is, you must remember that the white space is pretty much important too. It provides breathing space to your newsletter and gives the reader the impression that everything is not cramped up.

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Homeowners’ newsletter 101. (part IV)

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7. Photographs are needed in a newsletter to make it lively. A person does not take interest in scanning (more so, reading) all the written texts of your newsletter. If for example, a burglar was apprehended by the police, you might want to include the mug shot of the burglar to make the people interested in reading who was that man featured on the newsletter.
8. You must also include the accomplishments of your homeowners association to stress out that the homeowners association indeed works. This is vital to encourage people to participate and join the association for the betterment of the neighborhood.

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Homeowners’ newsletter 101. (part III)

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5. Play with words. You might want to try sounding a little bit more stern than the usual (it’s ok, this is a newsletter) so that people will follow you. Instead of writing “The board discussed way on how pet owners should comply with the pet policy” as your headline, you might want to change it to, “The board has decided to enforce the rules to those who will not follow the pet policy”.
6. You might want to consider a proofreader for you newsletter. A simple mistake can make your newsletter the joke of the town. You might also lose your credibility when you’ve made a single mistake on your newsletter.

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Homeowners’ newsletter 101. (part II)

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3. Newsletters are meant to be read and so, you have to produce something that is in fact “readable”. Let’s start off with the headline of the newsletter. The headline must be catchy. Readers won’t actually take notice of “Board passes new budget”. But, “Board raises fees” will surely catch their attention. Or perhaps, you can be a little more creative than that and so, you can try movie titles are your headlines.
4. The stories in your newsletter should include (better if it is highlighted) the basics such as who, what, when, where and why. If for example, the newsletter includes a new policy that will be enforced next week, you have to explain the reason for its enforcement.

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Homeowners’ newsletter 101. (part I)

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If you have been living in a subdivision or a condo, you have to know that the homeowners association is the most important body that will represent the people living in that area. This group conducts meetings every now and then to discuss the concerns of the residents. Some homeowners associations do give out newsletters to update their fellow residents of the new policies that will be implemented in the area, and so, here are the basics of the newsletters that the person should see.

1. If you are planning on putting articles on your newsletter, you have to keep it short. Only a few have the time to read all these long letters and your newsletter might end up in the bin after the person saw it was way too long to read. You might also want to write everything in bullet form for easy scanning.
2. There are a lot of things you can do with your newsletter. You can include a section devoted to new projects, the profile of the board committee, or even a promotion of the events in your neighborhood. You can even put up a “new members” section so that the whole neighborhood can welcome the newcomers.

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Still hitting the bottom.

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With the economic downfall, it is a fact that the prices of houses have been hit rock bottom for the past months and the prices of goods and commodities have skyrocketed, making almost everyone a pauper in their own respect. Goods have recorded a total of 1.4% increase last month while home prices still continue to decline. The stock market too had a hard hit, losing trillions and trillions of money. The record last year of home prices was down to 4.6 percent from April 2007 – April 2008. According to housing reports, the prices of houses is still continuing to decline, however, the rapidity of the decline is slowing, which of course is a sign that housing prices are nearing dirt bottom.

Photo taken from http://blogs.venturacountystar.com

Fractional ownership proves to be beneficial.

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The economic stability being experienced in the U.S. today is troubling not only the poverty stricken population but also those who belong to the middle class strata. Houses and condos have tripled its prices and not everyone can afford it anymore. A lot of foreclosures are happening every minute because people cannot pay off their mortgage. However, there are a lot of people who seem to be a little wiser. Some of them have engaged in what we call “fractional ownership”, a kind of investment that allows those who cannot afford to pull up their monies and pay up for the price of the house. Luxury houses are actually the target of those who engage in fractional ownership as these types of houses are a good investment.

Photo taken from http://www.efip.co.uk

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