By Ben Klaus, CMCA, Ascent Community Partners
Earlier this year a buyer sent our office eleven questions before closing. Whether a lawsuit referenced in the minutes had been resolved, why funds for a special assessment from last year were still on the balance sheet, what the insurance claim history looked like on the building she was buying into.
This was not a seasoned investor. It was a first-time buyer who had dropped the resale packet into a chatbot and asked what to worry about. The questions were sharper than what I used to see from buyers with an attorney and it showed how much AI is changing how buyers approach purchasing in a community association.
The Resale Packet Isn't a Formality Anymore
For years, the resale packet was seemingly a formality. A buyer signed a receipt confirming they received a few hundred pages and almost nobody read them closely, not by design but because most people did not have hours to work through a document dump. That reality has shifted. A buyer can now feed your declaration, minutes, budget, and insurance and litigation disclosures into a free AI tool and get an organized readout with little to no effort or skill. What used to take two full evenings now takes five minutes and most buyers are fine spending those minutes before getting to the closing table.
This is not a bad thing for a well-run association. It is the same information a board was always required to disclose, just read faster and by more people. A board that stays on top of its documents gets a buyer who closes with confidence. A board that has let a few things slide gets a nudge to catch up which is usually a good thing.
What Boards Can Do Now
In light of this new reality, I offer a few thoughts on what a path forward looks like. Assume every document you produce will be read by a machine and summarized to a buyer then manage accordingly. Keep minutes clear enough that a buyer understands what was decided and not just that a topic came up and disappeared into thin air. Resolve open items before they sit unresolved for two years. Make sure the reserve study, budget, and insurance summary tell a consistent story since that gets cross-checked now. Work with the professionals in your corner to keep the association on track.
This isn't to say you should suddenly start caring about your association because buyers are using AI or try to game the system to look a certain way. It is simply a new era of scrutiny that rewards organization and clarity.
Where AI Helps & Where It Fails
My team uses AI daily so I understand where these tools help and where they fall short. AI is good at reviewing a long document and pulling out what matters, drafting a first version of a letter or notice, and working with numbers: modeling a funding scenario or catching a budget line that does not match last year.
Where it fails is nuance and currency. A tool will flag high dues without knowing part of a market carries insurance costs well above average for reasons unrelated to mismanagement. AI tools also commonly lack current information. A new law may have just passed requiring higher assessments and the AI bot simply does not know it yet.
Regarding nuance, every community is different and that uniqueness can make things look different on paper. Something can appear alarming at first glance, but have a reasonable explanation based on conditions specific to that community. If you are a buyer, remember that AI summaries and trends are a starting point, not the final word. If something looks concerning, reach out to the management company for answers as there is usually more there than meets the eye.
Why the Manager Still Matters
This is also where a management company earns its fee more than ever. A chatbot can summarize what happened, but it cannot explain why and it has no relationship with the contractor, insurer, or lender to move something forward. When underwriting comes back with questions before a sale closes, a chatbot cannot answer them. A manager who knows the history can.
The same is true inside the community. A manager knows which board member needs bad news in person, which vendor shows up on a Saturday because of a relationship built over years, and which item in the minutes looks alarming out of context, but was handled properly. None of that shows up in a document summary. It is accumulated judgment and it is what a board is paying for.
The buyer with eleven questions closed on her unit. She asked hard questions and got good answers which is the version of this story that every board should be ready for.
Ben Klaus, CMCA, is President of Ascent Community Partners, a Colorado HOA management company serving communities along the Front Range. He also serves as Treasurer of CAI Southern Colorado.
