Let’s face it, as a Fraternity, we own a heck of a lot of Real Estate. If our holdings around the United States were added up, the sum would truly be staggering.
If we hope to protect and preserve these Real Estate holdings, in most cases, rental of our properties either long term or for short term events has to come into play.
How do we best do that? What are the things we must do if we are to be successful at renting our facilities? What pitfalls do we need to avoid?
Three are multiple quesions that should be asked when approaching the question of a rental property. Here are a few that come to mind.
1. What is the highest and best use of the property, meaning what how can the lodge realize the maximum amount of income from the space?
2. What is our maintence and improvement program for the space so that maximum rental income can be realized?
3. What specialized talent, relating to our Temple Board, can we bring on board so that our management team is at optimal strength?
4. What is our long term investment strategy so that our assets grow and the lodge becomes self sustaining?
5. What are the credentials of our legal team, and do we need an upgrade?
6. What safeguards do we have in place to insure our financial integrity? An example would be a two party signing of all checks, and a quarterly audit process with review by our financial team.
I have a solution for this problem but don't have the programming skills to make it happen.
Moat of us know about the "gig" economy popularized by Uber, AirBnB, Hipcamp, RVshare, and similar phone apps that let owners of property rent that property out for short term or single use by signing up with an app. There needs to be a similar app for event halls. It would benefit masonic lodges, grange, eagles elks moose lions, swede, vfw, legion, and similar community halls. Our problem with renting out our halls is we are not advertising the way people search for things these days. We need to make an app for that. I wish I knew how.
This is an excellent subject to discuss both on the positive and the negative.
First the positive, if done right and if your property is in the right location, using your property as an income source can become self sustaining but it takes work. You must plan ahead and transform your building into something that can be used by the public either for events or for specific purposes like yoga, dance halls, music recitals or things like weddings, funerals, corporate meetings, parties, etc. or if your building or property is set up correctly, multi purpose with meeting facility and Commercial or retail space for long term rentals or leases. Additionally, with the popularity of food trucks many kitchens can be turned into cafeterias for food truck or caterers to prep their various foodstuffs. All of these things can become longterm sources of income. But all of them will require countless hours of management which is generally not in the talent pool of a “standard” Hall Board and the Hall Boards should look at hiring a management company or rental manager.
The downside of having a successful rental program is that you may loose the opportunity to support concordant bodies especially youth programs. If you are renting to the public then you have to make a choice of renting your facility for $XXX or giving it away for free or a discount. You must have a philosophical discussion with your lodge and hall board and decide if the $$$ are more important that supporting our Masonic concordant bodies.
I don't think that should be an issue. Infor example have a hipcamp campsite on my property. I block out dates on my calendar for off the market activities such as personal use or use by friends and neighbors at reduced pricing than my through the app rentals. The same could be done for concordance bodies. A reduced fee through the app or just handle those monies separately. If a vibrant lodge has a full schedule of concordant body such that it is busy every evening for a whole month is probably not in financial need to rent outside the fraternity at all. But even so, they could still rent day-time midweek conferences to local business groups. My idea for the app would be to make such scheduling options easy to do on your phone.
I have watched for years as the building consumes good Masons into endless work and creates great conflict and frustration among the brothers. I purposely have avoided joining the concordant body that owns the building to avoid getting into the frey which inevitably comes about sooner or later. The answer appears to be to hire a professional group to manage building. In the end I believe we will get more rent but it will cost to have it all managed by professionals as that is what they do and do best. We should keep our focus on being great Masons and leave the building management to the professions.
As noted before, I’m a member of three Lodges, and I was a member of all three of their building associations. As such, I’ve learned a lot on this subject.
Centralia: WB C. Paul Uhlmann was really thinking ahead when he had the building built with three floors in the early 1920’s, when the economy was doing fairly well. It cost considerably more than the Lodge buildings in the other cities in the region, but it was self-sustaining with the rental space on not only the first floor, but the first two floors. It kept the building going through the Depression (and there’s a story about that, too,) and even to this day, the building association is in the black and has resources to perform maintenance on the building.
The number of renters had decreased drastically to the current situation with a prominent Law firm on the first floor, and H&R Block on the second. We have an excellent working relationship with the Lawyer firm that goes back decades. That being said, when it comes to the more important aspects of legal items between us and these renters, we do indeed hire professionals. This really came into play when we worked with H&R Block, who is national, and not based in Washington State, much less Centralia.
Tenino: Off and on throughout the 100 years of the building, we’ve rented out the first half of the first floor to a renter for a monthly rate. It’s key space, since the front window faces the main street in Tenino. And almost every time, the Board gets complaints from old-timers that remember when we had big banquets that took up the entire first floor. We simply counter with this: what do you want? Additional rental income to cover bills, or an entire floor sitting empty 90% of the time, in case we want to have one or two banquets a year? Over the years, it had become a pendulum swing, with a rental in the first floor right now as we speak.
Chehalis: The building was falling apart, but nobody could agree on renting out the building. Rates, whether we wanted to allow alcohol in the building, who was going to manage the rentals, liabilities, and several other aspects of renting the building kept the board tied up, all the while the building was running the Lodge and Chapter’s finances down to the point where the Lodge had to discontinue its community and school programs for lack of finances. Selling the building relieved a huge burden, but likely the COVID shutdown was the event that accelerated the financial issue to the point where all could see the problem.
The discussion on this covers a lot of ground for me. Firstly, since we are a volunteer organization and change heads(command) each year, each new command has their own ideas of what tasks to emphasize during their year. Often the emphasis on property use changes with the wind yet the property taxes, utilities, insurance, and upkeep must be paid. It seems to me that the only chance for survival depends on a Long Range Plan for the property and the Lodge group as well. Also, the Temple/Property governance group should adopt stable long-term officers to ensure the emphasis on the property expense and income is stable and utilize the skills of the members efficiently. Fraternal succession does not guarantee a business-like mindset for the good of the property interests.
Three are multiple quesions that should be asked when approaching the question of a rental property. Here are a few that come to mind.
1. What is the highest and best use of the property, meaning what how can the lodge realize the maximum amount of income from the space?
2. What is our maintence and improvement program for the space so that maximum rental income can be realized?
3. What specialized talent, relating to our Temple Board, can we bring on board so that our management team is at optimal strength?
4. What is our long term investment strategy so that our assets grow and the lodge becomes self sustaining?
5. What are the credentials of our legal team, and do we need an upgrade?
6. What safeguards do we have in place to insure our financial integrity? An example would be a two party signing of all checks, and a quarterly audit process with review by our financial team.
I have a solution for this problem but don't have the programming skills to make it happen.
Moat of us know about the "gig" economy popularized by Uber, AirBnB, Hipcamp, RVshare, and similar phone apps that let owners of property rent that property out for short term or single use by signing up with an app. There needs to be a similar app for event halls. It would benefit masonic lodges, grange, eagles elks moose lions, swede, vfw, legion, and similar community halls. Our problem with renting out our halls is we are not advertising the way people search for things these days. We need to make an app for that. I wish I knew how.
This is an excellent subject to discuss both on the positive and the negative.
First the positive, if done right and if your property is in the right location, using your property as an income source can become self sustaining but it takes work. You must plan ahead and transform your building into something that can be used by the public either for events or for specific purposes like yoga, dance halls, music recitals or things like weddings, funerals, corporate meetings, parties, etc. or if your building or property is set up correctly, multi purpose with meeting facility and Commercial or retail space for long term rentals or leases. Additionally, with the popularity of food trucks many kitchens can be turned into cafeterias for food truck or caterers to prep their various foodstuffs. All of these things can become longterm sources of income. But all of them will require countless hours of management which is generally not in the talent pool of a “standard” Hall Board and the Hall Boards should look at hiring a management company or rental manager.
The downside of having a successful rental program is that you may loose the opportunity to support concordant bodies especially youth programs. If you are renting to the public then you have to make a choice of renting your facility for $XXX or giving it away for free or a discount. You must have a philosophical discussion with your lodge and hall board and decide if the $$$ are more important that supporting our Masonic concordant bodies.
I don't think that should be an issue. Infor example have a hipcamp campsite on my property. I block out dates on my calendar for off the market activities such as personal use or use by friends and neighbors at reduced pricing than my through the app rentals. The same could be done for concordance bodies. A reduced fee through the app or just handle those monies separately. If a vibrant lodge has a full schedule of concordant body such that it is busy every evening for a whole month is probably not in financial need to rent outside the fraternity at all. But even so, they could still rent day-time midweek conferences to local business groups. My idea for the app would be to make such scheduling options easy to do on your phone.
I have watched for years as the building consumes good Masons into endless work and creates great conflict and frustration among the brothers. I purposely have avoided joining the concordant body that owns the building to avoid getting into the frey which inevitably comes about sooner or later. The answer appears to be to hire a professional group to manage building. In the end I believe we will get more rent but it will cost to have it all managed by professionals as that is what they do and do best. We should keep our focus on being great Masons and leave the building management to the professions.
As noted before, I’m a member of three Lodges, and I was a member of all three of their building associations. As such, I’ve learned a lot on this subject.
Centralia: WB C. Paul Uhlmann was really thinking ahead when he had the building built with three floors in the early 1920’s, when the economy was doing fairly well. It cost considerably more than the Lodge buildings in the other cities in the region, but it was self-sustaining with the rental space on not only the first floor, but the first two floors. It kept the building going through the Depression (and there’s a story about that, too,) and even to this day, the building association is in the black and has resources to perform maintenance on the building.
The number of renters had decreased drastically to the current situation with a prominent Law firm on the first floor, and H&R Block on the second. We have an excellent working relationship with the Lawyer firm that goes back decades. That being said, when it comes to the more important aspects of legal items between us and these renters, we do indeed hire professionals. This really came into play when we worked with H&R Block, who is national, and not based in Washington State, much less Centralia.
Tenino: Off and on throughout the 100 years of the building, we’ve rented out the first half of the first floor to a renter for a monthly rate. It’s key space, since the front window faces the main street in Tenino. And almost every time, the Board gets complaints from old-timers that remember when we had big banquets that took up the entire first floor. We simply counter with this: what do you want? Additional rental income to cover bills, or an entire floor sitting empty 90% of the time, in case we want to have one or two banquets a year? Over the years, it had become a pendulum swing, with a rental in the first floor right now as we speak.
Chehalis: The building was falling apart, but nobody could agree on renting out the building. Rates, whether we wanted to allow alcohol in the building, who was going to manage the rentals, liabilities, and several other aspects of renting the building kept the board tied up, all the while the building was running the Lodge and Chapter’s finances down to the point where the Lodge had to discontinue its community and school programs for lack of finances. Selling the building relieved a huge burden, but likely the COVID shutdown was the event that accelerated the financial issue to the point where all could see the problem.
The discussion on this covers a lot of ground for me. Firstly, since we are a volunteer organization and change heads(command) each year, each new command has their own ideas of what tasks to emphasize during their year. Often the emphasis on property use changes with the wind yet the property taxes, utilities, insurance, and upkeep must be paid. It seems to me that the only chance for survival depends on a Long Range Plan for the property and the Lodge group as well. Also, the Temple/Property governance group should adopt stable long-term officers to ensure the emphasis on the property expense and income is stable and utilize the skills of the members efficiently. Fraternal succession does not guarantee a business-like mindset for the good of the property interests.