Understanding Your Building Health Score
What Is a Building Health Score?
Your Building Health Score is a free, personalized assessment of your HOA's overall health. It evaluates your association across six dimensions and assigns a letter grade โ from A+ (excellent) to F (critical attention needed). Think of it as a checkup for your building: it tells you what's working, what's at risk, and exactly where to focus your energy.
The score is generated from the information you provide during the questionnaire, plus any documents you upload for deeper analysis. It takes about three minutes to complete.
The Six Dimensions
Each dimension is scored independently and contributes to your overall grade:
- Reserve Health โ Are your reserves funded enough to handle major repairs without a special assessment? This looks at your reserve balance, annual contribution rate, and whether you have a plan for upcoming capital expenses.
- Compliance โ Are your bylaws and insurance policy on file and up to date? Missing or expired documents lower this score.
- Governance โ Does your board meet regularly? Are elections held and decisions formally recorded? Active governance signals a well-run association.
- Financial Transparency โ Can owners easily see where money goes? Are financial reports regular and detailed? This dimension rewards visibility and organization.
- Maintenance Planning โ Is there a current reserve study? Are maintenance projects planned rather than reactive? Tracking building systems and planning capital projects improves this score.
- Community Engagement โ How well does the board communicate with owners? Are updates, meetings, and requests handled transparently?
How Grades Work
Your overall grade is a weighted composite of all six dimensions. Each dimension receives its own letter grade, so you can see exactly where your building is strong and where it needs work. The grading scale runs from A+ (top-performing) through B, C, D, down to F (significant gaps across multiple areas).
Most associations that are just getting started land somewhere in the C to D range โ that's normal. The score is designed to show progress over time, not to punish you for starting from scratch.
Your Recommendations
After scoring, Nestingbird generates specific recommendations tied to features in the app. These aren't generic advice โ they're actions you can take right now to improve your score. Each recommendation tells you:
- What dimension it improves
- Why it matters for your building
- How to do it in Nestingbird
Recommendations are prioritized by impact, so the most important actions appear first.
Sharing Your Score
From the results page, you can share your Building Health Score with your board by email. This is a great way to get everyone aligned on priorities โ especially if you're a new board member trying to build consensus around what to tackle first.
Improving Over Time
Your Building Score updates as you use Nestingbird. Every document you upload, meeting you record, transaction you categorize, and system you track contributes to a higher score. The most impactful actions tend to be:
- Uploading your bylaws and insurance policy (Compliance)
- Connecting your bank account and categorizing transactions (Financial Transparency)
- Setting up a recurring meeting schedule (Governance)
- Creating a budget with reserve contributions (Reserve Health)
- Tracking your building systems (Maintenance Planning)
Plan Requirement
Your Building Health Score is available on all plans, including Basics. It's completely free โ no credit card or bank connection required.