4 Ways to Reduce HOA Managemen...

Community Managers are a great asset to your community. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t come at a price. Knowing how to maximize the benefits of your Community Manager while simultaneously minimizing the cost of such a perk is a vital role of the Board Members of any community.

How to Minimize Management Costs:

1. Two Hours or Less Board Meetings
• Go into each meeting with a set agenda. The more prepared everyone is for the meeting the more efficiently time can be managed. Cover the talking points that need to be touched upon without getting sidetracked and you’ll be amazed at how much more smoothly a Board Meeting can run.
2. Hold Just One Meeting Per Quarter
• Ensure your community is organized enough that it can function with 1 meeting per quarter. This allows the Manager to handle things with absolute minimal input from the Board Members. The more smoothly the community can run with less interaction between the Board and the Manager means less money spent.
3. Tell the Manager What You Want Done, But Let the Manager Determine How To Do It
• As previously stated, the smoother a community can run with minimal interaction between the Manager and Board Members, the more money is saved; try to avoid micromanaging.
4. Charge Owners When Appropriate
• Choose a management company that will allocate any fees incurred by the HOA to a homeowner's assessment account for homeowner-late-payment-fees, for any common area damage, or misconduct by a homeowner so that the HOA can later recover these fees from the homeowner directly.

As you can see there’s a couple themes running through the list. The first is to be aware of the time your manager is spending on your community by acknowledging tedious and unnecessary tasks that will spike expenses. The second is to not make the community pay for individual member expenses that would otherwise drive up the cost of the having a Manager; make the individual eat those expenses. If you just keep these things in mind, your Community Manager will be a cheap and effective tool to keep your community running smoothly.