A condo association is responsible for both the property and community needs of a condo building. The association takes care of property maintenance, repairs, improvements, as well as enforcing the neighborly codes between fellow condo owners. Of course, volunteer condo-owners don't always have the skills (or the time!) to handle all the logistic and maintenance decisions needed to manage the association. Often, boards can also use help drawing up policies and managing legal compliance and paperwork.
That's where condo association management companies come into play. These teams offer a specialized service that includes a selection or full suite of the kind of management that condo association boards need. Of course, there are also a lot of misunderstandings about what a condo association management company does, the effect they have, as well as the extent of their power.
Is the management association the invading enemy? Are they a super-powered cure-all to the condo's worries? Today we're here to help clear up the nine biggest myths surrounding condo association managers.
It is often thought that the board can retire by hiring a condo management company. Or that the manager is there to push the board out of the way to take control. Neither is true, actually. In reality, the board chooses which tasks to delegate to the management company. Your condo manager has very little power to tell the board what to do or override their decisions. A condo management association works in partnership with the board. They are there to take pressure off non-experts on the board and bring some condo management expertise to the team.
Condo managers often take on the most tedious work like compliance, maintenance repairs, as well as paperwork - leaving the big decisions and resident arbitration to the board.
Many condo boards get the impression that hiring any management team will provide the same value and experience. But condo management isn't a cut-and-paste service. Every building is unique, and so is every management team. The policies, style, and even the level of hands-on involvement will vary from one service to the next. Some come to condo association management through property management services. Some are real estate experts, some are condo owners themselves. Each team has a set of skills and its own approach to partnership with the board.
That's why it's so important to meet with and assess your management teams before hiring.
It's often mistaken that a team or manager with experience running apartments will know how to handle a condo building. Condo associations of unified homeowner neighbors are very different from apartment buildings. In apartments, residents are taken care of and the units are kept in good condition. In condos, the residents are each private owners of their own unit and building management is taking on tasks the owners don't want to handle themselves through the board. The approach and even the finances and legal requirements are extremely different. The only similarity, in fact, is managing the shared building assets and grounds.
It's easy for condo owners to start feeling like the outside policy-enforcing experts are the bad guys ruining all the free fun of condo ownership. Management companies aren't there to be "the man" and hold the rules over condo owners (bad apples excluded). Instead, they're there to take some of the burden of building and community management from the shoulders of condo owners and their owner-run board.
The board takes the lead. The condo management team takes delegation from the board and does what the board contracts them to do.
Some condo boards and owner communities assume their association manager will bring in a supernatural ability to fix all problems, balance all budgets, and repair all property damage. Condo association managers are not magic. We can't fix big problems overnight and we can't make repairs or money appear from nowhere. It's important to have reasonable expectations for possible solutions and timelines when a manager is brought in to help with the board's management duties.
Cost to value is not always clear when it comes to management services and teams. Many boards assume that the lowest price management service provides the best value, saving money for the association.
If this were true, why would there be higher-priced services at all? Myth #6 is really an extension of Myth #3, assuming that all management services are the same. You should look closely at the value you will get compared to the cost of fulfilling your association's needs.
Bigger is not always better. It's a common myth that teams who manage really large condos, apartments, or multiple buildings are naturally a better choice for your condo association. But the quality of service doesn't follow the rule of bigger is better. In fact, you likely want a manager who has the time for hands-on management, maintenance oversight, as well as actually being physically present in your community.
Smaller management companies are more likely to give you attentive condo management services.
You may have heard that condo association management is always absent, phoning it in with boilerplate paperwork and routine advice. Or you may have heard that association managers are busybodies who intrude on everything and enforce needless policies onto the homeowners. Neither is true, apart from a few extreme exceptions. Every management team has its own style. Portfolio condo managers are more likely to give you a distant, hands-off service - which might be what your association wants. Boutique and more full-service managers may be present daily to rebuild plans and deal with problems. But we're not there to rule as absent or present tyrants over the owners. We're there to keep the roof on and the paperwork filed.
Finally, condo association managers do not play favorites among homeowners. In fact, most don't interact with the owners at all. A condo management team is a service hired by the board to do mostly back-end services like building management as well as legal oversight.
We may also provide some helpful experience-based advice and access to boilerplate condo policies that can be customized to your community needs. But we don't decide policy or enforcement from one condo owner to the next and usually try to leave all owner-related concerns to the owner-run board.
Is your condo community in need of association management services? Most condo owners, on the board or otherwise, don't have the experience to actually maintain a condo building or manage the unique joint finances of mutual owner projects. That's why condo association management teams have formed and are ready to help each community handle the maintenance, permits, as well as paperwork necessary to keep your building a wonderful place to live.
Contact us to consult on your association's management needs.