HOA Management Blog

Does your HOA board dread the annual meeting because it’s boring, no one shows up, and it seems completely and utterly pointless? If so, your Board is not alone. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, the annual meeting in your homeowners association can actually be – dare we suggest – fun?!

Have you, as a member of a Board of Directors for a homeowners association, ever had a special meeting called for your Association? Special meetings are unscheduled meetings called from time to time by the HOA board or others for a specific purpose. Special meetings usually address issues that need immediate attention or that need more time and discussion than can be handled in routine meetings.

When an HOA board is hiring or evaluating an HOA management company it’s important to look at the big picture. The skillset that your homeowner’s association is looking for or may need will differ from others, but in general an HOA manager should possess leadership skills, communication skills, and administration skills and also be backed by a company who offers support in these areas.

Are you reviewing and updating your homeowner’s association’s strategic plan?

A strategic plan outlines priorities and projects for the immediate future and for years to come. It can accommodate revisions as changing circumstances dictate—without conflicting with the vision behind its creation. It also helps determine what the year’s budget will include and suggests what future ones might feature.

Your association board is planning for the big project on the horizon, and is currently reviewing how to finance it. For several reasons, you don’t believe you’ll have enough funds in the association’s operating budget or reserves to cover the project’s entire bill. What should you do? Split the project up over several years, levy a special assessment, or maybe get a loan?

For many people, meetings are a fact of life. Whether it’s an HOA board or member meeting in your homeowner’s association, a volunteer meeting at your child’s school or a department meeting at work, being adept at participating effectively and managing meetings is a useful skill.

If you’re a member of an HOA board, one of the reasons you chose to hire a property manager to help your community association is because you can’t keep up with all of the information you need to know. New and updated laws, reserve studies, annual meetings, trends, and resources are all things you need to have in your board member resource bucket, but can be very overwhelming. You trust your HOA manager to give you good and accurate information, but how do you know it really is legit?

An HOA management company can help homeowners association boards in many ways and work with nearly every budget. Two of the most obvious are assisting with financials and collecting delinquent HOA fees. There are also some ways your board members may not have thought of.

Many HOA boards don’t realize that their homeowners association can benefit from HOA management services without breaking the bank. You don’t always have to hire a full-service management company to provide every service – many services you can choose a la carte to fit the budget you have to work with.  

Two of the most important areas that hiring a management company can help with are assisting with financials and collecting delinquent HOA fees.

Being a volunteer board member is a big responsibility. There are decisions to be made, meetings to attend, budgets to build, and concerns to address. If your HOA board is at a place where members are feeling overwhelmed and overcommitted, then it’s time to bring in some help.