Increasing the value of homes in your HOA is a great sign that your community is run well. As property values rise, homeowners appreciate the work that their HOA is doing, and it’s much easier to attract new home buyers into the neighborhood.
A San Francisco HOA management company can be a huge asset when it comes to increasing market value. Most HOA board members will turn to their management partner for help coordinating maintenance and managing vendors. You’ll want your property manager to enforce rules and communicate with homeowners while working with budgets and meeting minutes and other HOA correspondence and recordkeeping.
If you really want to leverage the skills and the talents of your management company, you’ll also look to them for leadership when it comes to decision making.
Your association’s leadership is a collection of volunteer board members who live in the community and also depend on rising market values. Board members who do not have experience maintaining properties and managing communities might struggle to make the decisions that lead to higher revenues and lower expenses.
It’s easy for an association to run into trouble, especially in San Francisco. So if you’re involved in an HOA that isn’t using a professional management company, it might be time to consider investing in those services.
A good property management company can help the association make sure they’re in compliance with their governing documents and any civil codes and state laws. Property managers can also keep the common areas maintained and ensure notices are put out to homeowners on a regular basis.
We can help you make smarter decisions.
Here are some of the additional ways your property manager can help your association maximize its potential.
HOA Experience Leads to Better Decisions
It’s difficult to make decisions about things that you’re not entirely familiar with. If you are serving on an HOA board for the first time or there’s not a clear process in place for how decisions are made, the association may struggle to arrive at a consensus.
An experienced property management company will step in and provide some leadership and direction. This experience in decision making can make a difference in the quality of life experienced by your homeowners. As San Francisco property managers, we are trained to handle every potential challenge faced by your community and the way it’s managed.
We are also consistent with our education and professional development. Property managers stay up to date on all the local laws that govern HOAs and residential communities. We understand best practices and we network with other management companies to continue learning and growing. We bring information and expertise to the decisions your association needs to make.
This leads to an increase in home values in your community. It protects board members and the association from potentially expensive mistakes.
With a management company taking care of the logistical needs of your community, you have a team with time to dedicate to your board and your homeowners. You’ll get the attention you need from a professional management partner with the capacity to support your community.
HOA management experts can also protect your association from liability. A decision you make that is not legally compliant will not only drag down the value of your community and cost a lot of money; that bad decision will also lead to some reputation damage. Your property manager can establish and maintain trust between homeowners and the HOA leadership. They’ll know you’re making good decisions on their behalf.
Helping Boards Remain Objective
An HOA board needs to make decisions about enforcing rules and regulations. It’s the only way to consistently protect the condition of the community and the value of the homes there. But, it’s awkward when you have to enforce rules with your neighbors and follow up on overdue fees and dues. You may have to discuss penalties and violations with people who have become your friends.
An HOA property management company taking on this role can make things less awkward.
As an objective and unbiased third party, your HOA property managers can make decisions on how to enforce the rules, when to levy fines, and how to keep all of the community’s residents compliant with bylaws and rules. Property managers have experience with difficult conversations and challenging situations. We bring tact and fairness to what might otherwise be an emotional conflict. As a board member, this gives you the opportunity to distance yourself from disputes within the community that is your home.
This is better for relationships within the community and it protects the board from disgruntled residents who property managers are holding accountable. It increases the community’s value by keeping everything consistent, well-maintained, and uniform – which is what your homeowners sign up for when they buy within an HOA.
HOA Financial Management and Increasing Value
What about your financial decisions? Financial management is one of the most important tasks that an HOA board must take on to keep the community well-funded and prepared. The strength of an association’s finances also impacts value.
Your HOA has legal requirements and governing documents that dictate how money is reported and documented. Financial recordkeeping must be accurate and transparent to the entire community.
The financial reporting that’s done and the accounting statements that are provided will help you make decisions about how to spend the money that’s coming in.
What can HOA property management companies provide here? We can manage:
- Assessments
- Budgets
- Delinquencies
- Collections
- Income and expense statements
- Tax reporting
Your property management team will work closely with the board treasurer to take care of the financial reporting and recordkeeping functions. The board treasurer can work with your management company to ensure there are appropriate accounting standards, checks and balances, as well as fraud prevention. All of this leads to better data and better decision making, which ultimately increases value.
Property managers often have professional accountants and bookkeepers on staff. You can expect detailed online financial reports and accounting statements that are available to you in real time. Property management technology also has space for financial software and systems that track all the money that is coming into your community and being spent on its maintenance, security, and improvement.
The HOA budget is the board’s responsibility, but you can lean on the data that’s provided by your San Francisco property management company to put together accurate budgets that meet the needs of your community.
A valuable HOA community also needs reserves. Leverage your management company’s expertise around reserve best practices and potential relationships with reserve specialists.
Property Management Technology and Your HOA
Most business is done online, and that includes the way you correspond and communicate with homeowners, vendors, service professionals, and others. You’ll need the technology that can help you run an organized HOA and a high-value community.
Your homeowners will want to pay dues online. They’ll want to tell you about potholes in the roads or failing street lights via online portals. Is your HOA equipped to provide this type of technology?
A management company will be. Most HOA management teams in San Francisco have invested in state-of-the-art technology to help HOA boards and homeowners access the information they need. This makes life more convenient for your homeowners and it also creates an atmosphere of transparency and accountability. Owner portals provide convenient billing and payment options and allow messages to be sent and requests to be made and tracked should they need to be referenced later.
Property Management Processes for Your San Francisco HOA
Property management delivers some especially useful technology, but even more important are the systems that technology automates.
To maximize value and enable good decision making, your HOA requires consistent and effective processes and procedures. This is what keeps you organized, attentive to deadlines, proactive with communication, and responsive to the needs of your community. A management company has all of these systems in place already, and they can be integrated into the business of your HOA fairly seamlessly. And, those systems can be improved upon to provide a personalized and customized management approach that fits your community.
These established systems will help with:
- Annual meeting management.
- Communication between homeowners and the board.
- Website maintenance and updating.
- Accounting services and payment methods.
- Vendor management and relationships.
If your HOA board has struggled to set up and document consistent systems for the management of your association, a property manager can deliver what’s missing or make some suggestions for more efficient and automated ways to collect dues, send notices, share meeting agendas, etc.
These are just a few ways that you can maximize your HOA’s potential and make decisions that increase market value. We would welcome the opportunity to tell you more about the HOA services we provide in San Francisco for HOA boards and community associations just like yours. We can deliver full-service management or provide a customized set of services based on the unique needs of your community. Please contact us at SNS Management.
