Q: What is an HOA property manager administrative management duties?
A bulk part of property management (PM) services provided to a homeowners association (HOA) will be dealing with the day to day administrative tasks required to oversee a community. As with anything in life, you mostly will get what you pay for, and the scope of services will vary depending on your area, and the fair market costs. It is likely that if you hire a small firm or a single property manager, they will be doing most of the administrative work themselves. If you work with a larger firm, you can expect that they will probably have a whole staff working in the background, handling the bookkeeping, collections, etc.
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Administrative duties are both required for the community and the HOA board of directors. For the community, the lion’s share of the work will be in keeping open lines of communication with the owners. That means keeping accurate owner records, handling invoices and owner payments as well as handling any calls, letters or emails. Oh, and those emails and letters will come! Experienced property managers learn quickly that when being interviewed, the board (though well meaning!) will often underplay the amount of work needed, or how many calls will be generated once a community knows someone is actually there to return calls! An HOA that has been underserviced will usually have a “bounce” in communications once owners realize that there is someone there who is actually managing the community!
When it comes to admin services for an HOA board, accurate bookkeeping as well as records management is a good foundation to build upon. Many older communities will still have all their records in paper files, often stored in basements (groan) or garages (double groan) of HOA board members, passed on from member to member. Many of your more tech savvy property management companies today will process and store your files electronically, rather than keep bulky paper files. If you want your PM to transfer your old files into digital formats, be prepared to pay, not just for the cost of scanning, digital filing and review, but for shredding those old docs afterwards. (No, your home shredder will not work!)
As long as we are on the subject of what a property manager does for an HOA, we should probably take a moment to discuss as well what admin services may not, and probably won’t be offered to many communities. Yes, your HOA does pay the fees for a management company. That does not mean they are your direct employees, nor are you the only account they work on. Communication response times will vary with every contract, but 1-2 business days is perfectly acceptable.
And please remember, while your PM may be there to handle communications, that doesn’t mean they will always have an answer on the spot. They also do not handle neighbor to neighbor disputes. Nor are they awake, waiting by their phone 24/7 to answer your call or respond to your email. Just because you emailed at 4:55 on a Friday before a 3 day weekend, don’t expect an answer until next week. (Yes, you know who you are!)
If you value your time,
hiring the right HOA property manager
can be the best time management/investment any HOA board can make on behalf of the owners. It gives piece of mind knowing you have pros watching over and guiding you along the way!
Author Bio
Since 1997, real estate investor and broker Christopher Benedict has been involved in all phases of realty investment and property management. From agent, to broker and business owner, he now focuses on growing his base of investor clientele.
