Moving from managed to self-managed. what advice, tips, software?

That comes to $171 a year for each homeowner. IMHO I'd probably want a reputable PMC doing this to avoid the nonsense that may come up with homeowners taking over the lead. As we all know a Board can be great today but you never know about future Boards. For $171 I'd rather not worry about it.

Adam, sign the contract for now.

You are in the phase of asking the questions which need to be asked, thought through, tested, etc. I believe it would be a mistake to jump into self-managed without having given at least 6-12 months of research and analysis before making the move.

I suggest you document and test every possible situation which affects the association over the next several months. Set up a matrix, list the situations, how the situation is handled now, and who/how would it be handled if you were self managed. War game this, do not just identify and address what you know takes place, speculate regarding situations you may not encounter such as a returned check, collections, properties not incompliance with the declaration or rules of the association, who will perform compliance, what will be the process, what will you do if there is a property sale (what is required in terms of producing an estoppel certificate or resale certificate, who will complete the lender forms which often are requested when a sale takes place, etc.

Ask yourselves who or what entity will maintain the association records. Does your association or state have requirements regarding records retention or requests of copies of records? Who will be responsible for those requirements and inquiries?

This is just a start. As I said, take every imaginable situation and game it. If the outcomes are too burdensome, perhaps that is your answer.

Same as above.

If anything, it allows an independent company to do the management, with the board being the extra eyes.

Someone on Adam's board should be reviewing the financials now, regardless of who the PMC is or how much they are paying.

You would think, but the Treasurer who's been doing the 'job' for a decade now flatly refuses to do much more than approve monthly bills...

If this is more or less typical of the board, then going the self-managed route does not sound workable.

You hit the nail on the head.

I think there are two issues leading to this. First, the real estate industry (granted, understandably) doesn't want to market HOAs as a maintenance burden, even though that is what they are. The emphasis is on benefits and service. As an onsite manager I have been asked to pick up mail from the post office, check on homes when residents are out of town, negotiate a deal with the neighbors to share fence replacement costs, and babysit kids at the pool, among other things. When I decline to do those things am asked "well what am I paying you for?"

Second is the notion that the board's responsibility is to spend no money, or the least possible amount of money. When the board I work for raised assessments this year, they got a chorus of "How could you do this, you're supposed to look out for me!" No. The board is supposed to look out for the property, their responsibility is to take care of the property, which includes raising assessments to afford the costs of doing so.

One of the reasons my career is stalled where it is is because I say this sort of thing at annual meetings....

Oh I'd rather field babysitting requests all day long than go back to portfolio! I definitely prefer one drive, one board, one board meeting a month, one annual meeting a year, one set of owners, one set of problems to the ten or fifteen of each you get in portfolio.

No, I don't think developers and realtors are going to get on board with my "This is a burden!" marketing strategy, lol.

Adam

I disagree with you that most HOAs provide compensation for Officers. In my experience, officers (and directors) are most assuredly NOT compensated. Professionals, such as bookkeepers, the CPA, etc. are compensated for their services.

They are reimbursed for out of pocket expenses on behalf of the association and that is all.

By my reading: Across the nation, Bylaws and/or CCRs sometimes permit compensation (and beyond mere reimbursement for expenses) to HOA/COA officers and once in awhile, directors.

By my reading, the officer most likely to be permitted compensation is the treasurer. Which I back 100%.

The non-profit status doesn't make HOAs immune from the issues I was talking about:

* unskilled or incompetent workers
* who can walk away from the job with no notice
* and whose work product is not guaranteed

If anything it makes things harder since HOAs are limited in their ability to raise money, which in turn means they have less ability to recover from missteps.

The main reason we don't know about these things is that HOAs and COAs are largely invisible except to the people living in them (and often to them as well). At least until the place falls down and makes the national news. We won't see a Going Out of Business sign stuck on the front entrance to an HOA. Nor will we hear about irate shareholders engaged in a proxy fight with management, or consumer complaints, or anything of that sort.

Lousy work or things left undone are private woes that matter only to the homeowners in these HOAs. But they will matter, because there are no Magic HOA Fairies that handle all of the work while we sleep at night. I've mentioned in the past that shoddy maintenance, for example, actually increases HOA costs over time because it shortens the useful life of the physical components of their communities. Couple that with barriers to raising assessments, and you have a recipe for "business failure" that can't be disguised by throwing a lot of money at it.