Drop Your Property Management Company and Join the Self-Managed HOA Revolution

Key Takeaways:

1. If you’re an engaged homeowner looking for more transparency and excellence in your HOA, converting to a self-managed HOA model may be the solution to your neighborhood woes.
2. Self-managing your homeowners’ association is a big responsibility, but HOA management software is specifically designed to make those responsibilities as pain-free as possible. 
3. HOA-specific software simplifies and streamlines the work of HOA management, supporting tasks in multiple areas, including financial accounting, dues collection, property management, maintenance workflows, document storage, and communication. 
4. Financial transparency and clear communication are key to maintaining trust with board members and neighbors alike, and HOA management software fulfills both needs.

If you Google “HOA complaints,” get ready for an eyeful of criticisms, accusations, and horror stories. And make sure you don’t have kids in the room because their ears may be seared by some colorful language. (On second thought, maybe don’t Google “HOA complaints.”) But if you’re a homeowner living in a community led by a homeowners association, you probably aren’t surprised by the negativity–you may have a complaint or two yourself. But here’s an important observation: Many criticisms aren’t really against the HOA itself–when you dig deeper, you see that residents actually have issues with the HOA’s property management company. Fortunately, there is a solution that will allow your neighborhood to keep enjoying the benefits of your HOA without the headaches inflicted by a property management company: Switch to a self-managed HOA model. 

As younger homeowners purchase property in neighborhoods led by homeowners associations, they naturally have questions about how things are run and why. You’re paying dues, and you deserve to know where those dues are going. You also deserve to benefit from your dues, not pay, so you can suffer at the hands of an inept property management company. If you’re an engaged homeowner looking for more transparency and excellence from your HOA, converting to a self-managed HOA model may be the solution to your neighborhood woes, and HOA management software is the solution you need to navigate the transition successfully. Let’s consider what this shift could look like for you and your neighbors. 

What would I be responsible for?

First things first: You’re probably wondering what it would look like to manage your own HOA instead of outsourcing it. What responsibilities would you take on? 

Overseeing and managing neighborhood finances

HOA boards are responsible for: 

• Collecting dues and fees
• Allocating funds for events, maintenance, and improvements
• Budgeting
• Maintaining accurate, transparent financial records
• Remaining compliant with legal and tax requirements

Updating the community calendar, including events and shared spaces

Many people choose to live in HOA-run neighborhoods because they’re eager to find community and enjoy the amenities. Planning gatherings and managing shared spaces requires organization. When you manage your own HOA, you make meaningful contributions to event planning and community-building. 

Managing property maintenance

No property management company is going to care about your neighborhood as much as you do. The HOA protects neighbors’ investments (and their own!) by overseeing the maintenance of public areas. You’ll manage common areas and amenities like tennis courts, swimming pools, and clubhouses and ensure that regular maintenance like pest control, sidewalk repair, and landscaping happens successfully. 

Revising and enforcing violations

Neighborhood covenants exist for important reasons: to keep neighbors neighborly and to preserve property values. When covenants are clearly communicated and consistently enforced, neighbors feel secure. Tension levels stay low, and connection levels stay high. 

Self-managing your homeowners’ association is a big responsibility, but HOA management software is specifically designed to make those responsibilities as pain-free as possible. 

How HOA management software can help

If you think managing your HOA without a property management company sounds overwhelming, think again. It is a lot of responsibility, but here’s where HOA management software will become your new best friend. It simplifies and streamlines your work, supporting your specific needs in multiple areas, including: 

Finances

HOA management software does the heavy lifting for your HOA’s finances. PayHOA offers highly-rated tools to simplify financial management, tracking, and reporting. Our software makes it easy to:

• Automate your invoices.
• Offer flexible, automated billing options, including snail mail and digital invoices.
• Enable auto-pay so residents never miss a payment.
• Track your expenses and income accurately, paving the way for responsible spending and realistic budgeting.
• Build trust by sharing financial reports with board members and residents. 
• Ensure you’re legally compliant and ready to file tax forms on time.
• Store financial records digitally. 
• Prevent fraud and mismanagement with transparent record-keeping.

Communication

Forget the old way of messy communal bulletin boards and chaotic Facebook groups. Communities depend on timely, clear communication to stay connected and engaged. Because HOA management software is specifically designed to support a neighborhood’s complex communication needs, you’ll be able to:

• Update a community calendar in real-time.
• Post neighborhood events to a digital bulletin board for all to see.
• Share friendly reminders about policies for communal spaces.
• Solicit resident feedback through surveys and polls.
• Invite neighbors to vote on policy changes and procedures. 

Management

As a homeowner, you have strong opinions and a vested interest in seeing your community and property thrive under excellent management. A third-party property management company is just doing a job; you care personally about your neighbors and neighborhood. When you switch to a self-managed model, your local HOA board will manage the neighborhood property and oversee compliance with covenants. HOA management software can streamline and simplify these management tasks so you can: 

• Allow residents to make maintenance requests easily.
• Automatically trigger workflows so work gets done efficiently.
• Provide appropriate avenues for residents to report concerns to people who can actually address them (instead of venting to everyone on Facebook).
• Keep the community regularly updated on improvement projects, maintenance issues, and policy changes. 

What else can software do for you? 

Let’s drill down a little deeper into specific ways HOA management software can ease your neighborhood’s transition to a self-managed HOA. Software can facilitate: 

More financial transparency 

Software that is intentionally designed to support HOA management simplifies one of your most important jobs: maintaining financial transparency. Financial transparency is key to maintaining trust with board members and neighbors alike. With the right software, you’ll be able to:

• Stick to a budget and track expenses with built-in budgeting tools.
• Follow best accounting practices. (And you don’t have to be a CPA with an MBA to pull it off.)
• Produce and share easy-to-understand reports for your board and your neighbors.
• Keep accurate records to remain legally compliant, and make them available to those who need access.

Better communication

Communities build connection through clear and consistent communication, and modern communication moves at the speed of texts and reels. Homeowners want to be kept in the know, but they don’t always have time to attend meetings. Software makes it easy for just-as-busy-as-everyone-else-if-not-more-so board members and leaders to communicate clearly with one another and with their residents. Software offers these tools and more: 

• One-way bulletin boards for times when leaders need to make an announcement but don’t want the messaging muddled with comments and side conversations
• Forums for times when the whole neighborhood needs to talk 
• Message boards and group chats which allow the right conversations to happen between the right people and groups 
• A private, organized space where neighbors can communicate safely and productively, away from public free-for-alls like NextDoor and Facebook

Clear regulations and consistent enforcement

No one wants to be the bad guy knocking on a neighbor’s door, reminding them that, for the umpteenth time, they should not blast subwoofers at midnight or let their dogs roam off-leash (speaking of woofers). Software tools allow you to uphold neighborhood covenants consistently and fairly. Digital violation management reduces front-yard shouting matches and keeps things neighborly. You can depend on HOA management software to:

• Issue digital violations as needed, avoiding awkward face-to-face confrontations. 
• Charge fees and make it easy for residents to pay on time.
• Invite residents to give feedback and keep you in touch with concerns. 
• Initiate polls so you can identify outdated regulations that no longer serve your community. 

Are you ready to drop your property management company and restore faith in your HOA?

HOAs aren’t the problem–bad management is. There’s no need to throw the HOA baby out with the property management company’s bathwater. Homeowners associations can be a tremendous asset to neighborhoods, keeping communities safe and connected, providing well-maintained facilities, and ensuring high property values. 

If you’re ready to break up with your property management company, contact PayHOA to find out how we can help restore faith in your HOA.