Throughout years in real estate and related fields, SHOAR’s founder had frequent dealings with many subdivision HOAs and management companies. He saw that without exception, every single HOA using such a company was extremely unhappy with them, while paying them huge amounts of money. Everywhere, the story was exactly the same: A management company would charge outrageous fees, but not do what they promised, nor even communicate with the HOA or residents, leading to conflict and to nothing ever getting accomplished. All this made residents furious, but once established, these situations were hard to change, for several reasons.
Unfortunately, there are people who want the title of HOA Board Member, but don’t want to actually put forth any effort. Instead, they’ll hire a management company, who are very good at making promises up front, then after the contract is signed, utterly fail to deliver on those promises. Yet, to those doing the hiring, this doesn’t matter.
These management companies and the HOA types who hire them work together in many ways to maintain the status quo. First of all, they hamper communications. Management companies commonly take weeks to return calls or emails. If they are finally reached, they’ll often simply say to go talk to the board because they are just a contractor. Then those board members who hired them will send the resident back to the management company, completing the endless circle. Thus, the company and board simply play ping-pong with the issue, going back and forth pointing fingers at each other until the person just gives up or forgets about it.
Both the companies and their board supporters also perpetuate the myth that it is impossible to run an HOA without outside management. This is so the companies can keep milking HOAs for huge profits, and the board members can keep sitting on their hands doing nothing but feeling important. It is a vicious, wasteful, frustrating, and endless cycle, but one that exists everywhere. The founder’s own subdivision was itself a victim of this all too common situation.
At the same time, he encountered a few subdivisions which had chosen to self-manage, and did so quite successfully. One had over 300 homes, and for a long time, one man and his wife ran the entire HOA themselves, and ran it well. They eventually got a good board in place, and the HOA grew to be a well-oiled machine. Another subdivision was always self-managed, has somewhere around 900 homes, and also runs smoothly. The founder’s subdivision, featured in our detailed Case Study, had to first rid themselves of a management company they’d been stuck with for over 10 years, then move forward on their own, which was an extraordinary success. These were perfect examples of how self-management can be done. All it takes is a few people willing to put in some time and effort, and with some guidance and setup at the start. The need for that guidance and setup, and how it could help so many subdivisions, led to the creation of SHOAR.
Our mission is to provide you with the tools your HOA needs to succeed on your own, without a parasitic management company. We invite you to take advantage of our extensive knowledge and years of firsthand, hard-fought experience so that your subdivision can reap the benefits and avoid the traps which ensnare so many others.