Reducing costs at a Home Owners’ Association

If you are running a Home Owner’s Association and you are looking for assistance with your accounting and bookkeeping, you have come to the right place.

A corporation formed by a real estate developer in order to govern a group of lots and homes in a residential area is called a home owner’s association. The real estate developer may transfer the right of ownership to the residents once a set number of lots are filled up. The home owners become the members of the association and this association is also governed by a set of laws.

These associations are different from property management companies in that while the latter are set up with a profit motive, the former are set up in order to manage their own marketing and maintenance. There is no profit motive involved with the former. That being said, the activities of both these organizations are more or less the same. All activities necessary to maintain a set of residential lots are done by both.

They include call handling, accounting, bookkeeping, ad listing, and maintenance tasks such as rent reminders and so on. While property management companies can afford to hire more people if they wish to, it is not as easy for the HOAs. That is because they are not working for others, but for themselves. The need to reduce costs is felt more by HOAs rather than the property management companies.

In such a case, they can consider outsourcing their back office tasks since it provides them great cost benefits. It reduces overhead costs. All they pay for is the services, which is quite easily affordable, and they do not have to incur hiring and training costs and other overheads. There are many firms that offer these services such as HOA accounting, call handling etc. The HOA can approach these firms and get their tasks done.

Frustrated with the endless property management operational tasks?

If you are running a property management business in the US, you are probably aware of the innumerable chores it involves – operational tasks are the most of it. There are several activities like call handling, accounting, ad listing and so on. The more the number of lots, the busier you will be. A company would need to hire more people for these operational tasks as it expands. 

But here is a slight problem. Since these are operational tasks, it may not be really worth hiring more people to just attend calls and do accounts. So the returns on investing in more people are less. You would have to pay provide them office space, hiring and training costs, their salary – all for some daily chores that do not fetch a revenue by themselves. So it is not wise to expand the team. Rather, the need of the hour is to find a way to maximize profits and minimize costs. 

Is there even a way to do that? 

Well, with the outsourcing option, there is! 

There are several companies that outsource their secondary business tasks such as bookkeeping, accounting, customer support, payroll and so on. Similarly you could outsource your property management operational tasks like call handling, ad listing, accounting etc. People would work for you from remote areas at affordable rates. They are virtual staff. The only difference is, instead of being at an arm’s length they would work mostly from another country, say India. But they would be trained in all your tasks. All you pay for is their service, which is affordable. This option spares you the overheads, which comes to you as a great relief! 

So, check out the outsourcing firms and outsource your property management answering service and other similar tasks. You have nothing to lose. This way you spend less and get more!

Put an end to your HOA accounting troubles!

Homeowner’s association is a legal entity that is created by a real estate developer to manage a community of homes. The developer would transfer the authority to the HOA managers after a set number of lots are sold out. The Homeowners’ Association is a non-profit organization that is governed by a set of statutes, rules and regulations by law.

The HOA is much like other property management companies, except that they do all the tasks for their particular community of homes, while the other property management companies do the same on behalf of property owners for profits. There are accounting and other administrative tasks, website and marketing related tasks and so on.

Since this basically functions as a non-profit association, they cannot afford to hire a lot of people for salary. That includes accountants. They often have trouble finding enough time or people to manage their accounting. They spend nights on HOA accounting and find themselves running out of time for other important
association activities.

If this sounds familiar, you are probably part of a homeowners’ association, too. If you have such issues too, you can get help from property management outsourcing companies. Because, going to another property management company may not solve your problems. It would be way too expensive. On the other hand,
outsourcing offers you a huge advantage – cost reductions.

You would save much a lot on overhead costs. You do not have to spend on office space, hiring and training, installation of accounting software, etc. The outsourcing company would have it all. You would only be paying for their services, which would also be affordable, considering the difference in currency value.
You should only be careful about the data security measures they take. Check them thoroughly for precautions such as 128-bit encryption, 24/7 surveillance and privacy policies. When you are sure everything is in place, you can go ahead with the outsourcing idea.

Having your HOA accounting managed by a property management outsourcing company saves a lot of time and efforts and is completely worth the price.

Need a hand with your property management back office tasks?

It’s a great feeling to own a property – but not so great to manage it!

Management of property involves a lot of tasks – there are operational tasks and those driven by concept and decision making. There are a lot of property management companies but very few that are not over-flooded with work. Be it call handling, property management accounting, email responses, ad listing etc or just about anything, they could always use an extra hand.

But that extra hand is almost always expensive. If you are running a property management company yourself, you will know what I mean. Hiring additional people to manage any of the operational tasks is not really worth all the investment on a long-term basis. You have to spend on hiring and training costs, office space, and salary and so on. This might be not worth it.

So it is better to look for alternatives; alternatives that will have cost benefits and at the same time get your work done. One such option is to outsource your back office tasks to outsourcing firms across the world. Places like India and China are known for this. The main advantage is the cost benefits because of the difference in the currency value. Next, they have qualified people to work on operational tasks like those mentioned above. So you have a win-win situation there. It is more than favorable – you will spend less, get more for the money you spend.

Of course, many raise objections to outsourcing because of the possible threat on data security. But as long as you ensure that the firm takes appropriate measures like 128-bit encryption, privacy policies and other documents, round the clock surveillance etc, you have nothing to worry about. Check out such property management companies like Integra in India and get in touch with them for tasks such as property management accounting. They would be just right as that “extra” hand helping you out on your property management needs.