Do you live in an HOA? I do and while, as a homeowner, it can sometimes be frustrating to be required to get permission to improve one's own home; there is also gratitude for our community manager. She, the management team and our HOA BOD of volunteers work very hard to keep the neighborhood maintained, to offer a wide range of social activities and to insure the living experience here is positive and enjoyable.
There are many benefits of living in a managed community; including the fact that managed communities have clean and properly maintained common areas and clubhouses. There are no ad hoc parking lots created by neighbors parking all over the street. No junky yards. No weird paint colors.
During the 2008 housing downturn, the quaint and very lovely neighborhood in which I lived at the time experienced a depressing overhaul. People who couldn't afford their mortgages simply stopped paying and stopped maintaining the exteriors of their homes. Then they started renting out their homes and the renters were, shall we say, not the highest quality individuals.
It wasn't long before that beautiful neighborhood was undesirable; crime ridden, trashy and not a safe place to live. That would never happen inside an HOA -- or if it did, they would take any and all steps to correct the situation, including legal action if required.
It is fair to say then; the benefits of living in an HOA far outweigh any drawbacks.
In order to keep these communities looking their best, there is always an endless list of things to repair, replace or upgrade. Most property management companies and/or managers have their own list of vendors to draw from, but sometimes the projects are very small and it can be challenging to find insured people willing to take on a job worth so little.
That's where Executive Errands
®
comes in. Last year, we were contacted by a large general contracting firm who markets to, and does work for, Home Owner's Associations (HOA's). Their own minimum project is $5000 so they heard this complaint over and over -- can you do small jobs? If not, do you know anyone who can?
They contacted us to ask if Executive Errands
®
would be able to support small projects for HOA's -- those tasks and projects way too small for a larger contractor to do.
Of course we said yes! Now keep in mind, HOA's have a fairly strict set of rules by which they award contracts and those rules can be found here
, in a blog by the Hignell Companies.
But the 'get 3 bids' rule seems a bit labor intensive when there is a $100 project and since the management team's time can end up costing more than the job is worth. Here is where we can help simplify an HOA managers life (and your life too!).
Executive Errands
®
has a general B contractor's license (#944447) and we are also insured ($2M liability) and, even though we have no interest in an HOA's large scale contracts; we are more than happy to do small jobs.
We have been doing work for a few Property Management companies for the last several years. To give you an idea of the types of small projects we do, here are some recent tasks (pricing obviously varies):
- Replace a single stackstone 'brick' in an entry gate wall
- Repair a wrought iron gate that had been pulled from a wall
- Clean the tile in a small fountain
- Repair a locking mechanism on a common area restroom door
- Reinstall a 1"x1" piece of tile that fell off a tiled door
- Replace a paper towel holder in a common area restroom
- Unclog toilets in common area restrooms
-
Straighten a street sign
- Replace carpet in a small clubhouse
- Caulking (all sorts of tile areas)
- Replace a door handle on a common area door
- Replace a single roof tile
- Repair a handrail someone's vehicle had backed into
- Paint -- many touch-ups and new paint
- Repair a crack in a common area stucco wall
- Perform preventative maintenance on a common area generator
- Replace two outlet covers
- Replace a broken pane of glass
- Remove hard water deposits from every street sign and lamp post in an entire community (less costly than replacement!)
- Clean the windows in an HOA office
And the list goes on and on. You get the idea. These are all tiny or medium sized one-off projects and tasks. And we do these for homeowners as well as HOA's. Sometimes a client will ask, "Will you do a job this small"? And our answer is always yes! For more information, a property walk or to send an RFP, please c
all us at 760-898-9604 or send us an email.
