I know they all have their own issues but I need to find a new management company for our HOA with approximately 1000 homes. Any recommendations?

We have had Crest Management for about three years but they are pretty bad, especially at handling our finances/collections. I think we have had five different "accountants" assigned to us but none of them stay at the company nor are they actual accountants. I don't think they have financial experience, just random people they hire as "accountants". I am the main board member that helped select Crest three years ago, but it was a mistake. Their President, Bill Higgins, has zero customer service skills and he doesn't really care if he loses customers since they are such a big company in Houston. Time to move on and find a company that is good with finances and collections.
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I was in a similar situation over the summer and our HOA moved to Montage Community Services. They don't actually start for us until November due to the notification process, etc, but they've been beyond easy to work with and have helped us handle the upcoming move very well. Their communication is outstanding so far.

We also interviewed Spectrum in Sugar Land and they had a great presentation. They were our second choice.

Goodwin had a good presentation as well, they just didn't have an office near us and one of our biggest concerns was not having management close and no knowledge of local vendors.

Booma94 said:

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I was in a similar situation over the summer and our HOA moved to Montage Community Services. They don't actually start for us until November due to the notification process, etc, but they've been beyond easy to work with and have helped us handle the upcoming move very well. Their communication is outstanding so far.

We also interviewed Spectrum in Sugar Land and they had a great presentation. They were our second choice.

Goodwin had a good presentation as well, they just didn't have an office near us and one of our biggest concerns was not having management close and no knowledge of local vendors.

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Thanks for the information! I've never heard of Montage but just sent them an inquiry. We are about 17 miles from their office so not terribly far. I've heard of Spectrum but don't know much about them What made you choose Montage over them?

The "local vendors" is another issue I have with Crest. How can a company so large in Houston not have contracted rates with plumbers, electricians, handymen, etc? In three years they have essentially provided us zero assistance with vendors other than sending out a few insanely expensive companies to bid a few things.

I've now been off our board for about 1.5 years, but about 2.5 years ago we began our transition away from Crest as well. Boy do I have some stories about them. Anyway, we investigated multiple different companies, considered many different scenarios.

We decided that all management companies suck, it's just a bad industry and success is strongly connected to your manager quality. So we decided to pay more to ensure our community manager had less doors to manage and could focus more on our community of about 1400 doors. The management companies over work their managers and spread them too thin. We then had them add a "porter" that would visit our community and help identify maintenance needs as well as complete projects. We hired Inframark as our community manager. I've since left and our board has been completely changed...so I'm not sure how affective it has been.

IDaggie06 said:

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Thanks for the information! I've never heard of Montage but just sent them an inquiry. We are about 17 miles from their office so not terribly far. I've heard of Spectrum but don't know much about them What made you choose Montage over them?

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The owners of Montage seem to be very involved in every aspect of their company. They're easy to reach, very responsive, and really said all of the right things for our situation. Every email to them so far gets answered within a couple of hours. Phone calls get returned usually within an hour as well. I realize they were trying to win our business, but they really seemed to go the extra mile when we approached them and they submitted a bid. They sincerely seemed to want our business. Also, their pricing model fit better with our needs.

One of the other board members brought Spectrum in, so from where I was involved I didn't see the same urgency from them in trying to work with us that I saw from Montage. I liked Spectrum's proposal, but Montage just seemed to work harder in presenting themselves.

Ever considered having the residents be the "management company?" I'm really happy with my subdivision and the retirees that run everything as their way of socializing with each other. They'll usually talk to you about any issues before sending any letters and they sympathize and let lawns get a little crispy when we're in a historic drought. I think we still keep a lawyer and accountant under contract to review issues that come up, but it's worked well for our 1000 houses and HOA fees are around $800 a year including the pool.

agnerd said:

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Ever considered having the residents be the "management company?" I'm really happy with my subdivision and the retirees that run everything as their way of socializing with each other. They'll usually talk to you about any issues before sending any letters and they sympathize and let lawns get a little crispy when we're in a historic drought. I think we still keep a lawyer and accountant under contract to review issues that come up, but it's worked well for our 1000 houses and HOA fees are around $800 a year including the pool.

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Ha no thanks. Would never work in our neighborhood.

Similar experience with Crest.. Bill is a great salesman but the manager we were assigned was way overloaded and lacked attention to detail on numerous things.

We ended up going with Graham Management and so far it has been pretty good... that being said having worked with a few of the companies in my couple years on the board I think it has more to do with your specific property manager so in this last round of procurement we asked to interview our PM and used that as our final metric for which company we went with.

Im on the board of my HOA and Associa has been okay for us. Like you said none are great but they have been decent

oceanag13 said:

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Similar experience with Crest.. Bill is a great salesman but the manager we were assigned was way overloaded and lacked attention to detail on numerous things.

We ended up going with Graham Management and so far it has been pretty good... that being said having worked with a few of the companies in my couple years on the board I think it has more to do with your specific property manager so in this last round of procurement we asked to interview our PM and used that as our final metric for which company we went with.

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Couldn't have said it better about Bill. During the sales process, he told us everything we wanted to hear. But once they took over, it has been amazing how many issues we have had without much recourse.

How long did you stick with Crest before switching to Graham?

Lisa Porter of King Property Management. She's excellent.

https://www.kpmtx.com/