Let the Property Manager be Your Guide by Arthur Raybold

In the ideal world, a painting contractor would like to sit down with the board of directors of a condominium association and discuss what it is exactly that the board wants, how that would be accomplished in the shortest period of time in the most economical fashion-and all this without having to deal with unwanted competitors.

In the real world, however, the members of the board are elusive, protean and anonymous. If you purchase the list of presidents of homeowner association boards, at no little expense, you discover their addresses are ironically those of their property managers. If you were a board member, assuming the usual Herculean load of duties, would you make your address available to every peddler in the universe?

So how is it possible, you say, for the board to make decisions about roofing, plumbing, painting, landscaping, insurance, reserves, etc. without ever coming into contact with the "experts" in these matters?

Enter the breed encyclopedium, fecundium managerium, recently added to the endangered species list and probably a first born child, inured to "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." The best of these people could be on every aspiring President of the U.S.'s short list for V-P. They have been trained in the furnaces of expediency to take over the management of the free world. Because the association management business is not a high margin enterprise, the breed is conditioned to maintaining and preserving property as if it were its own. It is frugal but judicious: it will not cut costs at the expense of quality and durability.

From my own experience, I will share several anecdotes to illustrate how important it is to work closely with management companies in order to get the job done correctly.

On a recent invitation to bid on a large condominium repaint project, several worthy and seasoned paint contractors submitted bids that were clustered within a few percentage points. Obviously, these experienced contractors did their homework and submitted very competitive proposals. However, one little known painter with a short history of working in the condominium market submitted a bid that was $100,000. Lower than everyone else. The manager contacted the low bidder and asked him to review his numbers.

He kept his number where it was, whereupon the manager threw out that low bid and awarded the contract to one of the several higher bidders. To have awarded the contract to the lowest bidder in this case would have been courting trouble, since the contractor had limited resources and would either have had to take a serious loss or use less expensive, unspecified materials and/or unqualified labor. Here, the d to be strong and convince the board that the low bid would most likely lead to a skin deep job with costly lesions later.

In another instance, we were awarded a job although we were not low bidder. The job was complicated by an extremely high percentage of color combinations on single family homes in an upscale community where people were accustomed to high maintenance service on landscaping, rubbish removal and security. The association manager recommended us because we have a staff that is experienced in working in these more demanding and often stressful situations. Our bid addressed the issue of high maintenance clients and the fact that assembly line methods were not appropriate with single family homes where practically each dwelling required a custom paint job.

Again, we were asked to bid on a significant 130 unit project that once we began to examine it prior to bidding, we discovered water penetration problems that were pervasive. Unfortunately, the defect litigation settlement did not include water penetration problems. The board was in a grim mood and simply wanted to metamorphose from mustard to Navajo white. Since the property was close to the ocean, we believed saw cutting and caulking around the windows and doors was essential prior to applying a more expensive waterproof elastomeric coating. The association manager held a series of meetings and invited various experts to dispassionately describe what would happen if the correct cure were not pursued. Finally, the board saw the wisdom of the correct approach, instituted a special assessment and the job went forward.

The association manager is much like our elected officials whom we entrust to maintain the common wealth. He/she must act in the best interests of the homeowner. Association managers are usually successful in remaining objective and calling for action that is proper, necessary, commonsensical and economic. A board member usually only knows his own property, whereas a manager observes many properties and counts on his/her expertise to make the right decision or recommendation given the facts.

This does not mean that the board is a rubber stamp, but it most often means that the board can count on the validity of the manager's recommendations if they are not able to agree on a course of action, are stalemated, are held hostage by a bully on the board or are simply unable because of the constraints of time to do the research that the manager has already done.

From the contractor's point of view, working with the managers is the best way to communicate with the board about one's experience, quality workmanship, integrity, longevity and warranties. The ephemeral nature of the board demands stability which association managers can provide.