Townhome Associations

AHS

I am curious to know if any one sucessfuly markets to homeowner or townhome associations. I've heard stories of associations making warranty claims against the contractor but I'm still interested in finding out a little more about them. I'm thinking about a direct mail campain next year, I wonder if info usa has a list or not?

ppmc

I right now am doing a job for a condo association and the lady who I am dealing with has asked about warranty(for a year).

I told her quite nicely no,I will come back within the first 30 days free of charge for any touch ups as long as they compile a list of said touch ups and e-mail them to me after 10 says of completion and I will come out after list if there even is one and will be happy to do any touch ups.After 30 days up untill 60 I will come out at a fair and competive price to do anything else,beyond that it would fall back on the manufacturer of the product I am applying.

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Noise ordinace sorry. .sure i'll baffle my pipes.NOT!

Grumpy

There are many different ways to accomplish this.

1) Join/sponsor association associations (sounds redundant but this isa group of association members much like a chamber of commerce).

2) Direct mail. InfoUsa will have a list, I bought mine there.


In regards to warranty issues what you have to understand is you are not dealing with 1 owner you are dealing with potentially hundreds. We did a town home complex and had a bunch of minor complaints. It wasn't a big deal though because of the enormousity of the job. The complaints were mostly frivilious and in the end it didn't cost us much to have one man break away from the crew and walk down the street to listen to a little old elderly lady talk for an hour a day (different lady each day).

Mike Finley

How does warrantying your work change whether it is a single family homeowner or multiple homeowners in a condo complex? I'm missing something.

Teetorbilt

My experience with these places is that they are looking for the biggest bang for the buck so be prepared to be the lowest bidder and get nitpicked to death. I don't even consider them.
To get to the individual owners, the association usually has a list of preferred contractors that they have checked out. You normally have to apply to get on the list. Sometimes you just get lucky. I had a big job going in an oceanfront condo and one of the neighbors liked the marble flooring, it went through the place like wildfire. I had 3 subs in there for almost 2 yrs. just doing flooring. I picked up a ton of other work as well.

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You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

AHS

Hey Grumpy did you buy the townhomes list from info usa. I could'nt find one for associations.

Mike, Ive never worked for an association before but, my understanding is this. Single family homes you have to make one or maybe two homeowners happy. With associations you have to deal with 20 or 50 or more homeowners & make sure they are all satisfied. It only takes one unhappy association member to have a warranty claim on the whole project. I'm sure there is more to it but thats how I understand it.

Grumpy

I bought the list at info usa. It has property managers and condo board members. The list exists, but you have to hunt through a bunch of options to compile it.

As far as the association groups to sponsor goes you should just browse online. LOL what I like to do is to go to competitors websites who do multi family remodeling and they usually have links to the associations they sponsor.

As far as the warrantying goes it is different if you are working on an association sponsored project or doing some type of work one on one with the unit owner. It's great when there is a property manager as a buffer between, all you get is the work order. They get the head ache It sucks when they take your number off the side of the truck and take the liberty to call you directly. Like I said you get a ton of old ladies calling about nonsence, like "I don't like this shingle color and wouldn't have picked it"

Also when you are dealing direct with the unit owner you are able to give them the presentation and tell them what to expect during the process of the project. This isn't true when it's a large association and you get people askin "why not this? why not that?" LOL sometimes the answer simply is "because your association didn't want to pay for that option."

Yeah like Teetor said quite often you have to be the low bidder. At the last company I worked for we did a 41 unit town home complex roof and gutters. It was a million dollar ($997k) project and we were lowest by $200,000. LOL what's funny though is the association was so impressed with us they used us as the standard for all other contractors to match telling them to match our spec. The point is even though we were the lowest bidder we still pocketed enough money that we were not complaining. I was sharing the profit with my boss 25% me 75% him and I pocketed more than some guys make in a year on one sale. Not bad for one sale.

ppmc

I just finished the exterior of these condos in which I spoke about earlier.And landed all future work and come to find out the lady that -came to me-to do the original bid resighned as treasurer and passed it along to a gentelman who I met once.Anyway heis also on the board of the university of toledo and he asked me if I woyuld be interested in recieviing bids for university work.

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Noise ordinace sorry. .sure i'll baffle my pipes.NOT!

Mike Finley

You gotta like that!


Anyways, I still don't get how you can get away with changing your warranty or actually not offering a warranty on your work and being able to charge it as a service call just because you are doing a job incompassing the entire condo development vs a single resident. That is amazing to me and sounds like getting your cake and eating it too. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm just suprised to hear this is possible. If anything I figured it would be the opposite, since the work is sometimes being paid for as a community assesment and coming out of the pockets of each individual homeowner.

ppmc

The original lady I sighned with happens to be the owner of the 2 condos(units exterior ) I did.She bought these just to make a profit and wanted cosmetic work done.I found out she was on the board b-4 she purchased the properties and I sighned with her and not the whole board,but she resighned as treasurer seeing she made her money and I was told -by her-my duaghter is 18m and mom is going to play .She is moving to virginai I think she said the richmond area,the gentleman now sighning checks is the one who offered more to me.So in the future I know that warranties will HAVE to be more -hmmm-written shall we say but for now yes I got lucky.

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Noise ordinace sorry. .sure i'll baffle my pipes.NOT!

slickshift

I don't know if this helps or not
If I do work for a commercial entity that rents out apartments I will offer a "less" of a warranty then if the private person renting the unit hires me

The reason being is that generally renters are notorious for trashing places, and if the landlord pays to fix it they will just trash it again
It's really to keep me from fixing the same thing over and over @ no charge just to have someone trash it again
So far this has not been an issue, as it's usually rather obvious if it's not my work that has failed, but rather abuse or misuse, and that assesment has not been questioned yet
If it is my work that has failed I do actually extend the warranty on a case by case basis
I just need the "commercial, or income generating" wording in place to CYA (or CMA, as it were)

However if the renter pays to have it fixed, they are much less likely to abuse or misuse

It's the same with certain commerical projects
Some employees are ruthless with the boss' property
Again this has not been an issue, as my commercial accounts seem OK with the fact that some stuff gets trashed and it's not my fault
I still want the wording in there in case some client doesn't see it that way