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The contract I grew up inside

I took over a 446-unit property management contract in 2015, held it through a board vote, and ran it for seven years.

The property management contract for Village San Juan, a 446-unit community, sat with one management company for about twenty-two years. I worked there as a kid. Later it was the last contract that company still held, and the association, which a third party managed, had to choose who carried it forward.

The board made the call twice. I took over in 2015 against no competing bid, though I still had to show I could run it. Around 2020 a board member invited in a management company of their own, and the board still voted to keep us. I ran the contract for seven years.

I inherited a single full-time employee, no technology, weak communication with the board, and vendor contracts that had sat so long they were far under market. I rebuilt it. We ran with one full-time person plus seasonal help, updated systems and a wider trade pool, and every contract was rewritten and revalued to market. I also restructured the deal so annual services sat on top of the monthly retainer, which let the board see what it was paying for.

To fix communication I put a proactive daily log in front of the board. Previously, calls and emails hit me at the corporate level a few times a week. Afterward they came a few times a year. On communication it dropped to almost nothing, and our pricing went up a little.

I will not pretend margin was why I wanted the contract. It was personal. I kept it seven years because the work was good and the board could see that. Inherit something that has run on relationships for two decades and you should honor the relationships while replacing the systems. Reverse that order and you lose both.

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