Inside the List: HOA management companies overcome pandemic setbacks as demand grows

As South Florida’s housing market skyrocketed last year, the demand for homeowners association management companies subsequently grew.

While there is more need for these companies, the pandemic unleashed a Pandora’s box of health risks that challenged associations with implementing CDC-recommended guidelines to ensure the safety of staff and residents.

This has borne additional costs for necessities such as hand sanitizer and cleaning goods, and added more stress for owners who may be required to wear masks in shared spaces including hallways and clubhouses.

James Donnelly, CEO of Plantation-based Castle Group, said his company accounted for the setbacks of the pandemic by optimizing its services for residents through a technology platform it’s been using since before the pandemic.

“People like to self-help and would rather go online to get information or pay their maintenance fees than go down to the management office or call, and that accelerated with Covid,” he said.

In addition to instituting closed-door policies for the management offices, this helped reduce the risk of spreading the virus by minimizing in-person contact between residents and employees, Donnelly said.

The firm’s use of proactive communication, streamlined through the technology it already had, helped it post a 6.25% increase in the number of associations served and 11,000 more units managed – or nearly 33,000 more people, as Donnelly noted the average dwelling in South Florida has at least three residents.

Written by Eman Elshahawy – Data Reporter, South Florida Business Journal