Hi all was wondering if any one has delt with or is dealing with property management co. Such as apartment complex office buildings.....Do you do a yearly contract? Would you charge by the structure per complex .Say on a basic term ,this company (a large one)wants you to trap squirrels in the attic space of some of the buildings in one apartment complex.How would you go about charging.Keep in mind you may have the possiblity to get much more work from them.Also keep in mind that you charge say 350 per week for residental work ie.trapping raccoons, squirrels.and such .Thanks for any info.....

Ahhh.....the dangling carrot.

I do them per job. Thats how they want it.

X2, If you do a good job and don't upset any tenants (that they have to deal with) they will use you next time they have a problem.

We deal with a bunch of them. They call us, we do the job. A couple of percent off if we do a large volume.

thanks that was my next question

We are dealing with a very large homeowners association right now.We considered offering them an annual rate. We are on the second call this week to the same group. We are just working to keep them taken care of and they keep calling us back. So we are just doing it on a case by case basis.

If by annual rate you mean flat fee, NO. You can ask for a retainer. Define the conditions in the contract.

I do contracts on moles for condo complexes. All other jobs are by the job.

Their goal....stick and carrot.

We have really come to appreciate the larger management companies. We always do it job by job ( The stick and carrot thing that Dave was alluding to ) They want to keep as much money as they possibly can and we want them to spend ( on us ) as much as they possibly can. We have visited the bigger accounts so they can put a face on us and vise versa. We have found that giving them a small price break has worked out extremely well for both parties. Just one warning; Make sure that if your two largest accounts were to suddenly drop you, that you could still keep right on keeping on!

We work with about 6 HOA's right now and we have done them based on per job/per complaint.

The one thing as Paul eluded to, is that they all have budgets and they are trying not to put theirs
out there unless it is needed.

I've also experienced being called in as many on here have by a tenant or owner of a unit to find the
hoa board doesn't support the financial need.

I learned a ton this summer about staying out of the middle and walking a very very thin line between
the owner of a condo and the hoa board who was trying not to pay out for exclusion work.

I've also given a ton of pigeon estimates that were well beyond the property managers interest and by
following up learned a lot, but also learned to ask a serious set of questions up front to avoid wasted
time and small money.

Thanks to T'man and NWCOA.info I learned long before I started my own gig that you need to be sure
when a tenant is asking for it, that the owner or landlord is actually signing on and authorizing.

Expensive lesson if you miss that one!

I think relationships to HOA's and other such property management are invaluable, but agree with the other
posters about being aware and beware of pitfalls.

Justin

Justin, we have solved a lot of these problems on the smaller amount jobs by asking the tenant or condo owner if they would be willing to pay for the job if declined by the board. A lot of management companies have specific rules about what they will and won't pay for. Reminding the occupant of those rules often gets the occupant to pay.

I agree Paul, I had one that had bats getting into interior of condos and the folks who owned the units paid for interior seal out themselves, then this year due to the bars of course still being in the exterior the Hoa has now hired us for the exterior after being threatened by owners.

Good tip! I do think many still hire as you say, they need something done.

HD - The interesting thing about doing an interior seal out for bats....the bats are still inside the attic. In this case, the associations unwillingness to do the exclusion, may be causing damage to the interior of the attic. It would be an interesting argument for the condo owner.

I agree entirely Dave, the board shot the owners down stating the interior ceiling of tongue and groove wood was their issue. It was a chicken and egg argument. In the end I won and helped big the board with exterior exclusion and the owners with interior issues. It was a ridiculous argument and one no other Hoa tries to pull in this area.

Justin