115 | How HOA Assist Helps Self-Managed Communities Succeed

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Board member compensation, HOA insights, self-managed associations, board member burnout,
volunteerism, financial management, community association, board member support, HOA assist,
financial services, technology package, administrative support, continuity, cost savings, community
living.
SPEAKERS
Robert Nordlund, Mitch Gassen, Announcer, Russell Munz
Mitch Gassen 00:00
I think board members should be compensated in some way, shape or form, and I’m happy about that
conversation, or like, you know, lobby for that to happen. Because I don’t think a lot of people really
realize how much time and effort these board members put into it and get drugged through the mud in
doing so, right?
Announcer 00:17
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies that care about board members: Association Insights
and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, HOA Invest, and Kevin Davis,
Insurance Services. You’ll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund 00:33
Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common raeas. I’m Robert Nordlund, and I’m here
today for episode number 115 with a special guest I’ve corresponded with for years. So today we have
with us on the program Mitch Gasson of HOA assist. They’re a company dedicated to making sure the
benefits of association living outweigh the challenges by providing cost effective, limited financial
management and board member support services. HOA assist, by its name, is a company that lowers
the time commitment and liability exposure of board members managing their association all on their
own. We’re aware that many of our listeners are from self managed associations, and we wanted to
have Mitch on the program to give you a sneak peek at the level of support that can take a big burden
off your shoulders for a minimal cost. Well, last week’s episode number 114 was another conversation
with regular co host Julie adamen on the cycles that we see pro and con in an Association’s history. If
you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today’s program to listen from
our podcast website, Hoa insights.org or watch on our YouTube channel, but better yet, subscribe from
any of the major podcast platforms so you don’t miss any future episodes. And those of you watching
on YouTube can see the HOA insights mug that I have here. It’s one of my favorites with a deteriorated
property, and the board members are talking about the budget. And I got that mug from our merch
store, which you can browse through from our Hoa insights.org website, or the link in our show notes,
and you’ll find we have some great free stuff there, like board member zoom backgrounds and some
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specialty items for sale, like my mug. So go to the merch store, download a free zoom background,
take a moment, look around, find the mug you’d like and email me at podcast@reserves.com with your
name, shipping address and mug choice, mentioning episode 115 mug giveaway, and if you’re the 10th
person to email me, I’ll ship you that mug free of charge. Well, we enjoy hearing from you responding to
the issues you’re facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, actually, we hear
plenty of those, or a question you’d like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130, or email us
at podcast@reservestudy.com and this episode was prompted by Pam from Dallas, who asked, we’re
doing okay running our association by ourselves, but being self managed makes it hard to get board
member candidates. We feel stuck. Any ideas, let’s get right to it. Mitch, welcome to the program. And
how would you respond to Pam? Yeah,
Mitch Gassen 03:22
thanks for having me. It’s good to be here Robert and connect with you on this. I guess the first thing I
would say to Pam is give me a call.
Robert Nordlund 03:32
Good for you, because you own a business.
Mitch Gassen 03:36
It’s a great question. So the board member burnout and lack of volunteerism is a real thing that a lot of
communities struggle with. I wish that there was a way to have a one size fits all answer for for PAM
and and all the others out there. Unfortunately, every community is just so different. You’ve all have
your own kind of set a DNA, and there’s no situations exactly the same. But hopefully something that
would be relatively helpful for PAM is to kind of promote the why, why serving on the board? It basically
gives them a voice, right? Letting the homeowners know that if you want change to happen, this is the
best way to make it happen. You know, you don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be someone
who cares about your association. Those are the people that can make a difference. And you know,
maybe you’ve had people that have served on the board before and just don’t want to come back to the
board. Maybe you have new homeowners. Sometimes it’s it’s okay to start there and look for a newer
homeowner in the community that might want to get involved, but it’s definitely a it’s a tough recipe
because, because you don’t really know who’s who has served, who hasn’t served, maybe they just
want nothing to do with with serving. I moved into this community because I don’t want to do anything. I
want to be hands on.
Robert Nordlund 04:56
Aren’t aren’t condos, carefree, yeah.
Mitch Gassen 04:59
Yeah, yeah. And so, Pam, I don’t know if this helps you or not. I certainly hope it does in some way, but
I would say reinforcing the why of why it’s important to serve on the board, having a sneak peek, a look
under the hood of what the association is actually spending their money on those homeowners,
oftentimes, when it affects when it affects their pocketbook, they’re going to be a lot more interested in
serving on the board and really understanding what they bought into, why they get what they get or
don’t get what they get based on what the association is budgeted for. Just gives them a lot more
visibility behind the scenes, and hopefully encourages them to want to get a little bit more involved?
Robert Nordlund 05:42
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Well, I want to follow up with at least a couple of questions here. You talked about board member
burnout, and from what I hear, it’s burnout, and there’s burden. You feel the burden before you get
burned out. And if you’re in a self managed Association, you’re on the board, you’re running the
association, you’re a what, one armed paper hanger. You’ve got so many things you’re trying to
accomplish, and you already have a job, and now you got a half time job. If you’re trying to get
someone to and you’re tired because you’re burdened, then you’re going to have a hard time finding
someone else from your association to want to take your job because you describe it, and they’re going
to say, Nope, I want to do that, and that can lead to the burnout. So it seems like what you offer is a
way for board members to spend less time working on the association, and so they can maybe have a
healthier board member situation, board member population. Get new people on the board. Is that a
part of what
Mitch Gassen 06:47
what you see? Yeah, it’s a good way to put it. They feel burdened before they burn out, for sure,
especially with it being an unpaid position. I have things to say about that that maybe a lot of
government documents don’t agree with but I think board members should be compensated in some
way, shape or form, and I’m happy to have that conversation, or like, you know, lobby for that to
happen, because I don’t think a lot of people really realize how much time and effort these board
members put into it, and get drugged through the mud in doing so, right?
Robert Nordlund 07:18
You just took me back 30 some years, our listeners, I think, know my story, I bought a condominium,
and that got me into the community association world and eventually into the business. We had a board
member who was so frustrated with how poorly we’re being served by the associate by our
management company that she quit being a board member and started a management company that
was her way to get paid for what she was already doing. She was so frustrated that, darn it, the
manager should be doing this. The manager should be doing this. Manager should be doing this. Why
am I doing this? And she said, I can’t be paid, at least in California law or our governing documents,
and so she started a management company, and we were her first client. That was interesting little
twist, and I hadn’t really thought of it that way.
Mitch Gassen 08:10
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of homeowners don’t really quite understand just the amount of work that the
board really does, and they’re doing it because they want to protect their asset. They want to protect
the value of what they’ve bought into. There’s bad apples out there. Everybody knows that, but I would
say the vast majority of bad apple the association are bad apple board members. There are board
members that maybe get on the board because they have an ax to grind, or there’s just, you know, the
wrong motive. But homeowners that are listening that’s very few and far between, most out there are
simply doing it for a couple of different reasons. One, they actually care. They truly care about the place
that they live and they want to make it better. Or two, they got stuck there, and they haven’t found a
way to get off the board. Yeah, yeah.
Robert Nordlund 09:03
Who can I offload this job to?
Mitch Gassen 09:06
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Yeah, it’s probably one of those two things. But the reality of it is, here you are, right. You’re on the
board, and you know what? What do you do? You’re communicating with vendors. You’re
communicating with homeowners. You are approving budgets. You have a lot of responsibility,
according to the governing documents, to run the business of the HOA. And I think that’s that’s where
sometimes people maybe miss the mark. Is thinking of it as an organization, a small organization, that
that needs to be run that way. Because if it’s not you can, you can get sidetracked and go off, off
course, uh, relatively quickly. But again, you’re relying on volunteers that maybe don’t have that
expertise in in their professional career, of of running an organization like that. So they’re, they’re up
against a lot. I oftentimes see that when a. Homeowner who is frustrated ends up serving on the board
their their tone changes pretty quick that, oh, I didn’t realize we had to do all this. And oh, I realized we
didn’t have money to pay for that well.
Robert Nordlund 10:09
And then there’s the oh, they aren’t stealing. Oh, that is what the insurance costs nowadays. It’s a
Mitch Gassen 10:17
humbling experience for for the homeowners, for sure. And again, there are homeowners that have
probably got on the board and found some of those things that have been wrong, which is unfortunate,
Robert Nordlund 10:28
good for them, because that’s a change of leadership that’s going to improve the association.
Mitch Gassen 10:32
Yep, yep. It’s It’s definitely one of those things where, if you are a homeowner, volunteering is worth
your time for sure, even if it’s for a short period of time, maybe it’s just one term. You know, you have
some board members that have been doing it for 1020, years. Plus, that’s okay, that’s great. But I do
think that homeowners should, at least, like I said, kind of peek under the hood for at least a term, just
to understand, you know, what’s really happening behind the scenes, so they have a better idea. Well,
Robert Nordlund 11:03
I still think we come from a culture of a lot of people grew up with their parents either owned their home
or they knew about rentals. So I owned a home or was in an apartment, and there’s still this cultural
change of, well, we co own it. It’s not an apartment where somebody else manages and we pay the
rent to somebody else. It’s well, these are our expenses. This is our community. If we want to, we can
decide to replace that 20 year old sign out front that no longer looks so sharp. If we want to, we can
open the pool may 15 instead of Memorial Day. If we want to. There’s so many things they can decide
that because it’s all of a sudden, their eyes open up. It’s Our Community. We can do this mission. Want
to follow up, but you said running the business of the association and not getting distracted. Are you
talking about another one of the unfortunate stereotypes of board members who are just chasing rules
and fines and things like that, or where were you? What were Yeah,
Mitch Gassen 12:07
yeah. There’s definitely some board members that are running their community, and it almost feels to
homeowners like they’ve, they’ve now. They live in a prison of of where they bought into like, you know,
and you can’t have, you know, you’re going to get a violation and a letter if you can see this much of
your trash can on the side of your house. Is that against the rules of the HOA? Sure, it might be. But is
it? Is the juice worth the squeeze to to notify that homeowner and find them for that probably not. You
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know. It’s, it’s one of those things that there is some balance that’s required. You know, there’s nothing
like poking a new homeowner in the eye and sending them a bunch of violations when they’ve never
been to this community, rather than just saying, Hey, I’m not sure if you knew. These are kind of the
guidelines that we go by here. You know, we don’t want to, we don’t want to cause any issues with a
brand new homeowner, because that happens all the time, too. Someone moves into an HOA from a
prior HOA. Well, we used to be able to do this at my old home. It was an HOA. Well, you can’t do that
here. They’re all different, and the way that they’re governed is also different. There’s a lot of
ingredients to these. The soup of what makes up an HOA and how they’re run.
Robert Nordlund 13:20
Ooh, I like that. The soup of what makes an HOA run. Hey, you also said something very early about if
they want to change something, and it’s got to be fundamental that they care about the association.
And we’ve talked about the four C’s, and that’s you need to for board members. What makes a good
board member? Board members need to care. They need to be curious what is going on. They need to
be courageous to make the decision, and they need to communicate that decision. You also triggered a
couple more thoughts. What they need, what they do, they need to do consistently, but yet, when you
were talking about the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. They need to keep in mind that we are building
community here. This is not a rules type place. This is, let’s be humans, let’s be neighbors. Is this the
place that we want to live in? Again? It’s It’s Our Community. It’s not someone’s power trip because
they lost out on being seventh grade class president and they still have a chip on their shoulder as a
Mitch Gassen 14:22
grown up. Yeah, it’s a good way to put it. And oh, yikes. And you’re right. You’re definitely right. You
have there are times when, you know, it can be unfortunate to have someone that is so rules driven that
they just can’t let anything go and and it makes it no longer fun or worth it to some people to to live in
their community, because they feel like they always have, you know, a set of eyes on them and they’re
always watched. That is a bummer, because HOAs were. Really in, you know, in a perfect world, we’re
talking about being able to, kind of protect yourselves from situations where HOAs aren’t in existence.
Like, for example, at my home, I live in a great neighborhood. I love my neighborhood. 100 yards,
maybe 150 yards down the road, five, six houses down. Beautiful home. Literally got painted like a
purple I should find it on, on on Google, it’s, it’s just a shame, right? It’s just a shame. Luckily, I can’t see
it necessarily from, from where I’m at. But that stuff doesn’t happen. I feel bad for the people that live
right next to and across from, from this person, the purple house? Yeah, it’s a beautiful home, and it’s
just a bummer that it’s purple, this goofy looking purple color. And so those are really the types of things
that the HOAs protect you from, being able to take down trees that are dead so they don’t fall on
someone’s property and hurt or kill somebody. I mean, there’s protections in the H in the HOA that are
there for a reason, and it’s not always bad I guess if I had a message to the homeowners, it’s not
always a bad thing, yeah,
Robert Nordlund 16:13
well, I would argue it’s a good design for community living. It lowers costs because it’s economies of
scale. It’s less expensive to you talked about a tree. It’s less expensive to trim the trees for a 50 unit
Association than you as a single homeowner, need to hire a tree trimmer to tree your one or two trees
at your house. The economies of scale are great. And in a community association, you can, you can be
1/30 1/20 1/50 1/200 and you can own a pool or two. You pop in the pool in the summer. All these
things are they are great. And I think the vast majority of community associations are rich places to live.
And I want to talk about that. I want to get to the topic at hand, but we’re enjoying the background
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without being too sensitive, because I don’t want people to know, drive to your neighborhood and look
for the purple house. Tell me about HOA assist. Where in the country are you? And does it matter?
Mitch Gassen 17:18
Our office is located in the west Metro of the Twin Cities in in Minnesota. So this is home for us, but it
really doesn’t matter where, where we work with our clients. Currently, we are in 18 or 19 states and
growing, which is great, so it doesn’t matter. You can be right in our backyard, or you could be on the
other side of the country. We can still, you know, potentially work together if it’s if it’s a good fit,
Robert Nordlund 17:49
right? Because you are not sending a manager to be there at the board meeting you are. I feel like, is it
right to say the backbone of running, helping run the operations?
Mitch Gassen 17:59
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Basically, what we wanted to do is, is, there’s two ends of the
spectrum. Is we wanted to bridge the gap between full service management over here and those
clients, you know, determining, do I want to go the full service route? Do I want to go the self managed
route? And how can HOA assist bridge the gap without, you know, being a burden on on the
association’s pocketbook at the same time, and so that’s kind of how HOA assist was born, is is filling
that particular gap. I’m always the first one to tell people on a sales call that although we work well for a
lot of communities out there, we wouldn’t work well for others, and I’m fine with that. We are not for
every Association. There is a reason that management companies exist, and that’s a good thing. There
are communities that need that those services, absolutely. There are communities that do really well,
completely on their own too, but there’s extra burden and liability with that, and HOA Assist is is here to
help those communities remove that burden and liability from those that are that are self managed
currently, actually, a vast majority of our clients are coming from kind of downsizing, from a
management company to to Hoa assist to offset certain costs in the industry right now. Thank you
Robert Nordlund 19:12
for sharing that. I’m looking at the time here, and I want to take a quick break, so let me get back to that
and find out where HOA assist fits into the market. Why it fits there, who it serves. But at this point in
time, let’s take a quick break to hear from one of our generous sponsors, after which we’ll be back to
hear more common sense for common areas. Is your
Russell Munz 19:33
HOA or condo self managed and you don’t want to work as hard volunteering? Are you full managed
and looking to save money, or are you looking to split the accounting from a manager’s role for better
service, let community financials handle the monthly accounting for you. We collect dues, pay bills,
produce financial reports, include portals and help with other support services, all while providing
awesome service. We’d love the opportunity to help you make your community accounting stress free
with our industry leading systems and expert team. Visit. Our website, communityfinancials.com to
learn more,
Robert Nordlund 20:04
and we’re back. Well, Mitch, you spoke just a moment ago about how this kind of bridging the gap fills a
need between self managed and full service, and how it’s not the right fit for everyone. But talk to me
about that some associations scaling down and some association scaling up.
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Mitch Gassen 20:25
Basically, what ends up happening is we find that there’s these communities that end up working with
us are in two different categories. You can’t afford it, the full service route, the traditional route, or you
find that it’s maybe not 100% necessary for you. Sometimes, you know, some sort of combination of the
two, the ones that are currently full service end up with kind of talk about the soup of ingredients, on
how, on how we got here. They kind of end up going, maybe they’ve had a lot of manager turnover.
Maybe they’ve had a lot of management company changes over the last few
Robert Nordlund 21:03
years. Let me stop you right here, because this speaks a little bit to your background that I know of, but
our audience doesn’t know of. So you come from a family business background that involved full
service management, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. So tell our audience about that. Yeah.
Mitch Gassen 21:18
So my granddad, Reggie, he started gas, and company located here in the Twin Cities. It’s a full service
HOA management company. He started gas, and back in 1969 still in business. Today, my dad owns
gas, and today, I ended up working there before we started HOA assist as a as a property manager for
two or three years. And my business partner as well, Daniel, worked right alongside me at gas and as a
manager. And the two of us, just over the years, just got to talking so much about the industry and
things that we were noticing. So we kind of created this, this idea to to try to attack this market of of
these self managed type of associations, and that’s kind of how HOA assist was born. Was through a
study I remember back in 2016 maybe or 2018 from Cai, the Community Association Institute, that
showed that about 35 to 40% of all community associations across the country were self managed,
which was a higher number than I thought it was going to be with the lens that I had at the time.
Robert Nordlund 22:26
Your lens was, associations are professionally full management,
Mitch Gassen 22:32
right? Okay, so then it was, Why? Why are there so many that that aren’t and come to find out, you
know, it’s either too expensive or not needed. So that’s really what ended up happening, was how we
ended up bridging the gap. How can we package something together that allows board members to not
do everything on their own, but not not cost the community so much money? So I always tell people the
three main pillars of what we’re going to do is, is going to be your financials. So all the monthly
reporting and accounts payable, accounts receivable, that stuff the board members don’t have to worry
about. You don’t have to go knocking on doors to get you know, your neighbors, association dues
payment every month, and all that kind of thing. You don’t have to worry about that. And you shouldn’t
have to worry about that board member, not a debt collector. The next one would be our technology
package. So giving these boards and these homeowners, these communities, a full service portal, right,
a management system that helps them, you know, run live reporting, see their bank account balance
live, see transactions, live, submit requests, make payments. Mish makes it a lot easier for these board
members by piggybacking off of what we can offer, then going out into the market just getting this on
your own as a small
Robert Nordlund 23:50
community. Yeah, it’s a standalone management package, yeah.
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Mitch Gassen 23:54
And then the last one is kind of your admin and back office type of service. So yeah, I always tell
boards we kind of provide a little bit of a shield between you and the homeowners, which a lot of boards
really love, so that if homeowners have questions or phone calls, they can call our team. They don’t
have to be calling and emailing and stopping board members throughout the community. We are kind of
their first line of defense, whether that be mailings, e blasts, emails to homeowners, violations, general
inquiries, all that stuff gets filtered through my team first, which allows the board to be able to focus
more on board member tasks. Well,
Robert Nordlund 24:35
I don’t think the word is lead, yeah, yeah. They’re able to lead rather than do, yeah. That’s very, very
cool.
Mitch Gassen 24:41
Really. The main difference, I guess, at that point, would be removing the physical body of the
management, of the manager, from the got it. Okay,
Robert Nordlund 24:49
all right. Well, I took you on a heck of a tangent. There you were talking about the difference between
full service and finding a spot where you could scale it down, and you basically created it. Created.
What you saw was a need, and that’s fantastic. Talk to me from the other end of the scale, and scale it
up, from a self managed association where they are, they tired or we talked talked about earlier,
burdened, burned out. This gives them a life lifeline.
Mitch Gassen 25:21
Yeah, yeah. They’re essentially just looking for help that they that they don’t have, or sometimes it’s
somebody that maybe has been doing self management within the community that’s moved out or
passed on, and the board members that are left don’t know how to pick up the pieces, so then they go
and search for a company to help them fill that void that’s now inside of the the board member or the
community. Sorry. And so the people that scale up that look for our services oftentimes are saying, you
know, we we need professional help because one of the big selling points, or one of the big reasons
that we are important to all of our associations, really, is the consistency over the period of time.
Meaning, if you’re a self managed board, you’ve had Mary doing it one way for a few years, and then
you’ve had Barb doing it one way for a few years. Now you have Gary doing it one way. And, you know,
fast forward five to 10 years later it you could have the information there somewhere, but you might
have it in an Excel file over here and, and, you know, legal pad over here, and some basement, yeah,
Robert Nordlund 26:39
for 2020 18 and 2019, it was in that green notebook that’s in the closet,
Mitch Gassen 26:45
right? And so when you transition to a company like HOA assist, all that stuff is going to be way more
consistent. So as board members change over time, the meat of the community, especially when you
talk about the financials, stays accessible. It’s being done by professionals. And it’s, it’s, it’s there for the
homeowners if they request it, because they
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Robert Nordlund 27:08
have the right to I gotta stop you here with another C word, continuity. Yeah,
Mitch Gassen 27:13
definitely this. This also plays a major role when you when you talk about bank accounts, because
there have been times that I’ve helped our current clients file claims with the state for unclaimed funds,
meaning a board member has moved out of the community or stopped serving, but they didn’t take
themselves off of or transfer being a signer on the association’s bank account to the new board
members. Yeah. And so now fast forward, you have these funds that haven’t been accessed, or this
account that’s been dormant. Essentially, the state will take those funds, and now you have to file a
claim to try to get it back. And it’s a it’s a process, it’s a pain. And so that doesn’t happen when you’re
with HOA assist either, because as board members change, we hold the master signature card on
behalf of the Association. That doesn’t mean we could do whatever we want with your money. It just
means that when Robert is no longer a board member and Mitch now is Mitch is the one that approves
expenses when Robert used to be but I don’t have to change signer cards
Robert Nordlund 28:17
because Robert has moved to Palm Springs or Fort Lauderdale or somewhere like or something he’s
out here. Yeah, okay, and that comes back to what you said at the very beginning. This is not the right
thing for everyone, and it sounds like what you’ve provided is a continuum between the professional
management that is good for some associations. You’ve got this in between level and what do you call
it? Financial only, or because it’s more than financial only,
Mitch Gassen 28:47
it is, I’m glad you brought that up. You know, we our service level and our contract is basically a
financial service fee. We’re not a management company. We don’t pretend to be one. We don’t call
ourselves that because that’s not who we are. So we are financial services and then some. So I don’t, I
don’t know the exact name, I would say that our company name does a decent job. We assist the
boards, right? We are HOA assist, and so there’s a lot of different things that are involved with that, but
I would say that, you know, if I had to put it in a silo, based on what the industry would call me, it would
be financial services
Robert Nordlund 29:36
got it okay, and for the board Members listening and trying to figure out where this all fits. You were
talking earlier that what you provide is hopefully a lot of value, and that is what kind of percentage of full
service fees?
Mitch Gassen 29:54
Yeah. So as a general rule, obviously there’s outliers on on either side of the bell curve in regard. Hard
to pricing. So if you’re curious, board members, please contact me. I’d be happy to chat with you about
it. What I’ve noticed is it’s about a third or so, a quarter to a third of what you would expect to pay a full
service management company, yeah,
Robert Nordlund 30:13
and for some of you associations, that may mean a bunch more money than you’ve ever paid because
you’ve been self managed for some associations that may be a bunch less than you’ve been paying for
something that you’re capable of doing and that
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Mitch Gassen 30:29
you or you might be already doing it yourselves. Board member, maybe you were in the category of
being frustrated with your management company because you’ve had X amount of managers, and
you’re trying to train the new manager now and for the third time, and you’re just like, I’m already
managing the property. Why am I paying X? I should be paying why?
Robert Nordlund 30:46
Right? I know more than they do, and I’m handling the emails. So yeah, when the management
company is stumbling, because, again, management companies are, they’re trying to do a good job, I
give them that. But we know you clients, you’re nonprofits, so you’re very cost sensitive, price sensitive,
and so salaries and there’s turnover, and that’s just part of life in the management company world. This
just provides a little more choices for the board members. And boy, I ache for those board members
who are feeling burdened, that are on the verge of burnout. And I think again, we spoke about it offline.
You gave me some price point examples. The price point to be able to help that burdened board
member who’s thinking, how am I going to ever get someone to replace me? I don’t have any time. I’m I
had a job. I want to be retired. The price point. You it’s very attractive. And I imagine, okay, let me do
something else. I imagine there’s other companies in this world in between that offer, okay, yeah, so it’s
not, it’s not just you in the entire United States.
Mitch Gassen 31:56
No, I think there’s a lot of other companies that do a great job of, okay, of kind of being in the middle.
The way that I look at it is, there’s 350 plus 1000 associations in the country. We all swim in such a
large pond that, you know, if we all service our portion of the market, everyone’s going to be doing just
fine. And, you know, it’s, it’s big enough for all of us to to be in. So you know, if h away assist, call me if
h way assist feels like a great fit, awesome. If not, maybe there’s another company out there, but at the
end of the day, we just truly don’t want these board members to not want to serve and better their
communities because of things that we could help take off of their plate. No
Robert Nordlund 32:46
more struggling is what I’m writing here that just that just breaks my heart. When you come in, are you
finding that you rescue some associations, or are you indeed assisting?
Mitch Gassen 33:00
I love that. It’s a little bit of both, but I would say we’ve definitely been on some rescue missions. I will
tell you that there have been some, some full blown rescue missions over the years, but I would say
most of them are we’re assisting. We work with some phenomenal boards that we value tremendously.
They value us tremendously. It works really, really well. And you know, we work in tandem, for the most
part, with with our board to assist them.
Robert Nordlund 33:29
I can imagine that a good fit is a great thing. Well, thank you, Mitch, It’s great talking with you and
having you on the program. Any closing thoughts to add at this time? Yeah,
Mitch Gassen 33:39
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no, it’s great to great to be on it. It’s always fun to connect and and talk about these types of things. It’s
something that we’re both passionate about, right? So, you know, it’s, it’s easy to have what, 60
minutes go flying by and feel like you’re only
Robert Nordlund 33:53
20% Wait, wait, wait, did we do 60 minutes? No, that’s not 60, okay,
Mitch Gassen 33:57
45 or whatever it is. Anyway, time flies. You know, if I would just say, if you are a community that is full
service managed and you’re looking to maybe save money, feel free to reach out. I’d be more than
happy to have a conversation with you. Same goes for if you’re currently self managed and you’re
looking for some additional assistance, that’s what we’re here for. So I really appreciate you, Robert,
having me on it’s, it’s, it’s great to talk about it all, and hope to do it again.
Robert Nordlund 34:27
Fantastic. Well, everyone, if you’d like to get in touch with Mitch, you can visit their company’s website
at HOA dash assist.com and you mentioned that you’re not geographically limited, and that’s a great
thing about technology nowadays and again. Likewise, thanks for responding to my email and bringing
this from an email conversation to a conversation that we can share with this podcast audience all
across the country. I hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you
bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you. Join us for another great
episode next week.
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