Running a Self Managed HOA

By Joy Watson, President of the Board of Directors of Wafco Mills HOA

While working full-time as a special education job coach and teaching assistant, I also took full-time classes to earn a degree required for a full-time teaching position. After divorcing my husband of twenty years, I bought a condominium at Wafco Mills. That happened only a month after I signed a contract with Guilford County Schools for my first full-time licensed special education teaching job. I toured two condos at Wafco Mills and decided to purchase the second one with the help of my realtor, Lisa Way. I was super excited to buy a condo downtown Greensboro. I knew it would make a great rental if I ever wanted to move. It is located within walking distance of two colleges, downtown and the Greenway is right behind it.

After living at Wafco Mills for a year, I was approached about running for a seat on the Homeowners Association Board of Directors. I had prior experience serving on the board of the HOA at Summit Park Condominium Association in Flagstaff, Arizona. A few meetings later, I joined the board. At that time, Slatter Management was managing Wafco, but soon after, we transitioned to AMG, then Prestige, back to AMG, and finally to Priestly. In 2021 or 2022, we decided to move to a self-managed HOA with Priestly Management providing financial support.

In approximately 2010, Wafco needed new roofs for all buildings. We paid for a reserve study and an update around 2022. However, none of the property management companies we contracted with were able to follow through on the prescribed maintenance from the reserve studies. They also struggled to provide quotes from multiple vendors for necessary work. Instead, they scheduled work with their preferred vendors and billed the HOA. It was frustrating that we never receive three quotes for any project, highlighting a common issue with HOA Managemnt aka: property management.

Inspired by my mom's lifelong volunteerism, I volunteered to serve on the Board for Wafco Mills, where I own a condo. I was “member at large” for several terms. I had learned after serving on the board at Summit Park that I did not want to be the Secretary. I also know my eyesight and spreadsheet trauma from my twenty year marriage, also ruled out treasurer. I served as Vice President until Dylan Spears sold his unit and left the President seat vacant. I have been President ever since and am in a constant state of learning as well as a fear of making a mistake that has negative impacts to the community I am attempting to help improve.

As of summer 2024, I have served as an HOA board member for about eight years. Last year, I worked with my daughter to create a new Squarespace website to replace our previous WordPress site. Our owners and board members found difficult to use if they had ever had a Wordpress account and like every technology, it reached its expiration date where we needed to embrace more current website communication services. Each investment of time we spend has been with the goal of better communication with owners and residents. The new website, like the Wordpress site aims to be a hub for owners to access the necessary information to maintain their homes and contribute positively to the community.

Our community has various floor plans, including units stacked above or below each other. We desperately need a clear process for addressing leaks between units, as managing this issue is time-consuming. Although we have documents outlining owner responsibilities, they are not user-friendly, and many people do not read and or can not them. Similarly, the property managers and HOA management companies we have hired, including our current financials-only property management company, Priestly Management, are not well-versed in our governing documents. They have been slow to provide the financials and have some confusion about what units belong to Wafco Mills, Wafco Commons, and Historic Wafco Mills. We have learned that they also manage these other developments within the same location as Wafco Mills when they incorrectly billed us for items we did not agree to, when Historic Wafco told them we had. It is my opinion that even with this short list of flaws, Priestly has been, by far, the best property management company we have used at Wafco Mills since I have been on the board.

Property management is, like most industries, an evolving industry. Laws and insurance in particular are in a constant state of change. Owners of condos have little notification of changes in rules until they try to access some service or system that is no longer available due to changes in requirements or processes. In addition to owners’ lack of understanding about this evolution, Realtors often do not understand the complexity of owning a condo and thus do a poor job of educating buyers on what condo ownership entails. Realtors must educate buyers about the rules and regulations of HOA communities before they make offers. Restrictions on vehicles, types of businesses, maintenance responsibilities, paint colors, visible yard items, dog breeds, and laundry lines are commonly restricted items in HOA documents. Most condo communities are not welcoming of individuals who want to express their unique “style” in any visible way and neighbors are sharing walls and possibly above or below so if your dog barks, something falls off your balcony, or your tub or toilet overflows, chances are good that your neighbor will be impacted.

Being a kind neighbor is, in my opinion, one of the most undervalued and under discussed characteristics in a condo, or any high-density housing resident. High-density housing is some of the most affordable in most housing markets. Pulling people’s eyeballs off their screens to initiate and build a relationship with the people they share walls with is a struggle in most every community. Even in neighborhoods with single family homes, neighbors frequently remain anonymous. At our last Annual meeting, we had an owner step up to chair a community event committee. I am excited to have some Wafco events that support residents building relationships, hopefully over food, but thankfully I don’t need to decide that, I have an owner that’s going to figure out the details and then present the board with their proposal. Then the board can decide.

While enforcing all rules and regulations all the time is challenging, any rule in the governing documents can be enforced at any time. Additionally, HOA governance laws are changing. After the tragic Surfside condo collapse, insurance companies in some states now require higher levels of documenting of meeting discussions and management accountability in HOA communities. This is a constant concern for our website. How much info is too much? Is there a “too much”. We have attempted to address this by making only specific components of the website available for the public and the bulk of accessible pages are for owners who have set up their owner account. We have one small section for board members only and I hope to integrate a transferable email to help with document management as well as communication with owners via email and that whole member contact list can be make into csv file and then emailed more fluidly from within the Wafco mills board email. We continue to update and expand WafcoMills.com to serve as a comprehensive resource for our community.

As of November 2024, I have an intern from UNC Charlotte working to help me with the finances of Wafco. There is a great amount of historic data that owners have offered to share. I plan to have a place for these artifacts to be loaded for everyone in the community to access as well as learn from. I am looking forward to having my intern analyze our historic financial documents and tell us what we need to know.

I am excited to also have a new board member who volunteered to serve at our annual meeting last weekend. We have our first meeting tomorrow night.

Wafco Mills received the certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission of Greensboro December 10th, 2024. Now we can begin the actual work of building the trash enclosure for our community. I have updated the owner section of the Wafco Mills website and have shared the certificate with the General Contractor as well as the engineer. We are happy to have this part completed.