My father's company held the property management contract on Village San Juan, a 446-unit community, for about twenty-two years. I worked there as a kid. Years later, after he passed, it was the last contract his company still held, and the association, which was managed by a third party, had to decide who would carry it next.
The board decided twice. When I took over in 2015 there was no competing bid, but I had to prove I could run it. Around 2020 a board member brought in their own management company, and the board voted to keep us. I ran it for seven years.
What I inherited was one full-time employee, no technology, poor communication with the board, and vendor contracts that had sat in place so long they were drastically under market. I rebuilt it: one full-time person plus seasonal help, updated systems, a wider trade pool, every contract rewritten and revalued to market, and the deal itself restructured as annual services on top of the monthly retainer, so the board could see what it was paying for. The communication fix was a proactive daily log in front of the board. Before it, calls and emails reached me at the corporate level a few times a week. After it, a few times a year. From a communication standpoint it basically went to nil, and our pricing went up a little.
I will not pretend the reason I wanted it was the margin. It was an homage to my father. But the reason I kept it for seven years was that the work was good and the board could see it. When you take over something that has run on relationships for two decades, honor the relationships and replace the systems. Do it the other way around and you lose both.