Watch Out for Outdated, Inflexible Homeowners Association Software

Increasingly, local and state governments require that homeowners associations create and maintain websites to communicate with their neighborhoods and manage their data. At the same time, many homeowners association decide to create websites for their communities simply because of the many advantages of online access for their residents, board, committees, and managers. If you’re looking for solutions and responsible for choosing these options for your community, where do you start? Must you download and install a software package on your computer or an app on your phone, and then learn to use what may turn out to be an extremely complicated application? Are you stuck with a site you can’t customize? Do you have to settle for an out-of-date look?

As you’re looking, you’ll quickly find out that many of these applications come with significant drawbacks. You’ll want to consider these disadvantages thoroughly before you make a selection—and you’ll want a better choice.

Complicated

In many cases, the biggest challenges of managing an online property for a homeowners association is the software you have to use. Its requirements—in terms of your computer hardware or phone and its operating system—may be demanding enough to force you to update your computer or phone simply to use the software. Its installation process may be complex. You may have to sign up for service simply to evaluate the application, because some of these homeowners association software products do not provide no-strings-attached free trial periods.

As you examine those features, you begin to realize that they lack specific options that are important to your community. After a while, the entire process can leave you feeling as if the software is in charge, not you, and that you’re stuck with its limited feature set. Instead of a dynamic online community that fosters communication and closeness among the members of your homeowners association, the software funnels you into the narrow channels it offers.

At HOAStart, we built our software based on extensive experience in working with and evaluating products for homeowners associations. We understood from the get-go that our product needed to offer a broad range of diverse, easy-to-use features that we know are important for homeowners associations. We created HOAStart as an Internet-based product to provide the widest degree of flexibility, compatibility, accessibility, and simplicity.

Rigid

Many homeowners association software packages adopt a very rigid approach to the process of communication between association management and community members. They essentially force you to operate the way they think you should operate, not the way you want to proceed. They assume that their priorities are your priorities—and very often, their assumptions are incorrect. That “our way or the highway” approach simply doesn’t work for most homeowners associations, but some associations settle for products like this because they’re afraid that they won’t be able to find a solution that meets their needs and matches up well with their identity.

At HOAStart, we’re all about options. We believe in offering you a product that you can customize so it matches the spirit of your community; the look and style of your neighborhood; how your association members think, their priorities, and what they care about; and the way you want to operate your homeowners association.

Static

Many homeowners association software packages think that they offer you all and only the options you’re going to need. Essentially, they rest on their laurels. They appear uninterested in developing new options. It’s as if they’re saying to you, “Be grateful for our product. It is what it is.” That kind of static approach to homeowners association software completely ignores the fact that associations, and their needs, grow in a dynamic way over time, and that associations prefer products that recognize their dynamic potential.

The HOAStart team constantly looks for new ways to serve. We’re always listening to our customers’ input, and we’re fully invested in keeping our product up to date and growing. Need a new version of a feature? Our development team responds with customized options. Need to integrate an external package to track finances or other functions? Our development team excels at integrating these resources for the benefit of our customers. We know that you constantly strive to expand the ways you communicate with and support your membership, and we do the same when it comes to our product.

Not customizable

No two homeowners associations are alike. Regardless of how many things you have in common with another community nearby or even across the country, you’re unique—and you don’t want to try to force your communication needs into a cookie-cutter product that doesn’t allow you to express the personality of your community and its one-of-a-kind needs. Unfortunately, many homeowners association software products completely disregard this individuality. Just as Henry Ford famously offered the Model T in any color so long as it was the only color available, some of these products offer you any look and feel so long as you’re willing to settle for their basic—and uncustomizable—design.

We developed HOAStart with a wide range of visual themes and color palettes. We made it easy to customize with your own photography, graphics, and other images. In other words, we built in visual flexibility because we know that unique communities demand unique-looking websites.

Stale looking

Ever heard the phrase “Web 1.0”? It’s a description that applies to out-of-date online properties: tired designs that look as if they haven’t been updated in years. Your community members spend a lot of time online, and their expectations are conditioned by the appearance of sophisticated sites. Why offer them a tired-looking homeowners association website when you can do so much better?

HOAStart takes good-looking design very seriously. Our professional design team creates a wide range of site themes so we can showcase any community, with diverse choices of attractive color palettes to harmonize with your vision. To make your homeowners association online community a vibrant, stylish destinations for your members, as good looking as it is highly functional, put HOAStart on your team.

If you’ve looked around at homeowners association website options and simply haven’t found what you really want, it’s time to look at HOAStart. With powerful functionality, in-depth customization options, attractive designs, and responsive support, we offer what any homeowners association needs and what every HOA wants.