2024 HOA Changes
Page Updated: 12/19/2023 4:00PM
We live in a great community and in an amazing place!
The Cumbre Vista Board of Directors (BOD) is extremely grateful to live among wonderful neighbors and friends with these scenic mountain views. It’s the people in our community that make this place great, and we feel privileged to live among you. To better serve the community, the BOD is changing our HOA management company.
Cumbre Vista HOA 1 (CV1) will be changing HOA management companies from Dorman to RealManage.
1. Since the board members are all volunteers, the community depends heavily on the management company. The BOD had not evaluated Dorman since the HOA transitioned from the neighborhood developers (Keller) to the homeowners in 2021. To ensure we get high-quality services at a good price, we asked several management companies to bid for our business. Evaluation of the three bids we received showed that Dorman was charging 75.4% more than the average bid.
2. The BOD has also been paying attention to the number of violations being issued by Dorman and the reasons they were being issued. At times, we saw a lack of common sense being applied to the interpretations of our covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs). We also noticed that Dorman was issuing violations on homeowner projects that were previously approved by the HOA ARC committee.
3. Dorman’s technology platform is not configured with online voting and opt in text messaging. The BOD saw those technology capabilities as a critical path forward to connect with and reflect the will of our 176-member community.
There are two other HOA communities called Haven and CV2 that are right next to CV1. Please click here to see which community you live in. These changes are only affecting the CV1 HOA Community.
The new management company, RealManage, has a great amount of work to do to introduce themselves to each of you and to enter each homeowners information into their HOA management system. A significant portion of that information will be coming directly from Dorman to RealManage, but the payment information (for our annual HOA assessment fee) has to come from each one of us individually. RealManage will be in contact with each of you before Jan 1, 2024 to get that part completed.
1. The BOD worked hard this year to keep the annual assessment fee as low as possible. Dorman submitted a 2024 budget estimate of $340 for the 2024 assessment fee, but the BOD pushed back and found a budget path to set it to $295. Each of you have already recieved both an email and a postal letter (September 2023) containing the proposed 2024 budget. The 2024 proposed budget was ratified by the CV1 homeowners at the budget meeting held Oct 13, 2023 at 6PM. The meeting notices were detailed in both the postal letter and the email sent out to the community. The 2024 annual assessment will remain the same rate of $295 and is due January 1, 2024. Look for communication from RealManage that will describe how to make your payment.
2. What if I’ve already paid my 2024 Assessment fee?
As part of the transition to the new management company, Dorman will be transferring the complete CV1 financial general ledger which includes all homeowner payments. This will include a record of 2024 assessment fees already sent to Dorman.
Look for communication from RealManage before January 1, 2024.
The BOD went through an extensive search for an HOA management company that we felt would fit our community. Our selection process used the following questions to help guide us through the selection.
Each board member reviewed the proposals, the feedback from the introductory meetings, the email responses to our questions and the reference responses. Each question was rated as follows: 1= Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3= Neutral, 4= Agree, 5= Strongly Agree. All questions were weighted the same, however, a lower score in questions 2, 3, 7, 9, and 10 gave us pause as we believed they painted a picture of future outcomes.
Evaluation Criteria.
1. They have knowledgeable and experienced staff.
2. Their technology platform is leading edge and they demonstrates the capability of continuing improvements into the next 10 years.
3. They demonstrate the current ability to provide HOA online voting, survey’s and opt in text message updates.
4. The management company’s HOA processes seem mature and robust.
5. We believe they will have an excellent communication style and enforcement of CC&Rs with our community.
6. We believe they have an excellent ability to help keep our HOA legally compliant.
7. Their management and administrative fees are reasonable compared to COS market rate.
8. They have the HOA services we need now and demonstrate the ability to carry us into the future.
9. We believe they will be responsive to BOTH the board and homeowner requests in a timely manner.
10. Their references were strongly in favor of them.
How did the HOA management proposals rate?
Dorman Rated: 2.3
Proposal #1 Rated: 3.1
Proposal #2 Rated: 3.0
Proposal #3 Rated 3.3
Proposal #4 – RealManage Rated: 4.2
1. The staff we talked with were very knowledgeable and experienced.
2. They invested in their staff by paying for their HOA certification path and the training classes needed to earn those certifications.
3. Their technology platform is leading edge and they have 14 technology staff in-house who keep it updated.
4. They have very mature HOA business processes.
5. Their technology platform was capable of online voting, surveys, opt-in text messaging and email. All features were built into their platform. No other management company had that level of capability.
6. Their management fee was reasonable and in-line with COS market rates. In addition, RealManage agreed to limit the escalation of their management fee to 3.5% increase per year, approximately matching the employment cost index (ECI) set by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. By controlling this cost, it will be 11 years (2034) before RealManage’s management fee will be approximately equal to that of Dorman’s 2024 management fee.
7. Their CC&R enforcement included learning the culture of our community and issuing a gentle reminder email notice first before issuing a potential violation notice.
Click this link to their website.
We notified Dorman 10/27/23 in accordance with the terms and conditions outlined in the contract with Dorman. They were disappointed, but understood and are working with RealManage to forward our existing HOA information.
1. Complete a successful transition to our new HOA management company.
2. Update our governing documents. We currently have builder centric HOA governing documents which made sense while Keller was building out this community. There is a heaviness and routine in them that favor a builder and not the homeowners. We are looking at updating our governing documents to be reflective of the season of this community, to favor the flourishing of homeowners, to maintain our HOA common areas and to keep our neighborhood an attractive place to live. The BOD will put forth suggested changes to the governing documents that will need a 67% homeowner approval to pass. We hope to be able to use RealManage’s online voting platform to make it easy for you to vote your opinion.
3. Work with RealManage to ensure a common sense approach when it comes to enforcing our CC&Rs allowing for gentle reminder emails before a violation notice. The CC&Rs will be enforced as per the homeowner signed agreements, but not with the heavy handiness of a builder’s HOA management company.
4. Review and establish maintenance plans for our common areas and HOA assets.
1. The CC&R’s ensure there is a common understanding amongst the homeowners for how to keep our neighborhood an attractive and pleasant place to live.
2. According to a 2005 study by George Mason University, it’s estimated that having an HOA increases our property values by 5%.
3. We have common areas and assets in our community and thus need maintenance contracts to keep them up. We also need insurance to cover any damage to those items. For example, the community “Cumbre Vista” signage, the 13 clusterbox mailboxes, and the common fences and retaining walls are some of those assets in our common areas.
4. As a community, we get lower prices for shared services. For example, our HOA waste management contract reduces the cost of waste services to this community from $20.00/month/bin to $12.41/month/bin. This saves the homeowner 45% on waste collection services and it also means that, as a community, we don’t have 5 different waste vendor trucks in our neighborhood servicing various homeowners on different schedules.
One of the 2024 BOD goals is to review the maintenance plans for our HOA common areas and assets making sure they are reasonable, updated and funded accordingly. CV1 carries maintenance funds and insurance on the common areas and assets as defined in our plat map. This is in accordance with the CV1 governing documents, Article IX, Section 9.4(j) of the Declaration.
As we review the plans, we will reach out to the neighboring HOA’s where we share a common interest in the maintenance of a particular asset that may exist on or near the plat border lines of two HOAs.
The City of Colorado Springs Public Works Division and Woodmen Heights Metropolitan District 2, managed by Walker Schooler District Managers, are also two other entities that have certain responsibilities for the common areas and assets in our community. Coordination with them is also on the agenda to review as we look at CV1 maintenance and funding responsibilities.
Woodmen Heights MD #2 Tax Boundary Map
An HOA management company is contractually positioned to serve the BOD and the BOD is positioned to serve the will of the community. After repeated attempts by the BOD asking Dorman for homeowner email addresses, they did not provide that information to the BOD. Contractually, Dorman should be replying to and serving BOD requests in alignment with our governing documents. The BOD’s only method of contact with our homeowners has been the FB page and word of mouth.
Our new management company, RealManage, has requested all HOA information and is waiting for Dorman to comply with the request. Dorman will comply with that request as the BOD initiated a legal procedure outlined in our contract. Once RealManage has our homeowner information, they will send out emails and postal mail introducing themselves to all our homeowners and letting us know next steps for onboarding. (** Note as of 11/22/23 – Dorman has provided all the initial information needed by RealManage)
The BOD developed a website to provide our homeowners information on the management company change just ahead of RealManage sending out email and postal notices introducing themselves. There is nothing for our homeowners to do now except wait for communication from RealManage. If you would like to help spread the word, please share the this website address https://cumbrevistahoa-1.org with your neighbors.