About SCM
At SCM, we provide a full menu of HOA management services to Denver community associations searching for superior solutions to the challenges of serving on a board, containing cost, and reducing the time commitment of community volunteers. We work with your HOA to develop a scope of work that provides a level of service consistent with your specific needs, then implement long-term strategies to nurture community and protect property values. Our management tools and technologies improve HOA operations and facilitate communication in a way that is cost effective and engages a wider range of homeowners. Our approach reduces cost and renders quality services, focused on the unique needs of Denver area homeowners, to allow your community association to thrive.
Our focus is on quality HOA management, we are not a mega-management company where your community becomes just another monthly management fee check. At SCM we enjoy this business, interacting with homeowners and helping people develop their communities. While we manage your association with cost containment as a daily goal, our corporate mission is to provide the highest quality management services available on the Front Range.
In addition to single family home communities, SCM is experienced in condominium, townhomes and patio home neighborhoods. We have communities that range in size from 4 homes to 1,400 homes and include all types of amenities, common area configurations and programming. If you would like more information or a services proposal, click HERE.
Our Principles
Our guiding mission at SCM is to provide high quality, personalized HOA management services and to foster the development of “Community” within your neighborhood. What sets Stillwater apart from other management companies is how we execute our management services. We have a few management principles that permeate all the services we provide:
- Be on-site. A community can not be supported from an office. We make it a point to be in your community as often as possible talking face to face with the Board, homeowners and service providers.
- Foster homeowner engagement and rapidly and respectively respond to homeowner issues.
- Be First. First to identify issues – First to propose solutions.
- Contain service contract cost through actively managing the bid and execution process and clearly defining the services to be provided.
- Consistently enforce covenants.
- Provide excellent service at a competitive price.
How We Do It
We schedule regular community visits to inspect the community. We use HOA specific software that allows our community managers to generate an inspection list of items we need to check and issues raised by the Board and homeowners. We make it a point to schedule our visits when we can meet contractors doing service to maintain tight relationships with them and continually improve the service delivery process.
We use many tools to enhance communication between SCM, the Board and owners. Our HOA software allows community managers to have all the information about an owner available both in the office and on the road. Phone messages are automatically digitized and emailed to the community manager for immediate review. We have virtually unlimited capabilities from providing short announcements to complete, professional, color newsletters. SCM internally manages our HOAs websites. This means there is no additional charge, the website can be made to look the way the HOA wants and there is no lag in updating content.
At SCM, we want our managers to be first to see issues that need to be addressed within the community and we want our managers to offer solution to these issues, not just drop them at the feet of the HOA Board.
At SCM, the most developed process we use centers around service contracting. Quality service begins with clearly and completely defining what the HOA definition of quality service is to the contractor during the bid process. This is call a “Scope of Services” and a unique scope is developed for each contract. Prior to bidding services, SCM, the Board, homeowners and any committees can work together to get the scope to reflect the service the HOA desires. The scope can be tweaked during bidding or from year to year so what is to be provided, how and at what cost is clearly defined for the service provider. This process makes bid comparison more accurate since each contractor is bidding the same scope. The scope is used to evaluate contract performance and alleviate questions about what is and is not included in the contract. Contract cost and disputes are minimized because all of the services to be performed are identified up front. SCM also uses their own service contract. This again makes bid evaluation easier because the contract terms are the same across all bidders.
Covenant enforcement, if done consistently, becomes very minimal in a well manage community. Our systems can quickly and accurately generate advisory or warning letters then track enforcement actions on a consistent, and precise schedule. Most people will comply with convents if they are notified of the issue rapidly and with respect. For those that do not, consistently following the enforcement policy and providing notices and escalations exactly when they are proscribed, will get fast resolution and fewer violations in the first place.
If you are considering a management change, SCM will be the single point of contact and handle all aspects of the transition from current management to SCM. Our goal is for transition to not be a burden on the Board. Once you make a decision and set a date, SCM will handle it from there.
All of SCM’s managers are licensed by the state of Colorado and go through rigorous continuing education. By consistently investing in our business, we relentlessly improve our processes, employees and technology so SCM can provide highest quality management services available at a competitive price. Thank you for the opportunity to share our HOA management philosophy with you.
Stillwater Community Management, where we turn homeowners into neighbors and neighborhoods into Communities.