How many times has someone tried to nickel and dime you or your community association? Unfortunately, nickel and diming happens quite frequently in the service industry because certain companies prefer to gain your business with an appealing "low price" and then add on extra charges down the road that are "not covered by your initial fees". They also use this "low price" approach to gain your business to drive work like painting and concrete projects to their subsidiaries.
We don't see this happening just in the service industry, but in most sales. Think back to the last time you purchased a car. In my most recent experience, I felt like the dealership was trying to nickel and dime me for every little thing. Now having bought cars before, I knew that the advertised price is never what it seems... this being said I expected some fluctuation in the price with the "extras" being offered. However, what I didn't expect was a surprise additional administration fee that got added onto the total after spending 3 hours at the dealership and having completed all the paperwork except the final sales sheet. Now, not only was I paying for warranties, features, registration fees, and the car... they were trying to get me to pay for another fee. Luckily for me I caught this additional fee before signing. I ended up staying another hour, till midnight, to get it waived since I hadn't signed the final page and they had never mentioned the fee before.
Just like we do side by side comparisons when purchasing cars, we need to carefully do side by side comparisons with all of our vendor and management proposals. Make sure to compare all of the fees in the proposals, not just the "management fees". Doing these comparisons, are more easily said than done because not all management companies clearly lay out their itemized proposals. We have drafted up a list of 18 common charges to look for in a property management company's proposal to help you and your community avoid getting nickel and dimed. Click here to view the list.
Let us know what you think about the list and if would suggest looking for other items in our comment section below.