How to acquire new condominiums to manage

Building a verifiable reputation before pursuing new contracts

A property manager's reputation is measured in verifiable facts, not promises. Before approaching a new building, it is worth consolidating a few elements that the owners meeting can check independently: proper registration where required, a valid professional liability insurance policy, and a track record of financial reports approved without major disputes in the buildings already under management.

Online presence matters too: a website or professional profile with real contact details, stated availability hours, and a clear process for emergencies signals credibility before the first meeting even happens. People searching for a property manager today often verify this information on their own before booking an appointment.

• Professional liability insurance kept current and shown on request
• A list of managed buildings with tenure of each contract, where clients consent to being named
• Emergency availability explicitly stated in writing
• A track record of financial reports approved without significant disputes

A transparent quote as a conversion tool

Many owners meetings reject a candidate not because of the price itself, but because the quote is unclear about what the base fee includes and what is billed separately. An effective quote clearly separates the ordinary management fee from ancillary items: extraordinary meetings beyond a set annual number, insurance claim handling, cadastral filings, and debt recovery from owners in arrears.

Putting in writing the proposed contract duration, the termination terms, and the expected response time to owners' requests reduces questions during the meeting and signals that there are no hidden costs. A quote with ambiguous line items breeds distrust even when the total figure is competitive.

References and testimonials: what to ask for and how to present them

A useful reference is not a generic phrase but a checkable one: the building's name (with consent from the manager or the owners' council providing it), the approximate number of units managed, and a contact who is willing to confirm the experience by phone. Owners meetings give far more weight to a verifiable reference than to a list of names with no contact information.

It also helps to bring concrete examples of problems solved: an overdue balance recovered through an installment plan, an urgent repair handled outside normal hours, savings achieved by renegotiating a maintenance contract. These concrete cases carry more weight than generic claims of professionalism and availability.

Management software as a competitive edge in the owners meeting

More and more buildings ask, already at the quoting stage, how accounting, document access, and communications will be handled. A manager who can show, during the meeting, a financial report the owners can view online, with expense allocation calculated on the correct ownership shares and payment history always visible, answers in advance a question that would otherwise be raised with suspicion.

Software such as AmministraPro allows the owners' council to review the draft quote, prior years' financial reports if available digitally, and up to date payment status, without producing an ad hoc paper document every time. During negotiations this translates into a concrete advantage: the building sees, before signing, exactly how things will be run after signing, reducing the uncertainty that often stalls the meeting's decision.

Mistakes to avoid when acquiring new contracts

Aggressively undercutting the fee without explaining what is excluded is the most common mistake: it produces an unstable contract that the owners meeting revisits within months once undisclosed ancillary costs surface. Just as risky is promising response times or availability that cannot actually be sustained: one poorly handled emergency can undo months of reputation building.

It is also worth avoiding showing up without a written proposal for how routine communication with owners will work: before signing, the meeting wants to know whether they will be able to check the financial report independently, or whether they will have to request it every time by email or phone.

Frequently asked questions