128 | How the Right Bank Can Save HOAs Time, Money & Headaches - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gavin Nelson (00:00):
You have associations that are self

(00:02):
managed, in the sense of, youhave a typical officer
structure. You got yourpresident, treasurer secretary,
and then you have associationsthat actually deal with the
software companies, and theydeal with a property management
company and will help themstreamline their operations, as
well as make things a lotsmoother when it comes to
keeping track of associationexpenses or association related

Announcer (00:24):
HOA Insights is brought to you by six companies
events.
that care about board members,Association Insights &
marketplace, AssociationReserves, Community Financials,
Kevin Davis Insurance Services,HOA Invest and The Inspectors of
Election, you'll find links totheir website and social media
in the show notes,

Robert Nordlund (00:41):
Welcome back to HOA Insights
Common Areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode 128 with my neighborfrom the CAI national trade show
earlier this year, Gavin Nelsonfrom Merchants Bank. Gavin is on
over 20 years of experience inbanking and finance with
different banks and in differentroles, and we have him here with

(01:02):
us today, because managing anAssociation's money is a
critical function for boardmembers. Now I'm not just
talking about planning, and inmy world, that means budgeting
enough income to offset yourexpenses, but collecting and
actually managing theassociation's money. Last week's
episode 127 was anotherconversation with regular co
host Julie adaman on managementand people and culture and

(01:25):
community association boards andtheir intersection between being
a great board and having a greatassociation. So don't miss that
one. What you do, how you do itas a board, significantly
influences the function andculture of your association, if
you missed that episode or anyother prior episode, take a
moment after today's program tolisten from our podcast website,

(01:48):
Hoa insights.org or watch on ourYouTube channel, but better yet,
subscribe from any of the majorpodcast platforms so you don't
miss any future episodes. Well,those of you watching on YouTube
can see the HOA insights mugthat I have here get rid of the
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(02:08):
got from our merch store, whichyou can browse through from our
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we have some great free stuffthere, like board member zoom
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go to the merch store, lookaround, download a free zoom
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(02:30):
email me at podcast at reservestudy.com with your name,
shipping address, and mugchoice, mentioning episode 128,
mug giveaway, and if you're the10th person to email me, I'll
ship that mug to you free ofcharge. We enjoy hearing from
you responding to the issues youare facing at your association.
So if you have a hot topic, acrazy story, or a question you'd

(02:53):
like us to address, you cancontact us at 805-203-3130, or
email us atpodcast@reservesafe.com this
episode was prompted by Sandyfrom San Francisco, who asked,
I'm new to the board of oursmall, older Association. We
have a checking account from theprior board, likely at the same

(03:15):
bank used by a board member. Isthis normal? Can we should we be
looking for something better?
And Gavin, it's emails like thisthat made me want to get a
banker on the program. And soGavin, welcome to the program.
And how would you respond toSandy?

Robert, thank you so much for having me pleasure
to be here. Honestly, I wouldsimply say, you know, first of
all, Sandy, congratulations ondrawing your joining your board,
being put on your board, gettinga chance to serve a community,
is an amazing experience.
Secondly, I mean, at the end ofthe day being a new member,
she's going to want to take alook at what they currently
have. She mentioned the accountin itself, and maybe being at a
bank with a current boardmember, that's not out of the

(03:54):
norm. That's very possible, justbecause people tend to want to
do business where they currentlydo business comfortably. So if
that's a bank they usepersonally, it's be a no
brainer. Well, my bank treats megreat personally, so my
association account should bethere as well. So that could
have came on the recommendationof that board member. But
secondly, you know, she talkedabout, if she asked, you know,
if, if, if, if there's any issuewith that or should be doing,

(04:18):
she'd be doing anything else, Iwould say, just like anything
else you want to do, kind of acheckup or a check in, you know,
take a look at what they whatthey currently have in this
association, and then don't beopposed to looking outside of
different products and servicesthat other banks may have, that
offer, that have to offer. It'sjust like anything else, yeah,

what does that begin to look like we want to
encourage our boards to not justgo with what has been done
before, but improve the boardprotocols, improve the board
standards, improve the board'scommunication, improve the
board's banking. So what doesbetter look like?

Gotcha got and that's that's a great question.
So I think one of the biggest.
Uh, the disconnect. Sometimesit's just the, let's say, the
infusion of technology updatingit. We know with a bank that
maybe has some current featuresof software that they use to
make that things easier, makelife easier for that
association. And also justsometimes, comparing banks, some
bank, one bank, can do as kindof limited on what they can
offer, as far as their productsand services. And some banks

(05:18):
have a plethora of products andservices that they offer that
can fit the niche of the HOAspace or the HOA homeowner
association space. They onlywould know that through doing a
little due diligence to kind ofsee what's out there. There's a
lot of banks that are in thespace. It's just a matter of
doing a little bit research tofind out what's out there.

Well, attempt to me if, if I'm a person and I
have, I have my family money atWells Fargo, that's our checking
account. Got my debit card in mywallet somewhere. How is the
world of community associationbanking different? Where do you
start? You said, make lifeeasier. And I'm sure our board

(05:58):
member audience heard thatphrase, and they're like, get to
the point. Gavin, what do youmean? Make my life easier? How
can you make How can you makesomeone's life easier?

Absolutely, a couple different ways. One I
mentioned, technology be a keycomponent. Having a bank system
that offers the ability for realtime processing, whether that's
payment processing or justviewing your statements as an
association or collecting whatthey call, you know, a bulk
statement, to kind ofconsolidate their monthly
monthly statements. That alsocomes down to the bank you work

(06:29):
with the structure some banksare highly in tune to the
homeowner association space whenit comes to how they service,
meaning they have dedicatedbankers that can be assigned to
that age that association, andkind of give them that, that one
on one service, that little bitmore time and attention. And
then there's some banks thatthat have a lot of automated
systems, even some that have aIintegration, where there's a lot

(06:52):
more automation. And so as aconsumer or as an HOA board
member, you're going to be ableto go look at things on your own
and kind of be self sufficientand not necessarily have to deal
or want to have a handholdexperience if you don't want to.
But different banks offerdifferent things. Some do things
better than anything else Iwould, I would equate it to be,
you know, a little bit ofpreference. But also some banks

(07:12):
cannot perform other ones. Imean, there's a bank on every
corner, and a lot of banks dovery similar services. What
typically sets institutionsapart are the people that work
there, the supporting cast andsupporting systems in place to
make it a more efficientexperience, as well as to make
it a more productive experience,meaning what's in it for the
client at the end of the day,those are kind of things that

(07:33):
are outliers that set it apart.
So that's why a client couldsay, I love my bank, and I know
I love my bank for thesespecific reasons and how they
treated me. And you could betalking with a peer and have a
they can have a completelydifferent experience based on
their banking experience,despite the fact that they're
with a bank. Those are kind ofsome of the different, different
features that you kind of see incomparison, if you're

comparing, okay, well, let's, let's
presume, okay, we got Sandyhere. She's a new board member,
and let's say that she's there.
They said, Hey, Sandy, how aboutyou be treasurer? And she said,
Okay, and so now she's got this,and let's say the last person
was Joe, and Joe loved his andlet's say corner bank, and he,
he liked the way they servedhim. They Hello Joe, and you

(08:15):
know, they welcomed him, and he,you know that that's a nice
thing, but sure if, if Joe iswalking in a couple times a week
with checks, that seems like alot of time and energy. So are
you talking about a bank thatwould actually receive the
checks and deposit the checks?
Talk to me about making lifeeasier. Got it. Got it, that

(08:37):
that kind of stuff. Is that whatcommunity association banks can

do, yes, yes. So great contrast. So you've got a
client that has thecomfortability of bringing
checks to the actual bank, andthat may work for them, but that
also has risks that are attachedto that, that also has an extra
task that's involved thephysically getting those checks
to deposit. You haveinstitutions that will offer,
you know, check scanners thatare available to the client to
be able to just be at theiroffice, their HOA office, or

(09:01):
their property managementoffice, checks, you got it right
from the comfort of their ownhome or their own office, and
that goes right into the banksystem, and they're processed in
like a physical deposit thatthey would bring in. So that's
something that's a perfectexample of something that means
that would save, you know, time,money, energy resources, to be
able to do that. You know, ifyou're collecting, usually the

(09:22):
association could be, let's say,150 to 300 homes, or condos or
townhouses, or however, thestructure is that's a lot of
payments. Some payments aregoing to come electronically.
Some are going to come in aphysical check form, depending
on the client's preference.
That's a specific feature youjust mentioned, of something
that would make the life easierfor for an association if they
wanted to go from checkdepositing to just check

(09:42):
scanning of this, that alonewould save the time, energy and
money, yeah.

Well, let's take a third step. So let's say
Joe was getting checks, whetherhe walked around and again, I
think Sandy said, this is asmall place, so let's say, you
know, 10 years. It's so maybe hewalked around, or maybe they put
the checks under his doormat, orsomething like that. So not too
much. But there's a lot ofpeople now that don't write

(10:08):
checks. And we, in our family,we don't go through checks like
we used to. Most everything isautomatic. So community
association banks that say, Hey,we can do you can bring checks
in. We can take credit cardpayments we can take was it
electronic funds, automaticthings like that? Deb,
absolutely, is that anotherfeature so Sandy can be the

(10:31):
absolute hero by announcing atthe next board meeting that,
hey, if any of you want to payby credit card and get points or
debit card or whatever, we cando that beginning next month,
exactly. So that sounds to melike she's a hero.

Agreed, agree. And that's a great segmentation to
the electronic features of whatyou can do as well. Like I said,
depending on the bank'scapability, you can do that in
two phases. One is a simple,just Remote Deposit, whether you
just want to take a picture ofthat item and send it in
directly. But even more so, alot of the banks now offer the
ability for that, for thatclient to simply just send those
checks in. They can do it on aon a generalized system where

(11:09):
it's scanned in, like Imentioned before, and then that
person in the office just simplyprocesses that if they want to
do a payment, this softwarethat's actually integrated as
what I've especially over thelast few months, have done a lot
of research on the softwareintegration piece. And so
there's multiple softwareintegration that work alongside
with the banks. And so they setup a structure where you want to
make a payment for Hoa, youdon't have to write a check. You

(11:32):
simply go on their portal make apayment, and it's all
electronically processed, andeverything is available in that
same portal for the client. Sothat that would make Sandy a
hero. That's a leap and bouncegrowth from going from
physically walking checks in to,let's say, scanning checks, and
then getting past scanningchecks. And said, we're going to
use the portal and integratesome software and just make our
payments right directly to ourto our our HOA company in our

(11:55):
bank.

So my brain is spinning. How Sandy is bringing
her association into the future.
Okay, so that's good. So she isgone from in her little
Association. Or Gavin, like yousaid, it could be 100 unit
association where they'reslipping checks under the
treasurer's mat or whatever. Nowthey can Sandy can perhaps skip

(12:18):
going to the bank. She's got hercheck scanner, zip, zip. Or she
can route, tell people that sendtheir checks directly to the
bank. Or they can pay with acredit card with this protocol,
pay electronically with thisprotocol. Boy, okay, that's all
deposit side. And I imagine thebank like you say, we'll have

(12:39):
the software to say, I gotchecks from these people on
these dates, and so you knowwho's current and who's late,
and so on the 10th of the month,you can draw the line and say,
who's in and who's out. Okay?
And then you were tempting mealso with payment type stuff. So
instead of Sandy writing checks,there's integration software

(13:00):
integration with whateverthey're using. It could go
anything from something generic,like QuickBooks, I would
imagine, to CommunityAssociation, industry specific.
And I'm thinking that the CAItrade show how many software
programs were there, but exactlyHOA management software that has
integration. And that would beso cool to just, I'm closing my

(13:25):
eyes, because Sandy can closeher eyes. And the checks go with
the bank, the transfers go tothe bank. The deposits happen on
the 10th. Got it. She looks andsees or the 15th, or whatever it
is, she looks and sees who's in,who's out, and she has a
wonderful association. So all 10checks came in, right? And then
she says, Okay, I'll pay thebills. And she looks and she can

(13:46):
just type in pay, ABC, electric,pay XYZ, water, the insurance
bill. So pay element, opinsurance. And just right there,
click, click, click, click, andshe hits enter or I what I
certify I am indeed, Sandy Smithof Hoa, and the bank pays those

(14:09):
people, and Sandy has not gottena check. She has not touched a
check. Cool. Okay, that is aworld of difference from Joe.
Nice Joe, and he's been doingthat for what, eight or 10
years. Who likes the people atthe bank? He stops by the bank
on his way to coffee or the golfdriving range or whatever it is.

(14:30):
I'm stereotyping terribly. Butwe have, we have a well, that's
it. We have a world ofdifference. And we want our
audience to be aware of what'sout there, what can make their
life easier, and it's so easyjust to do things the way you've
done them before. Okay, if inSandy's position and her brain

(14:54):
is spinning because she'slistening to this program and
saying, what you can save megoing to the bank once a week.
Work and ordering checks and allthat kind of stuff. Is this a
one month transition, or is thisa six month transition once
she's identified a bank, likemerchants, bank that just does
this? I

mean, I would say you want to give yourself rule
of thumb as you give yourself 30days to make a transition,
especially going from, let's sayyou're going from one bank to
another bank, for instance, oryou're or you're upgrading from,
from Joe's, doing the physicallabor or bringing the checks
into going to software andenhancements. You want to give
yourself 30 days. But as far asthe banks, the banks can have a
pretty fast turnaround. Imaginethe software integration being

(15:34):
just that bridge in between,where everything in between that
would typically cause, you know,labor on the board or on the H,
on the association. Now thatthat integration is the is the
middleman between them and thebank. And so what that offers
you got it, what that is, allthat like, it just happens a lot
smoother there and then. Now,that HOA member, that you know,

(15:55):
that treasure, that treasurer,President, whoever's doing the
processing, they deal directlywith the soft through the
software to look at everything,to transact everything in it,
and then they that software thencommunicates with the bank.
That's kind of how that works.
There is one element that youadd to that loop, you know,
because you have associationsthat are self managed, in the
sense of, you have a typicalofficer structure, you got your
president, treasurer, secretary,and they, they can directly deal

(16:18):
with the banks. And then youhave associations that actually
deal with the softwarecompanies, and they deal with a
property management company,which is where that association
says, You know what, we don'twant to do a lot of the
compliance. We don't want to doa lot of the legal stuff that we
have to typically do year in andyear out. Let's go and have a
company help us streamline this.

(16:38):
And typically it's a propertymanager that will come and play
and will help them streamlinetheir operations, as well as
make things a lot smoother whenit comes to keeping track of
association expenses orassociation related events, it's
not just necessarily just theassociation payment that could
be everything from repairs thatcould be Maintaining and the

(16:59):
processing of vendors that couldbe replacing something, let's
say, for a storm damage, andthere's or maybe just a
community upgrade or overhaulfor the community that could be
an upgrade in the amenities, allthat is facilitated help through
the software, and then also aproperty management company that
could be a part of that. Sothere's a couple of different
layers of how it could go, buteach Association has the ability

(17:21):
to act independently or gothrough a property management
company if they see fit to dothat. That's what I've kind of
seen trending of recent, yearsago. And in the association
space, I would see a lot ofindependent, you know, board
members and or officers thatwould come to the bank together,
physically, and then we'd openan account. We would set up
their accounts, however, theirpreferred way was and then do

(17:42):
their transactions from thereand treat that account, just
like a business account, likeanything else. Recent update is
property management companiesactually are able to work
alongside those associations andhelp them manage and facilitate
that. And the propertymanagement company sets up that
relationship with the bank.
There's some nice added piecesthere to help it, help the
boards run a list a lotsmoother, as well as to add
value and streamline what theycurrently do.

Okay, I'm writing a couple of things down
time savings and transparency,and

if I could add anything, Rob something I didn't
mention that, that I should havementioned from the top, because
it's a very pivotal point.
There's a difference in whatinstitutions can offer from a
rate standpoint as well. A bigpart of the association space is
returns on their money.
Traditionally, you have youroperating account, that's
transactional, and then you havereserve account, a reserve

(18:32):
account, or multiple reserveaccounts, depending on how many
associations they are, and thena good return of interest is
great on the reserve accounts,because those monies are
typically used for, like I said,like I mentioned earlier,
updates and enhancements to thecommunity amenity upgrades, just
simple storm repairs, justwhatever the community needs.
And also, predominantly, Ithink, all age associations or

(18:54):
or whether it's a condo ortownhouse or just a co ops, they
typically have to have, it'smandated that they have to have
reserves in place to covercertain things about the
community, specifically that aregoing to be needs. And so why
not have that money earn a greatrate of return, if you can. But
of course, that's going to varydepending on where you bank.
That's an important

factor as well.
Gavin, with my background, ofcourse I was going to get to
reserves, and so I love that theconversation has gone this
direction, but I want to gofurther down this path, but
that's a wonderful segue, butlet's take a quick break now to
hear from one of our generoussponsors, after which we'll be
back with more common sense forcommon areas.

Kevin Davis (19:32):
Hi, I'm Kevin Davis, the president of Kevin
Davis Insurance Services. Ourexperienced team of underwriters
will help you when you get thatdeclination, we provide the
voice of reason, someone whowill stand by you. Our
underwriters bring years ofknowledge to our clients that
can't be automated by technologyor driven by price. As a proud
and women's company, we bringtrue value to your community

(19:55):
association clients. We are yourcommunity association insurance

experts. Yes, and we're back. Well, just
before the break, Gavin startedtalking about reserves, and my
eyes started to light up. Onething I like to tell my clients
when they are talking aboutreserve interest is that every
dollar they get from a bank likeMerchants Bank is one less
dollar that they have to put into get that new roof. And I just
love hearing a bank that hascompetitive market rates. So

(20:23):
Gavin, people will listen tothis program live. They'll
listen to it in arrears. But aswe're recording what kind of
market rates are, is MerchantsBank offering at this time for
reserves on deposit savingsaccounts?

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you, Robert,
you know, merchants, bank is Ihave to say that, not just
because I work for the company.
Of course, everybody will sayI'm biased, but the reality is
that we are an amazing bank whenit comes to interest. It's
simply what we've done forquite, quite some time. For
example, right now, in the ratemarket that we're in, which if
you check just the Fed rates, oryou just check just bank rates

(20:59):
across the country, we're goingto be the top number for those.
As far as production on what wecan offer our clients right now,
you know, just for a moneymarket account, a liquid
account, for a client to be ableto put high yield money into,
we're paying four and a quarterpercent. That's an out. That's
an outlier in the industry, andwe paid that rate for some time.
And we also have, we have agreat offering for CDs, and we

(21:20):
just have a great system that'sbuilt for gathering deposits
outside of the associationspace. I will say there's this,
like I mentioned, is there's alot of banks that have different
offerings, but you're only goingto find out what those offerings
are when you do a little duediligence, and that's what it
comes down to. Some people woulderr on the side of
comfortability. You know,they'll stay where they are just

(21:42):
based on it's what they'vealways done, and they don't
necessarily do that research.
But I wouldn't implore any boardmember, any association or
property management company todo a little homework, and I know
that a lot of them do it. Now,you know where they look for the
best rates, and merchants, bankhappens to have one of the best
ones out there, but there arethe banks that have great rates
as well. So if you looking forlike you said that for every

(22:03):
dollar you put in like youmentioned Robert, it's super
important because reservesspecifically, yes, they're
mandated to be kept. But there'sa reason for that. If there's a
shortfall with reserve balances,typically that falls back on the
community members to find thatthose funds, and there's a
variety of ways that those fundshave to be raised. Now, imagine
having an account where you'vegot $500,000 in that account and

(22:24):
it's making 4% well, thatadditional interest just goes
towards the pot to be able tomake those things happen in the
future. It was a shortfall. I'drather more money in your pocket
than the banks, honestly. Andthe bank, our bank believes in
giving that the highestpercentage back to our clients,
yeah.

Well, again, this is wonderful. We talked
about time savings. We talkedback and forth about that. We
talked about transparency, andyou added the management company
element to that, that instead ofthe check book being at one
place, all of a sudden, you havethe software. That's the
accounting software, and so thetreasurer can check, the manager

(23:00):
can check, the president cancheck, everyone can maybe print
their own summary for theupcoming board meeting, those
kinds of things. Transparency isgreat. And then you've added the
other element of savings, so youhave the bank literally acting
as a partner, giving theassociation money. And that boy
that warms my soul, because howhard it is to collect reserves,

(23:23):
sufficient reserves foreverything that's coming up.
Now, talk to me a moment aboutthe $250,000 FDIC limit. What's
What do board members need toknow about

that? Sure, so your typical threshold for most
banks is going to be $250,000 asa minimum for FDIC coverage, I
would employ everybody. If you,if you go to, you know, you want
to go to merchants, bank,merchants.com, our website and
decide and check it out. We dohave a FDIC calculator that's
available there. But also, ifyou logged in and looked at the
actual FDIC website, there is acalculator on there as well

(23:57):
where you can actually put inyour specific numbers that's
specific to your association,and you can kind of see what
your coverages are. I know a lotof a lot of banks have this
tool, but we have it as well atmerchants, which is a
relationship with intro pHfIo,which is a company that offers a
cash service, which is like acash sweep account, which allows
a client to have over $250,000with us and have that money

(24:20):
still be completely covered bythe FDIC. So that's something
that we have the majority ofassociations, to be honest with
you, at reserves have highbalances. You can look at a
minimum of, let's say, 250 andthen you could go as high as
couple million dollars. And soit's super imperative that those
funds are typically coveredunder FDIC just for just for
security. Peace of mind by thatassociation. It's in the best

(24:42):
interest of the association andthe property management
companies act accordingly. Theywant to make sure those funds
are covered as well. So that'ssomething that merchants offers,
but I know other banks offers itas well.

Yeah. Well, I like seeing our clients have
their well. Board members arefiduciaries, and so they need to
hear about. The safety of theassets that they're holding for
other people. So I like myclients with less than $250,000
knowing that it's FDI insured.
And I like knowing that you'vegot a bridge so that when their

(25:12):
reserves grow, you know they'repreparing for a roof project. As
their reserves grow from 200 to250 to 300 to 350 over the
course of a few years,merchants, bank and I imagine
you're competing. Yourcompetitors also have bridges so
that it's not like everythingthey have is uninsured. But I

(25:34):
want to encourage our listenersto make sure that wherever your
funds are if you have them in alocal bank, your savings bank,
you may want to double check tomake sure everything above 250
is indeed FDIC, FDIC insured. Soyou got it right? Robert, okay,
so you've got that we talkedabout the roof project. What if

(25:57):
you have a $500,000 roof projectand you've only got $250,000 in
$1,000 in reserves, that's aproblem. There are banks that do
lending. Does is Merchants Bank,one of those community
association banks that canmanage a loan to an association.

Absolutely. There they are. There are banks, I
have lending services that areavailable for associations.
Typically, if there's ashortfall, it's in reserves, or
there's a project asked to getdone. It's usually planned out
for, you know, so that gives theassociation a little bit of time
to acquire the additional funds,whether they raise them, you
know, via an assessment to theactual community owners, or they
go to a bank, a financialinstitution, like merchants or

(26:35):
anybody else, and request a loanproduct that they can take
advantage of that will bridgethat gap. Okay, it can be done a
variety of different ways,whether it's through some type
of line of credit, or it's doneas just a straightforward loan
that's kind of specific to theneed. And when I say that is,
the loans that an associationwill need are a lot different
than a loan that you know anindividual would need, or just a

(26:57):
business would need. They'restructured a little bit
differently, and so they thereare case by case basis. There's
a lot of factors that go intothat, but the reality is that
you want to be at a bank, thatyou want to not be afraid to ask
that question, and have someoneactually able to work with you
hand in hand, and that's a bigdisconnect, I think, as my
research has found in the lastnumerous months. You know,
there's some institutions thatyou call and you can't you may

(27:19):
not necessarily be able to havesomeone walk you through that
process? Yeah, they just don'tdo it. They are. They just don't
do it. And you have someinstitutions where you've got a
rep that will take care of youand literally walk you from
beginning to end to make sureyou get the resolution that you
need, or at least point you inthe right direction. That's a
little piece that setsinstitutions apart as well. So
that's something that you canget from different banks, but
also our

merchants.
Yeah, that would be a niceadditional question to ask on
your interview checklist, asyou're looking at potentially a
new bank, I like the idea thatSandy, again, in our person who
launched this entire episode,she could wonder, or as she's
the treasurer for a year or so,she knows, okay, our
delinquencies are low. You'veseen our deposits, and basically

(28:01):
she's built the reputation ofthe association in the eyes of
the bank. And the banker says,oh, yeah, Sandy, I know your
association. I can look at yournumbers here. And yes, with your
low delinquencies, with anupcoming roof project, I see how
much reserves you have. Boy, Iwould imagine that could be a
really easy process if you havethe right bank on your

side. That's actually probably one of the
biggest fundamental differenceswith being that I've been in the
industry for a long time, andthen when I say industry, I say
financial services, notnecessarily super long time in
the H and association space. Iwill get to that, sure, sure.
But nevertheless, I have theexperience and I have the the
longevity in the industry, tokind of see the difference,

(28:45):
especially between institutions.
You know, you have someinstitutions that are just a
bigger old machine. They havecertain sectors that that bank
flourishes in, and they stay inthose lanes. And then you've
had, then I've come to find youhave Association banks that
literally have hold departmentsthat are segmented just for
associations. And so there'sgoing to be a big difference
between the level of service andattention and detail and
specified instruction thatyou're going to get from a

(29:08):
institution that's gearedtowards, hey, you know, how we
service associations, and aninstitution that's a that's a
well known machine that has, youknow, a ton of business lending,
Commercial Investmentsdepartment and segmentation,
that there's, there's going tobe a difference there, but
that's up to that association,or property management company,
to kind of find the best fit forthem. So I can't, I can't
emphasize enough how much yourdue diligence is reliant on

(29:30):
that, that extra work of doingthat to look for the right fit
for you as an association,

I bet. Well, um, okay, Sandy got into this
probably because she went to aboard meeting. She asked some
good questions, and Joe and theRest of the board said, Hey,
Sandy would be a good boardmember. And they asked her, and
she said, What the heck. And soshe ran and she became a board
member. What got you into thiscrazy community, association,

(29:59):
industry?

You know, it's funny. You described it as crazy
coming from the private bankspace and the and the commercial
bank space. You know, a big partof what I've done for a long
time is is work with clients andbuild relationships organically
from start to finish, or takecare of manager, book a
business, or just kind of bethat face in getting out and
meeting and connecting withclients on their on turn, on

(30:22):
their turf, not necessarilyrelying on them to come in the
bank. So I'm used to going andout and get business and, you
know, building relationships,and watch it turn into from
nothing to multi million, ourrelationship and finding what
the client needs and renovate,remedying that. And then I'm in
a space now where associationsare so different, in the sense
of, you've got to find out.
You've got to find an in, youknow, to a point of contact is

(30:42):
whether it's a property manageror it's a board member, you've
got to find the decision maker,which sometimes can be a little
challenging, right? But also,the needs are so different a
majority, I wouldn't when I sayneeds are different, it doesn't
necessarily mean more complex.
It just means that the needs aredifferent. You know, where in
the past, have offered, let'ssay, private banking experience.

(31:03):
And you know, you get a certainlevel experience, you have a
certain balances for for my anHOA, President or Secretary, or
even a property managementcompany, they may say, Listen,
we just want to have a greatpartner bank, a great
relationship. Pick up the phonewhen we call, and have systems
in place that will help us makethis easier and even more so,
add a good interest rate, if youcan give me that cherry on top

(31:24):
to make it make sense for why Iwant to do business with you,
that's another reason why Idecided to make the change,
believe it or not, being inbanking for a while, and
probably most bankers,especially tenured ones out
there, would empathize withthis. But you kind of it gets a
little mundane. Sometimes it canbe, it can be kind of just
status quo. I'm just being real.

There's always something new and crazy around
the corner in the communityassociation,

sure, for sure.
And then, you know, Jordan, thisspace, what I love is
specifically, you know, mycompany merchants. The challenge
was, I'm in Florida. I'mactually based out of Tampa, and
my company is looking, my bankis looking to expand and build
in the HOA space here in thestate of Florida. And so it was
a unique opportunity for me tobe kind of the face, and be able
to promote and start with mycircle of influence and impact

(32:10):
here in Tampa, and then spreadthat across the state of Florida
and see what impact we could,you know, what penetration we
could get in the in the market.
So it's been, it's been anadventure. It's had its
challenges. I'm enjoying everyminute of it, and I will say
that I love the upside of it,because as I talk to different
property managers and boardmembers there, there is an

(32:31):
opportunity to help, whetherit's rate wise, or just
partnering with them and havingthem tell me, hey, you know,
it's, it's been a while since wegot, actually, got to, actually
got a hold of somebody we couldeven talk and just just bounce
things off of a banker. So thatgives me hope that, you know,
merchants, bank and add, wasgoing to be able to add a lot of
value in this, in thesegmentation as I move out in
Florida. And that's, that'swhat's kind of brought me here,

(32:51):
and I think that's what's goingto keep me here. Not to mention
my bank is an amazing bank towork for. It shameless plug, but
it is what it is. I love workinghere, and I don't see myself, to
be honest. So this is it for me,

hopefully Cool.
Well, you're taking your timeout of your work day to join us
on the program here. But again,some more thoughts are
triggering in my mind. And youtalked about service, it seems
like that just beats within yourheart. And again, I'm thinking
about Sandy, who has made thispitch that you all used to bring
in checks, and now we can doelectronic payment and credit
cards and all this kind ofstuff. But she has Fred in unit

(33:25):
number six, who just can't getit figured out. And I bet at a
bank like you work at, likeMerchants Bank, they can contact
their banker and say, Hey, canyou talk to Fred? Fred can't get
his credit card, his 354, $50 amonth to work. And that service,
even in all the technologyyou're dealing with, it still

(33:49):
comes down to the humanrelationship and the service.
Damn it, a lot we've talkedabout, there is much more that
we could I'd love to talk moreabout signature cards, more on
the lending, more aboutdeposits, more about the
service, the technology, theintegration, that kind of stuff.

(34:09):
So we may have Gavin back foranother episode in the future,
but Gavin, love that you talkedabout your smile and the
service, and indeed, it was yoursmile setting up at the CAI
trade show. And where's ourbooth, who's and then there's
this guy next to us with his bigsmile. And I said, I'm gonna
like this guy. So anyway, that'swhy Gavin's on the program. He

(34:31):
brings a great deal ofexperience. So Gavin, thank you.
Thank you. Emerges bank forgiving him time during the work
day to speak with us. It wasgreat talking to you and having
you on the program. Any closingthoughts to add at this time?

Man, Thank you, Robert, for the opportunity.
It's been an absolute pleasureto be here. I'm very big on just
trying to connect in thisindustry as much as I can. So
that goes for all the propertymanagers that are listening, as
well as all the board membersand officers my bank is looking
to. Really spread our wings andmake a move in this sector of
being able to offer moreservices and be able to work

(35:06):
with associations and propertymanagement, targeting,
initially, the reserve space ofoffering you a great rate of
return, to be honest, and we'regoing to see what we can do to
bring your relationships in andadd value there, as far as a
great rate of return, andeventually down the future,
we're looking at maybe, maybeoperating, maybe something we'll
consider, but we're in a goodposition, and we're excited
about the opportunity. Myresponsibility is mainly to do

(35:27):
that in Florida, but we do havea footprint that covers all 50
states, and we have an amazingback team. So back, back, back,
support of our operations team,so we can do anything with
anybody in any state. So feelfree to reach out to me. You can
reach out to me on my my directnumber, or just actually go to
our website, which is WW dotbank merchants.com you can find
me on our on our search enginesthere as well as you can email

(35:50):
direct, directly at G Nelson atBank merchants.com so just
really excited for theopportunity, and I hope to be
able to stay in contact withyou, Robert. And then, of
course, any listeners I'd loveto connect with you, feel free
to reach out. I

hope you're not overwhelmed with emails. But
again, if you'd like to, okay,if you'd like to get in touch
with Gavin or learn more aboutburdens, bank again, let me say
it again, their website, it'sbank merchants, M, E R C H, a n,
b, a n, k, M, E, R, C, H, A, N,T, s.com, and Gavin is G Nelson

(36:24):
at Bank merchants.com, well, Ihope be kind. Don't Don't
everyone. Email them today ortomorrow. Spread it out. We hope
that you learn some HOA insightsfrom our discussion today that
helps you bringS common sense toyour common areas. Look forward
to having you join us foranother great episode next
week,s

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(37:31):
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128 | How the Right Bank Can Save HOAs Time, Money & Headaches

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}128 | How the Right Bank Can Save HOAs Time, Money & Headaches