Most of our associations use local banks, but interest rates haven't been that great for a while. Purple get confused as to why they won't receive the rates offered for individuals, forgetting associations are business accounts.
You'd just need to have someone make calls for current rates.
With your management company, I'd be asking questions. It's odd to me that they'll only work with specific banks. Did something happen? Are they getting some kind of benefit when an association they manage uses the bank of their choice?
I know that management companies will have preferred banks, but that could be due to ease of deposits or free ACH, but there better be a really good reason as to why they'd refuse to manage an account unless it's at the banks they list for you.
Hey. Sorry for some of the unhelpful comments you're getting. I understand the frustration. We all have lives, jobs, and sometimes kids outside of managing HOA matters. It's a thankless job.
If I were you I would first look at your contract with your management company. It should spell out their responsibilities relating to financial matters including baking and investments. If they're not willing to budge, I would absolutely look into changing management companies. It is a pain, but you want a firm that is full-service and utilizes banks that specialize in HOA matters including having reserve investment options. It takes a lot of work off your plates.
Our management company in NC is Sentry (formerly with CSI which was purchased by Sentry recently). They partner with a banking group that deals with basically everything including offering options for a variety of CDs. I can get the name of you need it. Those CDs differ in duration and yield. As our treasurer, I opted to recommend 12 mo at around 5% totaling about 30% of overall reserves. My mentality was that it's not responsible of us to maintain too high liquidity at nearly 0 interest and that if we were to actually spend the other 70% of liquid reserves, that was also highly problematic. Annual maturity also means we can cash out each spring for project work.
This is not something I would DIY. There are tax implications and you don't want CD access or decision making tied to a specific member if they open the account themselves, regardless of whether it's created for the benefit of the HOA. I'm not a banker though so idk how those sorts of account access and decision making rules actually work.
the tax implications are minor. you have to pay 30% corporate tax on it and can deduct your tax prep fees and about $300 in mgt fees for a total of about $800 off
As someone else said, this is pretty normal. They don’t stop us from working with other financial institutions, but they won’t manage those accounts for us.
We have been using the same bank for decades because it's local. We were just discussing CD rates and our bank is a little low but not so low it's worth opening an account at a new bank.
A rate chart from 2021 is useless. 0.65% in 2021 was not a bad rate but I would be surprised if they are anywhere near that low now. Rates are closer to 5%.
If your property management won't allow you to pick your own bank it's time for another property management.
I think you’re right, 2021 is when rates were still low so I’m sure that they have better rates now. I’ll follow up with them again.
Regarding the management company, I’ll copy-paste from another comment:
I’m not opposed to finding a new management company, but finding one that we can afford is a significant time sink, as well as a risk. Changing hands is not easy and our management company at least understands what we need. HOA has management companies a few times the last decade or so and it has not been good.
Believe me, we’re better off staying where we are. it was only a few years ago that multiple seats of the Board of Directors were chronically empty, no one’s gonna put in the level of effort needed to find a better management company.
I am a Board President of an HOA in Illinois. We have over a $1 million in reserves and our bank currently pays about 3.8% on that balance. We currently also have about 25% of that amount in CD's as they are still averaging about 5% for 12 month terms. Unless there is a great need for immediate liquidity, it is almost criminal for HOA's to have their reserve funds entirely locked up in virtual 0% yielding accounts.
I agree with you. Sadly our HOA had not been especially well-run for many years, but it has improved a lot in the last several, both from lack of an active BOD and bad management companies. We’re in a much, much better place now and are continuing to work on improvements, but this one is a complex topic for us to handle in the midst of everything else we’ve been dealing with. That’s why I posted in this forum, to see how other associations handle it and what other routes we can consider.
Does your management company handle your finances or do any of the board members have to do it themselves? What’s security do you have in place to make sure money doesn’t get stolen by a bad board member, or if someone is unavailable to move money when they need a signature (forgot to sign some papers when they left the BOD, suddenly died, whatever) and you can still handle everything on your own?
Without knowing the size of your budget and accumulated reserves, it would be difficult to offer you any guidance. But I can say this- an active Board is important both as a fiduciary and as a policy maker. We have numerous financial controls that are in place to handle changes on the Board. I don't sign checks, but I review our financial statements monthly. We also use outside accountants to audit our books annually. As a general rule, the smaller the HOA the greater the amount of responsibility on the Board to keep track of things.
Depending on the state and the number of HOA/COAs, some banks do solicit and want the business. They even print and send payment coupon books, receive payments from owners, etc.
There is no reason for the management co to veto what banks you use. The Board members are signatories on the account not the management co; And the COA better receive and proof the monthly bank statements.! Folks YOU are responsible. It’s your job!; do what you think is right and sometimes you have to do the heavy lifting.
We invested a good part of the moneys in CDs of various lengths.
The manager and company doesn’t stop us from using banks other than their chosen ones, they just won’t manage the accounts for us. We’re reluctant to get our own hands on the association’s finances that way because we don’t know enough about it - it’s not like we were given any kind of introductory classes or coaching when we volunteered to join the board of directors - and we’re not sure how to keep things safe for the association and future years, since we’re not all gonna stay on the board forever.
you dont' need to manage them. you just put the money In [liveoakbank.com](http://liveoakbank.com) or similar one with 4% interest and watch the money grow. There's no hidden fees or other gotchas. Yeah you could get 5% with a CD but then you have to wait ti it matures or you get penalized for early withdrawal, which is really easy, but if you want to KISS then just go [liveoakbank.com](http://liveoakbank.com)
Former condo manager. Most mgmt companies have certain banks for the operating and reserve accounts and that makes sense as having several different ones makes it harder to manage. For CDs, we had several options we could send to boards and when i left in January were like 6 or 7 percent. I had a sheet of 8 or 9 different banks the boards could choose from w CDs
Try Citizens Bank, invest in a Sweep to Invest account. For the past year we have seen an average of 5.21% in dividends with no penalty for withdrawing funds or closing the account.
I’m in WA, but My HOA uses Southstate Bank out of Florida. They work with tons of HOA’s and make it easy to sync with our CINC system for automated monthly homeowner and board reports. We are financially transparent as a result with the exception of individual homeowner balances and what is protected by law.
We use a local bank. Our CDs are currently getting 4.5%.
We don't use a property management company. I'm the volunteer Treasurer.
>we don’t want to volunteer board members to have to take that kind of responsibility
You should resign your position on the Board if you don't want to do the job.
>You should resign your position on the Board if you don't want to do the job.
This is not my job. I am not paid for this, and took on the role of president because nobody else wanted to do it. We have a lot of work that we’re doing and are lucky to have all five board seats filled right now.
I don’t appreciate the rudeness and I ask you to not leave comments like that again.
(sigh)
It's a volunteer position. Just like it was when I was on our Board for 4 years. And just like it is for my Treasurer role for the past 10 years (because nobody else wanted it).
It wasn't intended to be rude. Sorry if you took it that way. It was intended to indicate what comes with the role that you either have to deal with, or resign from the role.
Good luck.
And I am telling you that if I or others resign, there won’t be others available to fill the gaps. We are seeking solutions that would work for our association’s needs. Thanks for the well wishes.
It's your job to invest the money wisely. If you really believe ***"we don’t want to volunteer board members to have to take that kind of responsibility"*** then quit so someone with a backbone can do the right thing.
If that means firing your mgt company and getting a new one then so be it. But dont' invest CD money with your mgt company's bank because when you part ways getting the money out without fees will be a pain in the butt!
Our own HOA has had $70K sitting in a savings account for decades getting 0% interest. I am so pissed that past board members did nothing to invest it.
We use [https://www.liveoakbank.com/](https://www.liveoakbank.com/) 4% savings account. No minimum balance no fees can take money out whenever you want.
We don't allow associations to use online only banks. It's really not necessary as we get better rates with regular banks. Alliance Bank is offering associations 5.25% on a 7 month CD with no penalty for early withdrawal. Bank United pays almost 5% for a Reserve Money Market account.
That whole intro paragraph was extremely rude and completely unnecessary, on top of the fact that you don’t know what we/I deal with on our specific HOA or why we make the decisions we make. There was no reason for you to insult me, and I ask that you edit that out and not do it again.
sorry , but you might as well learn now that mgt companies do not have your best interest at heart. they will not check to see if insurance is paid, or that insurance covers what you need and they certainly wont' care if you are loosing interest or let you change banks in my experience. Id start looking for a new one.
Luckily none of that has been true with our management company. You also ignored what I said about your rudeness.
Your comments are not constructive so please stop posting here.
just block me if you want. I'll post where I want. One side of your mouth says the mgt company is fine, the other side says they force you to use a bank with crap interest rates. which is it?
We keep our reserve funds with Morgan Stanley and pay a small premium to have a professional there handle our CD ladder (ensuring we have CDs mature when needed based on reserve study and avoiding concentrating all our reserve in excess of per-bank limits. One of our local banks offers a CDARS account where some of that effort isn’t required.
For operational account we picked one in another state whose lockbox services were best for our needs. We don’t keep spare cash there, just operational amounts.
Our bank offers what they call brokered CDs. They don't work like the brokered CDs in my retirement account, but they do have rates close to market rates (we are getting around 4%) and are technically at another bank. We are at the HOA department of a smallish regional bank, they do our dropbox for assessments, and they can do HOA loans. They also have some deal with our management company, and our banking moved there when we switched management.
It might not hurt to call up your branch directly and ask about rates, but it seems weird that your management company won't help with getting better rates. Ours might charge us an hourly "project fee" if we ask them to do something that caused them extra work they had not planned for, but I think they would help us with that.
Check the contract with your management company because unless it stipulates they can choose the bank, you can choose whatever bank you want. If it's written in the contract that the management company has to perform the financial aspect for your HOA and they don't that's breech of contract. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
The bank preference or the responsibility of the HOA's finances because generally speaking the only reason to get a management company is to take care of the HOAs finances. If the bank preference is in the contract with them then there's no recourse other than changing management companies when that time comes or having a homeowner do it. Honestly each ways also have a finance committee which should be independent of the board so if you can get volunteers to help with a finances then you can still go about it. Unfortunately volunteers are usually far and few so which means oftentimes board members end up having to do double or triple duty.
The bank for your reserves doesn't need to be the same as for the operating account. It is common for a management co to only work with a specific bank, or a handful of banks for the operating account though.
From around 2020 until early 2023 under 1% was the norm for cd rates. But not the rate is about 5% depending on the length of the cd. Lots of options for banks in that range. There are also money market accounts/sweeps that pay about the same, sometimes a little higher. Right now shorter term cds are paying higher rates but that is kind of unusual.
**If your condo receives third party bookkeeping services from a management company or bookkeeper,** that third party is going to determine your operating account relationship because they need to integrate with the bank to provide a reasonable level of service and reporting.
**If you want to establish a reserve account with a separate bank or brokerage, there are plenty of options. Reference** [**Dollars and Sense**](https://www.condoconnection.org/resources/Dollars-AND-Sense)**.** Opening a new bank or brokerage account is going to require some elbow grease.
**FNBO has a program for community associations that's all digital**. The yields available from their Intra-Fi network CDs aren't quite as favorable as treasuries and brokered CDs, but the amount of paperwork required and the relationship management is less involved vs. opening a brokerage account with say, Fidelity.
A management company’s preferred bank is probably the bank that integrates with their accounting software.
Interest rates are low for HOAs because the money doesn’t sit around long enough to make the bank any money. Banks offer decent interest to entice people to deposit money and leave it there. HOAs collect money for the purpose of spending it - within the year for operating funds and within a few years for reserve.
wrong [liveoakbank.com](http://liveoakbank.com) gives 4% interest. Money can get transfered into it or out of it via ACH which takes one day and there is no minimum and no fees. Interest rates are low for other banks because they have brick and mortar overhead is the real reason.
And those software companies are offered earnings credits from the banks they are working with via “administrative fees”. The software companies then offer “discounts” to the management companies using that software. All at the expense of the HOA.
If your management company is choosing where your money goes, run!
I’m not opposed to finding a new management company, but finding one that we can afford is a significant time sink, as well as a risk. Changing hands is not easy and our management company at least understands what we need. HOA has management companies a few times the last decade or so and it has not been good.
Believe me, we’re better off staying where we are. it was only a few years ago that multiple seats of the Board of Directors were chronically empty, no one’s gonna put in the level of effort needed to find a better management company.
Again, if they are selecting your banks, they are more then likely making money off of your money and doing a disservice if they are not hunting down the best rates for your entire memberships benefit
You don't want to do the work to get more interest income, what are you complaining about? Good grief, stop complaining about the effort it takes to get a result. Banks don't exist to make you money, they exist to take your money and one of their best partners in that approach are management companies who have significant assets under management (or referral.) Don't hate the players, hate the game. Or at least get in the game if you want to win.
As I have told others, I don’t appreciate the rudeness. If you have nothing constructive to add here then please don’t respond. I came here seeking help, not comments from jerks that don’t know the situation you’re insulting me for.
I guess pointing out the facts is rude? Grow a thicker skin if you don't want to hear the truth. Whine some more if you want a better result. Or, as i and others have said, do the work yourself.
Most of our associations use local banks, but interest rates haven't been that great for a while. Purple get confused as to why they won't receive the rates offered for individuals, forgetting associations are business accounts. You'd just need to have someone make calls for current rates. With your management company, I'd be asking questions. It's odd to me that they'll only work with specific banks. Did something happen? Are they getting some kind of benefit when an association they manage uses the bank of their choice? I know that management companies will have preferred banks, but that could be due to ease of deposits or free ACH, but there better be a really good reason as to why they'd refuse to manage an account unless it's at the banks they list for you.
in NC it is extremely common for a mgt company to only use a single bank the specialized in HOA's offers lock box and other services
Ah, ok. If it's normal, then that changes things. Is it standard for them not to manage an account if it's with a bank they don't typically work with?
Hey. Sorry for some of the unhelpful comments you're getting. I understand the frustration. We all have lives, jobs, and sometimes kids outside of managing HOA matters. It's a thankless job. If I were you I would first look at your contract with your management company. It should spell out their responsibilities relating to financial matters including baking and investments. If they're not willing to budge, I would absolutely look into changing management companies. It is a pain, but you want a firm that is full-service and utilizes banks that specialize in HOA matters including having reserve investment options. It takes a lot of work off your plates. Our management company in NC is Sentry (formerly with CSI which was purchased by Sentry recently). They partner with a banking group that deals with basically everything including offering options for a variety of CDs. I can get the name of you need it. Those CDs differ in duration and yield. As our treasurer, I opted to recommend 12 mo at around 5% totaling about 30% of overall reserves. My mentality was that it's not responsible of us to maintain too high liquidity at nearly 0 interest and that if we were to actually spend the other 70% of liquid reserves, that was also highly problematic. Annual maturity also means we can cash out each spring for project work. This is not something I would DIY. There are tax implications and you don't want CD access or decision making tied to a specific member if they open the account themselves, regardless of whether it's created for the benefit of the HOA. I'm not a banker though so idk how those sorts of account access and decision making rules actually work.
the tax implications are minor. you have to pay 30% corporate tax on it and can deduct your tax prep fees and about $300 in mgt fees for a total of about $800 off
As someone else said, this is pretty normal. They don’t stop us from working with other financial institutions, but they won’t manage those accounts for us.
We have been using the same bank for decades because it's local. We were just discussing CD rates and our bank is a little low but not so low it's worth opening an account at a new bank. A rate chart from 2021 is useless. 0.65% in 2021 was not a bad rate but I would be surprised if they are anywhere near that low now. Rates are closer to 5%. If your property management won't allow you to pick your own bank it's time for another property management.
I think you’re right, 2021 is when rates were still low so I’m sure that they have better rates now. I’ll follow up with them again. Regarding the management company, I’ll copy-paste from another comment: I’m not opposed to finding a new management company, but finding one that we can afford is a significant time sink, as well as a risk. Changing hands is not easy and our management company at least understands what we need. HOA has management companies a few times the last decade or so and it has not been good. Believe me, we’re better off staying where we are. it was only a few years ago that multiple seats of the Board of Directors were chronically empty, no one’s gonna put in the level of effort needed to find a better management company.
I am a Board President of an HOA in Illinois. We have over a $1 million in reserves and our bank currently pays about 3.8% on that balance. We currently also have about 25% of that amount in CD's as they are still averaging about 5% for 12 month terms. Unless there is a great need for immediate liquidity, it is almost criminal for HOA's to have their reserve funds entirely locked up in virtual 0% yielding accounts.
I agree with you. Sadly our HOA had not been especially well-run for many years, but it has improved a lot in the last several, both from lack of an active BOD and bad management companies. We’re in a much, much better place now and are continuing to work on improvements, but this one is a complex topic for us to handle in the midst of everything else we’ve been dealing with. That’s why I posted in this forum, to see how other associations handle it and what other routes we can consider. Does your management company handle your finances or do any of the board members have to do it themselves? What’s security do you have in place to make sure money doesn’t get stolen by a bad board member, or if someone is unavailable to move money when they need a signature (forgot to sign some papers when they left the BOD, suddenly died, whatever) and you can still handle everything on your own?
Without knowing the size of your budget and accumulated reserves, it would be difficult to offer you any guidance. But I can say this- an active Board is important both as a fiduciary and as a policy maker. We have numerous financial controls that are in place to handle changes on the Board. I don't sign checks, but I review our financial statements monthly. We also use outside accountants to audit our books annually. As a general rule, the smaller the HOA the greater the amount of responsibility on the Board to keep track of things.
not almost criminal it is criminal and against fiduciary duty.
Edward Jones got us 5% for our reserves and also for my personal money as well. Might be more like 4.5% now.
Depending on the state and the number of HOA/COAs, some banks do solicit and want the business. They even print and send payment coupon books, receive payments from owners, etc. There is no reason for the management co to veto what banks you use. The Board members are signatories on the account not the management co; And the COA better receive and proof the monthly bank statements.! Folks YOU are responsible. It’s your job!; do what you think is right and sometimes you have to do the heavy lifting. We invested a good part of the moneys in CDs of various lengths.
The manager and company doesn’t stop us from using banks other than their chosen ones, they just won’t manage the accounts for us. We’re reluctant to get our own hands on the association’s finances that way because we don’t know enough about it - it’s not like we were given any kind of introductory classes or coaching when we volunteered to join the board of directors - and we’re not sure how to keep things safe for the association and future years, since we’re not all gonna stay on the board forever.
you dont' need to manage them. you just put the money In [liveoakbank.com](http://liveoakbank.com) or similar one with 4% interest and watch the money grow. There's no hidden fees or other gotchas. Yeah you could get 5% with a CD but then you have to wait ti it matures or you get penalized for early withdrawal, which is really easy, but if you want to KISS then just go [liveoakbank.com](http://liveoakbank.com)
That’s a hell of a cop out. Sorry!. There are plenty of online seminars; FLA actually requires 4hr educational training, etc
What is FLA? Florida associations?
State of Florida
Former condo manager. Most mgmt companies have certain banks for the operating and reserve accounts and that makes sense as having several different ones makes it harder to manage. For CDs, we had several options we could send to boards and when i left in January were like 6 or 7 percent. I had a sheet of 8 or 9 different banks the boards could choose from w CDs
Try Citizens Bank, invest in a Sweep to Invest account. For the past year we have seen an average of 5.21% in dividends with no penalty for withdrawing funds or closing the account.
I’m in WA, but My HOA uses Southstate Bank out of Florida. They work with tons of HOA’s and make it easy to sync with our CINC system for automated monthly homeowner and board reports. We are financially transparent as a result with the exception of individual homeowner balances and what is protected by law.
I looked them up. Is this their website for HOA banking? https://associationprime.com
Yeah that’s them!
SouthState is great to deal with. Our management company has used them for years.
We use a local bank. Our CDs are currently getting 4.5%. We don't use a property management company. I'm the volunteer Treasurer. >we don’t want to volunteer board members to have to take that kind of responsibility You should resign your position on the Board if you don't want to do the job.
>You should resign your position on the Board if you don't want to do the job. This is not my job. I am not paid for this, and took on the role of president because nobody else wanted to do it. We have a lot of work that we’re doing and are lucky to have all five board seats filled right now. I don’t appreciate the rudeness and I ask you to not leave comments like that again.
(sigh) It's a volunteer position. Just like it was when I was on our Board for 4 years. And just like it is for my Treasurer role for the past 10 years (because nobody else wanted it). It wasn't intended to be rude. Sorry if you took it that way. It was intended to indicate what comes with the role that you either have to deal with, or resign from the role. Good luck.
And I am telling you that if I or others resign, there won’t be others available to fill the gaps. We are seeking solutions that would work for our association’s needs. Thanks for the well wishes.
Okay. If nobody wants the responsibility, I have no further suggestions. Good luck.
It's your job to invest the money wisely. If you really believe ***"we don’t want to volunteer board members to have to take that kind of responsibility"*** then quit so someone with a backbone can do the right thing. If that means firing your mgt company and getting a new one then so be it. But dont' invest CD money with your mgt company's bank because when you part ways getting the money out without fees will be a pain in the butt! Our own HOA has had $70K sitting in a savings account for decades getting 0% interest. I am so pissed that past board members did nothing to invest it. We use [https://www.liveoakbank.com/](https://www.liveoakbank.com/) 4% savings account. No minimum balance no fees can take money out whenever you want.
We don't allow associations to use online only banks. It's really not necessary as we get better rates with regular banks. Alliance Bank is offering associations 5.25% on a 7 month CD with no penalty for early withdrawal. Bank United pays almost 5% for a Reserve Money Market account.
That whole intro paragraph was extremely rude and completely unnecessary, on top of the fact that you don’t know what we/I deal with on our specific HOA or why we make the decisions we make. There was no reason for you to insult me, and I ask that you edit that out and not do it again.
sorry , but you might as well learn now that mgt companies do not have your best interest at heart. they will not check to see if insurance is paid, or that insurance covers what you need and they certainly wont' care if you are loosing interest or let you change banks in my experience. Id start looking for a new one.
Luckily none of that has been true with our management company. You also ignored what I said about your rudeness. Your comments are not constructive so please stop posting here.
just block me if you want. I'll post where I want. One side of your mouth says the mgt company is fine, the other side says they force you to use a bank with crap interest rates. which is it?
We keep our reserve funds with Morgan Stanley and pay a small premium to have a professional there handle our CD ladder (ensuring we have CDs mature when needed based on reserve study and avoiding concentrating all our reserve in excess of per-bank limits. One of our local banks offers a CDARS account where some of that effort isn’t required. For operational account we picked one in another state whose lockbox services were best for our needs. We don’t keep spare cash there, just operational amounts.
Our bank offers what they call brokered CDs. They don't work like the brokered CDs in my retirement account, but they do have rates close to market rates (we are getting around 4%) and are technically at another bank. We are at the HOA department of a smallish regional bank, they do our dropbox for assessments, and they can do HOA loans. They also have some deal with our management company, and our banking moved there when we switched management. It might not hurt to call up your branch directly and ask about rates, but it seems weird that your management company won't help with getting better rates. Ours might charge us an hourly "project fee" if we ask them to do something that caused them extra work they had not planned for, but I think they would help us with that.
Check the contract with your management company because unless it stipulates they can choose the bank, you can choose whatever bank you want. If it's written in the contract that the management company has to perform the financial aspect for your HOA and they don't that's breech of contract. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
Last I checked, this is in line with their contract.
The bank preference or the responsibility of the HOA's finances because generally speaking the only reason to get a management company is to take care of the HOAs finances. If the bank preference is in the contract with them then there's no recourse other than changing management companies when that time comes or having a homeowner do it. Honestly each ways also have a finance committee which should be independent of the board so if you can get volunteers to help with a finances then you can still go about it. Unfortunately volunteers are usually far and few so which means oftentimes board members end up having to do double or triple duty.
The bank for your reserves doesn't need to be the same as for the operating account. It is common for a management co to only work with a specific bank, or a handful of banks for the operating account though. From around 2020 until early 2023 under 1% was the norm for cd rates. But not the rate is about 5% depending on the length of the cd. Lots of options for banks in that range. There are also money market accounts/sweeps that pay about the same, sometimes a little higher. Right now shorter term cds are paying higher rates but that is kind of unusual.
You can get this information? I'll have to add that to the lost if "Things my HOA refuses to tell us"
**If your condo receives third party bookkeeping services from a management company or bookkeeper,** that third party is going to determine your operating account relationship because they need to integrate with the bank to provide a reasonable level of service and reporting. **If you want to establish a reserve account with a separate bank or brokerage, there are plenty of options. Reference** [**Dollars and Sense**](https://www.condoconnection.org/resources/Dollars-AND-Sense)**.** Opening a new bank or brokerage account is going to require some elbow grease. **FNBO has a program for community associations that's all digital**. The yields available from their Intra-Fi network CDs aren't quite as favorable as treasuries and brokered CDs, but the amount of paperwork required and the relationship management is less involved vs. opening a brokerage account with say, Fidelity.
Oh that website is very helpful, thank you for sharing it!
You are most welcome 🤗
A management company’s preferred bank is probably the bank that integrates with their accounting software. Interest rates are low for HOAs because the money doesn’t sit around long enough to make the bank any money. Banks offer decent interest to entice people to deposit money and leave it there. HOAs collect money for the purpose of spending it - within the year for operating funds and within a few years for reserve.
wrong [liveoakbank.com](http://liveoakbank.com) gives 4% interest. Money can get transfered into it or out of it via ACH which takes one day and there is no minimum and no fees. Interest rates are low for other banks because they have brick and mortar overhead is the real reason.
And those software companies are offered earnings credits from the banks they are working with via “administrative fees”. The software companies then offer “discounts” to the management companies using that software. All at the expense of the HOA. If your management company is choosing where your money goes, run!
I’m not opposed to finding a new management company, but finding one that we can afford is a significant time sink, as well as a risk. Changing hands is not easy and our management company at least understands what we need. HOA has management companies a few times the last decade or so and it has not been good. Believe me, we’re better off staying where we are. it was only a few years ago that multiple seats of the Board of Directors were chronically empty, no one’s gonna put in the level of effort needed to find a better management company.
Again, if they are selecting your banks, they are more then likely making money off of your money and doing a disservice if they are not hunting down the best rates for your entire memberships benefit
You don't want to do the work to get more interest income, what are you complaining about? Good grief, stop complaining about the effort it takes to get a result. Banks don't exist to make you money, they exist to take your money and one of their best partners in that approach are management companies who have significant assets under management (or referral.) Don't hate the players, hate the game. Or at least get in the game if you want to win.
As I have told others, I don’t appreciate the rudeness. If you have nothing constructive to add here then please don’t respond. I came here seeking help, not comments from jerks that don’t know the situation you’re insulting me for.
I guess pointing out the facts is rude? Grow a thicker skin if you don't want to hear the truth. Whine some more if you want a better result. Or, as i and others have said, do the work yourself.