1) What is MyCommunityAssociation.com?
MyCommunityAssociation.com is a provider of website design and hosting solutions geared specifically for residential community associations. Our objective is to offer residential community associations the opportunity to have feature-rich websites that will be easy to set up, administer and maintain, at a very affordable price.
2) Who started MyCommunityAssociation.com?
MyCommunityAssociation.com was founded by attorneys with many years of experience in dealing with legal issues pertaining to all types of residential and commercial common interest ownership communities. Because of this vast experience, our websites are designed with the tools needed by Boards of Directors to operate and administer their communities. We understand how valuable a well-designed and easy-to-operate website can be for a community and how it can greatly benefit a neighborhood by fostering intra-community communications and transparency in the operation and management of the community.**
3) How will having a website benefit my community?
A website will benefit your community in many ways. A website is a great way to encourage your members to get involved and presents a quick and economic manner for transmitting information within the community such as notices of board and member meetings, community news and events, classified ads, recommended contractors etc. A website also may help the community comply with certain mandatory requirements under the applicable common interest ownership statutes or the community’s governing documents. Please contact your association attorney about which statutory requirements can be satisfied via electronic transmission.
Experience has also shown that effective and timely communication can significantly reduce unit owner complaints in a common interest ownership community and help avoid many typical disputes. A website can also be used to publicize and promote a community, help increase property values, and can also be used to save or even make money for your community.
Your MyCommunityAssociation website will also help you "take the pulse of your neighborhood" on important issues through the use of surveys and community forums. The judicious use of surveys and forums could save the community substantial amounts of money for legal and other professional fees by providing Boards with a method for determining resident sentiment on issues such as material alterations, document amendments, reserve issues, etc.
4) What might my community’s website look like?
To see a slide show demonstration of what your community’s website might look like, please visit: Association Website Demo (please allow a few moments for the demo to load).
You can view one of our actual community sites by visiting: Lago Mar Colony.
5) How will we administer and make changes to our community website?
MyCommunityAssociation.com’s packages were designed to make maintaining and updating your community’s website as simple as possible. All you need to maintain and update the content on your website is access to the internet. No special computer knowledge is needed.
To see a slide show demonstration showing how you will be able to administer and update your community’s website, please visit: Association Website Administration Demo (please allow a few moments for the demo to load).
6) How much will MyCommunityAssociation.com’s services cost?
There is no up-front software acquisition fee. Your only cost to start will be a minimal set-up fee of $75 or $150. For the more expensive set-up fee, we will scan in up to 100 pages of your documents for you to upload to your community website. Your monthly hosting, subscription and license fee will entitle you to use our software and all of our features and is based on the size of your community and starts at $30 per month for communities with less than 50 homes or units. For more details on what features will be available for your community, please visit our Features section. For detailed pricing information, please click Pricing.
7) How can our MyCommunityAssociation.com website pay for itself?
Your website can not only save you money on postage, copying and administrative costs (when residents elect to receive notices electronically) and potential professional and other fees (see Question 3 above), but can also be used to generate revenue. Your website will have a neighborhood links section that you will be able to control through your administration screens. In addition to having links to informational sites or sites of general interest like Yahoo, MSN or Google, you may also choose to sell links to local businesses such as realtors or restaurants that service your area. If you sell enough links, the website could even become a steady source of revenue for the community. You could also use the community classified feature to sell small ads to local businesses that might not have their own websites.
8) Will my community’s website have its own website address?
Yes. All MyCommunityAssociation.com community websites will be assigned a specific website address. For example, if the name of your community is El Dorado, your community’s website address could be: www.mycommunityassociation.com/eldorado. If your community already has a web address, we will work with your current website host or domain registrar to redirect your current web address to your MyCommunityAssociation.com website address. We can also help you register your own web address if you do not already have one. To see one of our community sites using its own domain name, please visit: Pelican Watch.
9) What if I want something for my community’s website that is not offered by one of MyCommunityAssociation.com’s packages?
MyCommunityAssociation.com has the ability to offer customized web solutions. Please email mail@MyCommunityAssociation.com for more information and a price quote.
10) Posting budgets and minutes of meetings seems like a great way to send information within the community. How do we prevent anyone from accessing such sensitive financial and other private information?
MyCommunityAssociation.com’s software is designed to allow each community to select which sections of its website will be password protected. Each resident will have a unique login and password so that only members of the community can access and view sensitive private information like budgets, financials, membership rosters etc.
11) Will MyCommunityAssociation.com share user data with third parties?
Certainly not. MyCommunityAssociation.com understands that residents value their privacy and will never share resident’s private information with any third party.
12) Will there be a limit on how many documents that I will be able to upload to our website?
We do not presently intend to impose a strict limit on the number or size of the documents that you may upload to your website. However, if the total hard drive space required by your community’s site exceeds sixty (60) megabytes of memory, your community will be charged an extra $10 per month for each additional thirty (30) megabytes of hard drive space needed.
13) In what formats will communities be able to place their documents on their website?
MyCommunityAssociation.com’s document management system will allow administrators to upload a wide variety of document types such as Excel (.xls), Word (.doc), .jpg, .pdf etc. We recommend that communities, to the extent possible, upload their documents in a .pdf format because not all residents (especially on their home computers) will have the software needed to open Excel or Word files. Any computer user can view .pdf files using a program like Adobe Acrobat, which can be downloaded for free at Adobe's Website.
14) How long will it take to get my community website up and running?
We can literally have your community’s website live in a matter of minutes.
15) If I have any questions, comments or suggestions, how can I reach someone at MyCommunityAssociation.com?
Please call us anytime at 305-479-6009 or email: mail@MyCommunityAssociation.com and someone will respond to you within one business day.
**While the law firm of Katzman Garfinkel Rosenbaum has no ownership interest in Community Association Web Solutions, Inc. d/b/a MyCommunityAssociation.com, some of the principals of the firm do have a financial stake in this business.
