CO-OP / CONDO PROPERTY MANAGER RFP

The process of replacing the old company at this 96-unit co-op in Brooklyn's Park Slope began last spring, when Albert DeLeon, an attorney who has been the board's president since early 2009, approached several shareholders to help find a new  management company. "I like to get non-board members involved in the building," says DeLeon says, who rounded up four volunteers for this committee.

You can find a lot of this stuff

on the web, but you try

to tailor it to your building.

The committee gathered references, visited other buildings, pored over Habitat's annual listing of managing agents. Leith Harmon, a financial adviser, came up with the idea of using an RFP. Working with DeLeon, the committee began to hammer out a document that specified what it expected from a management company."I'm a lawyer, so I crafted a lot of it," says DeLeon. "We didn't re-invent anything. You can find a lot of this stuff on the web, but you try to tailor it to your building." They wanted someone who had handled similar-sized buildings of its vintage, and "someone who can manage staff."

Committee-member Stephen Bupp, who manages condos and homeowners' associations in Maryland, says RFPs are widely used in management-company searches outside New York City. "I think [the approach] works," he says. "I gave my fellow committee members a sample RFP from Maryland. We cut parts, added others. We wanted a management company that would manage the building and the staff, instead of letting the board do it. That had been the case before in our building."

The finished 11-page RFP went out to 13 companies, along with a cover letter. Six declined to fill out the questionnaire, saying they didn't want to spend the time. The committee members whittled the list to five and visited those companies' offices. After checking references — including at least one property that had terminated each company's services — the committee came up with three finalists. Each of those three companies came to the co-op for individual 50-minute interviews with the full board.

Relaxed Fit

Bupp says that in addition to each candidate's RFP, the types of buildings they manage, the services they offer, and their references, the board was looking for an intangible he calls "relaxed professionalism."

"Andrea Bunis' presentation was good," says DeLeon of the co-op's eventual pick, Andrea Bunis Management. "They know what they're doing. They told us some things we didn't know – for example, that the new energy benchmarking law is about to take effect. That's the sort of thing we expect our managing agent to know."

Another asset is that Bunis's company has a website with a Client Resource Center, which sends notices, fields complaints, and posts building-by-building bylaws, house rules and codes of conduct. "We did a meet-and-greet with all shareholders during our first week on the job," Bunis says. "We also sat down with the staff and explained that there will be change."

"We're moving into the age where people are now doing things electronically, especially if they're traveling," says DeLeon. "I'd never heard of this being done before. You hear all these stories about bad management companies. How do you make them honest? If you do an RFP, you really have them on the hook, and it lets them know you're about business."

Next page: What do property managers think? >>