DIY strata software stacking up

There was a time when it seemed like strata management was a strange self-sustaining beast that nobody really understood.  Strata managers moved in mysterious ways and the 50 percent of schemes that weren’t professionally managed got by with casual chats in place of meetings, and levies reminder notes slipped under the door instead of printed invoices.

But as strata life has become more complicated, with legal obligations stacking up – compulsory insurance, Section 62 maintenance, sinking fund surveys and provision of by-laws to tenants – the back of a ciggie packet management model just doesn’t cut the mustard any more.

All it takes is one owner who doesn’t like the informal approach and you could spend half your life (and all your sinking fund) being chased through NCAT on maintenance and repair orders.

Throw in the damage to your property values when prospective buyers discover there are no records and no minutes (because there have been no meetings) and the need to have an easy way to manage your own building to professional standards – however small it is – becomes critical.

The obvious thing is to hire a strata manager – and a lot of smaller strata schemes do just that –  but there’s an economic “dead zone” where the unit blocks are too small to generate enough income for the strata manager to justify the time they’d have to spend managing them.

Some strata managers will tell you that a dysfunctional 12-unit block can be as much work to manage as a 120-apartment scheme for the simple reason that in the small block, every issue can become personal (and therefore often irretrievably irreconcilable) and yet they get one tenth of the income.

But now that we are in the age of information technology, it should be easier to self-manage, right?  Well, yes, but there are a lot of strata software options for the strata-geek to choose from.

Many strata managers use software systems that are primarily management tools but which offer online portals for Owners Corporations and individual owners to access a certain amount of information.  However, we are looking at self-management software – which is very different.

The first attempt at a self-management software we encountered came from Murray Cameron of Strata Res (who, by the way,  suggested this website in its current form and was one of our first ever sponsors). Murray came up with a form of self-management software called Strata Manage IT for which the entry level was a free package that had different levels of strata manager involvement – and cost – the more you wanted StrataRes to do.

It is significant that apart from at entry level, there is a strata manager at the top of that food chain (which may be a very good thing). In any case Strata Manage IT has gone from strength to strength and last year was one of the finalists in the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) innovation awards.

Next cab off the rank was OurBodyCorp.com.au which was started by former Adelaide Festival director  Kate Gould who launched the website when she discovered there was little support for owners who wanted to manage their own schemes.

Then we have cloud-based software called MyStrata.com which has has been put together under the watchful eye of Gary Bugden – a longtime strata expert in Australia who has done a lot of work setting up strata schemes in the UAE. MyStrata, on the face of it, seems more skewed to strata managers but there is clearly an opportunity for self-managed schemes to use their very sophisticated interfaces.

The new kids on the block are housenet.com.au who are providing a kind of online meeting place for strata owners with a Facebook-like front end.

On the horizon is a new program from Strata Management Systems (on which I have been consulting) which is looking for beta testers to try out the software in exchange for a year’s free subscription.   Drop me an email on beta@flatchat.com.au if you want to give it a spin.  The first five beta testers get it for free for a year.

So, from a dearth of systems to help strata owners look after their own affairs we suddenly are spoilt for choice. But with half the 70,000-plus strata schemes in NSW being self managed (and for that, in many cases, read NOT managed) it’s an area where the right package will find a willing and eager market.