A property manager with twenty homeowners’ associations hires, without realising it, the same service twenty times. The same lift company maintains the equipment in eight of those buildings. The same insurer holds the policy for twelve. The same cleaning company covers five entrances.
And in almost every case, the prices are different. Not out of bad faith on the supplier’s part: out of history. Each contract was signed at a different time, with a different president, with a different increase applied every year. Nobody has ever looked at them together because they have never been together: they live in twenty separate sets of accounts.
The result is that the property manager arrives at a renewal without knowing the one thing that would give them power in that conversation: how much that supplier invoices in total and what price it charges each community.
Blindness costs money, and it can be measured
Let us take the simplest case. Lift maintenance costs €1,400 a year in one community and €2,100 in another in the same neighbourhood, with the same number of stops and the same supplier. Taken separately, both figures look reasonable. Placed side by side, one of the two communities is paying 50% more for the same thing.
That comparison is impossible to do by hand with twenty communities and ten expense items. Not because it is difficult, but because it means two hundred figures spread across two hundred places.
Putting every community in the same table
The FixrOS Negotiation module does one specific thing: it takes the payment history of all the communities in the portfolio and groups it by supplier and by expense item. What used to be blindness becomes a table.
For each supplier you can see how many communities it works in, what it is paid in each one and how that has evolved year by year. And that makes it possible to ask the question that changes a renewal: «you invoice me in eight communities, so why do you charge 40% more in this one?».
Filtered by what matters
The comparison supports the breakdowns a property manager needs for it to be fair:
- Specific communities, or the whole portfolio.
- Province, town or postcode: because comparing prices in the city of Madrid with those of a village makes no sense.
- Range of years, to see the trend and not just the snapshot.
- Expense item, by its ledger account (the one for electricity, the one for cleaning, the one for maintenance), so that like is compared with like.
Communities with no unit count are listed separately, because without the number of homes the cost cannot be normalised, and including them in the average would distort it. It is better to say «I cannot calculate it for these three» than to give a false figure.
Insurance policies, a chapter of their own
Insurance deserves its own treatment because it is where there tends to be the most difference and the least transparency. For each insurer you can see:
- How many communities it holds a policy in and what premium it charges in each one.
- The premium history by year for each community.
- The year-on-year change between the latest renewal and the previous one.
- The cover that is missing from a policy compared with what is usual.
- The term of each policy, with its start and end dates.
That piece of information, the missing cover, is the one people appreciate most: finding out at renewal that a community has gone three years without cover that the rest of the portfolio does have is a good deal more useful than finding out when the claim happens.
Policies with no premium recorded are listed separately and are left out of the calculations, for the same reason as communities with no unit count.
A figure you can say out loud
The real value of this is not automatic savings, because there are none, but the argument. A property manager who walks into a renewal saying «it seems expensive to me» achieves nothing. One who walks in saying «you work in eight of my communities, we are invoiced €31,000 a year across all of them, and in two of them you charge 40% above the average» is in a different conversation.
And it is an argument that holds up, because it comes from what has actually been paid, not from an impression.
An honest note on scope
It is important to state precisely what this tool does and what it does not. What it does is gather and compare: the real payment history by supplier and community, the trend over the years, the year-on-year change in premiums and the term dates of each policy. With that, the property manager can prepare a renewal with data.
What it does not replace is professional judgement: which supplier is worth keeping for quality even if it is not the cheapest, which cover is really necessary in a particular building and when a high price is justified by the service. The tool puts the figures on the table; the negotiation still belongs to the property manager.
Frequently asked questions about negotiating with suppliers
Can the property manager negotiate on behalf of several communities at once?
They can negotiate terms and pass them on to each community, but the contracting is up to each one, with the agreement of its owners’ meeting where applicable. Pooling volume to obtain a better price is legitimate; contracting on behalf of all of them without their agreement is not.
What majority is needed to change supplier?
Changing the supplier of a service the community has already contracted is ordinary management and is usually approved by simple majority. Establishing or removing the service is a different matter: art. 17.3 of the Spanish Horizontal Property Act (LPH) requires three fifths of the total number of owners representing three fifths of the ownership shares to establish or remove concierge, caretaker, security or other common services of general interest.
Why are such different prices paid for the same service?
Almost always because of the age of the contract and the updates applied year after year without review. A contract signed twelve years ago with automatic annual increases can end up well above the market price without anyone having done anything wrong.
Does comparing prices between communities breach any confidentiality?
The property manager manages those communities and legitimately knows their expenses. Disclosing one community’s figures to third parties is another matter, and is not appropriate. Internal use to prepare a negotiation is part of their management work.
When is it a good time to review a maintenance contract?
Before it renews tacitly. Most of these contracts roll over automatically unless notice is given, so the useful time to review them is with enough margin ahead of the expiry date stated in the contract.
Does this work for policies as well as for suppliers?
Yes, and that is where there tends to be the most room for improvement: premiums by community, history by year, change at the latest renewal and cover missing compared with the rest of the portfolio.
You may also be interested in
- The community’s annual budget
- Managing more communities without growing the team
- FixrOS for property managers
Being able to compare the entire portfolio is one of the things that only a single platform provides. If you are evaluating options, this guide to property management software covers what to ask for in the demo.
Conclusion
No property manager overpays on purpose. They overpay because their twenty communities are twenty separate sets of accounts and nobody has ever looked at the figures together. Putting them in the same table does not save money by itself, but it turns a blind renewal into a conversation backed by data. And that is, in practice, the difference between accepting the increase and negotiating it.