My experience with IDS has been great. I've lived at my home for a few months and Tracy has been doing a great job managing us. The community looks really good and I've thoroughly enjoyed my experience being managed by Tracy and IDS.

I recommend that any HOA that is currently using IDS Asset Management take a good look at your financials. In our case, IDS payed themselves outrageous administrative fees (compared to the industry standard), and was also paying themselves the line on the financials called Legal Fees. Tracy, the owner/manager, was constantly pushing our HOA to raise their dues. She got us twice, but this last time we questioned her and started looking carefully at the books. We got away from her, and are now paying $550/month all inclusive, approx $1500...yes, $1500 LESS per month than with IDS. Our association only has 33 Homes, that's a lot of money! Tracy will say "those are discount companies and you get what you pay for", when actually, their prices are the industry standard (per our research of management companies in our area), approx $18/unit of your HOA, with an average of less than 10%/month for extras. And let me add, our new property management company is doing a terrific job, very attentive and knowledgeable. We were able to lower our dues 20%, and are even adding more to our reserves in the last three month than we did in three years with IDS. Please spend a few extra dollars if you have to, and take the financials to an accountant for a quick look, or ask around, it seems that almost every community has an accountant or bookkeeper as a homeowner. This can save you time and money...also, see if any of them are Lawyers! Ask her for the back up on everything she pays out...and make sure two board members are signing the checks. She tells you this is not efficient, but it is actually necessary and also the industry standard. She also loves to quote Civil Codes to make herself sound knowledgeable. It's easy to look up Civil Codes, check them out to see if she's using them correctly and/or changing their meaning to fit her needs.



Good-Luck!



Felicia - Cypress 33 HOA