HOA Parking Problems Explained — How Property Managers Can Fix Chaos and Protect Communities

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson welcomes Dean Kautzmann, a seasoned property management expert who has transitioned from being a condo association president to developing innovative parking management software. Dean shares his journey, highlighting the challenges he faced with parking regulations in his community, which inspired him to create a solution that simplifies the parking process for both residents and property managers. The conversation delves into the importance of fair and equitable parking management, the evolution from traditional sticker systems to a more streamlined online registration process, and the security benefits that come with effective parking enforcement.

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Dean Kautzmann (00:00)
So that’s kind of a big security aspect of why this is important as well. But the property manager will be able to have the tools

to look in the system and they’ll be able to see like patterns. Who’s regularly parking there? How many people they have the right? it’s the same plate all the time you know. It just kind of makes them aware of what’s going on in the community. Again, for me, that’s a security issue. I wanna know who’s living in my community. And this is a great way to weed those that are living there, but are not really authorized to be there.

Micah Johnson (02:04)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Dean, who’s been making some serious moves in the property management space. Dean, welcome in, man. Glad to have you.

Dean Kautzmann (02:15)
Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me.

Micah Johnson (02:17)
Absolutely. I’m excited for today. I think our listeners, especially those that are either need property management help or in that space, they’re really going to take something away from one, how you came to the industry kind of from the inside out and really solve the problem that these larger community types like condos, apartments, even HOAs, things like that deal with. So let’s dive in there. So for people who may not know you yet, what’s your main focus and what markets are you operating in?

Dean Kautzmann (02:44)
Well, we’re in South Florida delivering parking management and virtual permitting services, what they call software as service. That’s what we do. And I got into this as a 10 year condo veteran president who had real parking challenges in the community that I was the president in. And yeah, that’s how I got into this.

Micah Johnson (03:05)
So let’s dive into that. That’s what I really meant by that inside out. You were the president of a condo association first. Bless your heart. And second, what, what did you start to notice? What is it that brought this software to life as your own journey through having to deal with these real life problems?

Dean Kautzmann (03:22)
Well, mean, our community is one of the oldest in South Florida. So when it was built, it was built with very limited parking because they really didn’t expect families to have three, four or five vehicles. It was, you know, in a site and many properties in South Florida, they assign you one spot to park a car. We were fortunate we had two, but I also had three kids.

Micah Johnson (03:40)
Mm.

Dean Kautzmann (03:45)
So it was a real challenge. And we’re regulated by laws, condo laws, that you have to follow the documents that are built into your condo association. And the condo association documents said you’re only allowed two vehicles. Well, how do you maintain that when families are having three, four or five vehicles? Well, parking, you had to manage the parking, you just had to. There was no other way about it. You’re either obeying the law or you’re not obeying the

Micah Johnson (03:45)
Ha ha ha.

Dean Kautzmann (04:15)
So we hired a tow company that came in. They brought some software with them and we said, okay, we need to just make sure all of our residents are keeping only two cars on the property and limiting the amount of guest spots that they’re allowed to use because they were using those guest spots for their regular resident vehicles. I there’s no guest spots for you know grandma when she would come to visit. She had to park four blocks down or at the clubhouse and walk four blocks just to see her son. You know

It just wasn’t fair. And it’s not, it’s just something had to be done. So that’s what we did. We hired this company with this software, but I was very unhappy with the software over the course of four years that we used it. I was unhappy with the limitations. didn’t have a lot of tools for me as a, as a president and even the property managers were like, it’s okay, but it’s not really doesn’t, it makes it our job a little bit harder. And by the end of my 10 years ⁓ as a president, I was like,

This looks like a great opportunity because I think I can do something better and create it with more presidents, condo ⁓ board members, and property managers in mind. And that’s what we did. That’s how we got started.

Micah Johnson (06:15)
Man, I love that. One thing I like about real estate is that it touches all of our lives in some way. We all got to live somewhere and we experience different things inside of it that lead a lot of us to the industry on some kind of change we want to make some kind of way we want to make the process simpler and parking. Man, that’s not one many people think about, especially when they’re owning large complexes, things like that is, you know, how do we make sure that one is as easy as it can be for not just the property manager, but also the resident.

Right? Like if it’s hard to use for the resident, that doesn’t make your complex that desirable. There’s just more and more hoops they have to go through. So before your software, what was the solution and then how has it made that easier?

Dean Kautzmann (06:59)
Well, I think the solution back in the day were basically parking stickers. You would get parking stickers that the, I mean, it was kind of a big, my gosh, my dog is barking, I apologize. ⁓ It was kind of a rigmarole ⁓ to get the parking stickers distributed to all the residents. You had to have what they call registration events. And then that means the property manager

Micah Johnson (07:13)
You’re good.

Dean Kautzmann (07:28)
would have to say, we’re going to be at the clubhouse on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, Saturday afternoon for two weeks so that all the residents have an opportunity to come in and register their vehicles. I mean, it was tough to coordinate that. And it’s hard enough getting ⁓ residents to do the things you want them to do. So ultimately even, even

with all the opportunities that you would present to get it done, there was always gonna be residents that never showed up, never registered their vehicles. And ultimately that wouldn’t really end well for the resident because once a parking enforcement program is underway, the solution to too many cars is removing cars that are not supposed to be there. And that’s kind of the tough side of the parking enforcement. So you wanna give every resident every opportunity

to avoid having any kind of a parking action taking against them. Well, we felt that once you move out of that sticker period and do all that, why don’t we make it so they can do it online? And they don’t have to go to the clubhouse. They don’t have to go to the parking, the property management company or the property manager. And the property managers were like, ⁓ if you can do that, that would be great. Okay?

Micah Johnson (08:51)
Right?

Dean Kautzmann (08:52)
So that was part of the development of the software that we created. And so now all a resident has to do is go online, go into there what we call a resident portal, which we built just for them. So they can kind of have some autonomy in managing their parking, register their vehicles. And then the property manager can maybe once a week on a Friday, check all the vehicles that have been registered that week and approve them or…

not approve them, which would then they would then reach out to the resident and say, you know, maybe they require a register, the copy of the registration, which, you know, they can upload in their resident portal. Maybe they didn’t include that. And they say, no, we’re not going to approve. We’re approving it temporarily. But if you don’t put your registration up there, we’re going to take that out and you’re not going to be authorized to park on the property. have to put your registration. We have to know that your vehicle is owned by you and that it’s your vehicle.

So yeah, that’s one of the things that we move from the old days of the stickers and registration events to online, making it really easy for both the property manager and the residents.

Micah Johnson (10:34)
It makes so much sense too, because even given six days over two weeks, folks are busy. Like there’s stuff going on all the time and the chances, it’s a high chance that someone, multiple someones can’t make any of them, even though you got the property management trying to do their best with what they had and you got residents living their own lives, going through all the things they’re already going through. So trying to get people in multiple places at once.

then that does get difficult, especially when we spend so much time on our phone already. When you can just whip open a website and go to a portal and get your work done, your interactions become easier. Folks don’t really like talking to property management anyways. I’ve been the president of an HOA myself and brought in a property management company and just dealing with the whole side of it, the legal side, the aspects that…

A lot of folks don’t think about or even take time to understand, not that you should, especially if you’re on the board or not on the board, you’re just living, going in and out so that it makes complete sense to create a way for one, just more synergy between the two, which makes the property manager’s jobs easier and the residence job. So let’s lean into more of that property manager side. So we have folks out there listening or watching in that are property managers and thinking, wait a second, this could be a useful tool.

What is it that you’ve really developed for them and made their life easier?

Dean Kautzmann (11:58)
Well, obviously the first thing is what we just discussed, which was so they don’t have to go out to these registration events, organize, coordinate, and show up on Saturday nights, you know? Because that gives the property manager the ability to just say, I can do it from my office at my convenience. again, most property managers, some property managers do it however, whatever works for them. If some, every day, sometimes a property manager will log in, check the new vehicles, check them off, move on to the next task.

Some property managers just go once a week, Fridays, I’m checking in, I’ll check that to my data, check all the new vehicles. You just do it at what is convenient for your schedule. That’s one of the great things. It also gives the property managers the ability to help their residents. For instance, resident creates a permit. again, we put in, the property manager can put in certain restrictions. That’s the whole concept of the software.

Properties do not want a guest staying more than 14 days. Okay, that’s kind of like the average So 14 days of a one of a for a permit per month is about average for a guest and quite frankly if your guest is staying more than 14 days They might not be a guest. Okay, and that’s one thing That’s one of the things the property manager, you know, it was great about the software weeds out those people who are really living in a apartment or condo

Micah Johnson (13:13)
It’s kind of moving in.

Dean Kautzmann (13:26)
and are not authorized to be there. They’ve never been cleared, they’ve never been checked, they’ve never been background checked, especially in a condo association, ⁓ you know, cause that’s big. You know, want to know who’s living in your community and they usually go through some association process to do that. ⁓ But if somebody’s living there and they bypass that, you have no idea who’s living there.

So that’s kind of a big security aspect of why this is important as well. ⁓ But the property manager will be able to have the tools

to look in the system and they’ll be able to see like ⁓ patterns. Who’s regularly parking there? How many people they have the right? it’s the same plate all the time you know. It just kind of makes them aware of what’s going on in the community. Again, for me, that’s a security issue. I wanna know who’s living in my community. And this is a great way to weed those that are living there, but are not really authorized to be there.

I mean, I can tell you when I was a condo president,

One of the experiences I had was we found someone who had a criminal history with children that should not be in, we don’t want in the community to be honest with you, okay? And we were able to say, listen, this person is not authorized to be here because they kept parking their car here. And that’s how we knew that we had a problem. And one thing led to another and they were forced to leave the property. We had to do that. It sounds rough.

But you want to protect your people. You want to protect the residents that are living in your community. And this is one of the tools that you can do to do that.

Micah Johnson (15:42)
It was, are milk mint for a type of security in general. That’s what it’s for is to create a space for people to come live, whether it’s an HOA apartment condo, that something is there as a governing board to protect the community, keep things from happening that happen in places where you don’t have that. And that’s one of the reasons people sign up is for that. They want a place that is governed, that has a gate if there is one that, yeah.

Yeah, that makes complete sense. So simplicity and safety are two huge factors in that world. And you’re knocking out both with one, because one thing a lot of folks don’t think about and you’re nailing it here is I remember having to reach out to friends to let them know I’m coming because they got to submit me to get approved. So does y’all software help with that process as well, making that easier for the residents?

Dean Kautzmann (16:31)
Absolutely, so the whole software is based on what we call a pin system no different than your banking pin, okay? So every resident gets a unique pin and if any guest is visiting they the resident either has to register them themselves So they’re approving that them to be on the property or we don’t recommend it But they’ll likely they could just give the pin to their friend and say hey, here’s my pin Go on my guest spot com register your vehicle when you get on the property. They could do that as well

Obviously we have tools in place. So if that is abused in any way, those pins can be changed, you know, and we that’s of course is part of the part of our our development. So in the but in the end, I got to tell you the two words that we use the most is fair and equitable, right? So parking has to be fair and equitable. This software makes that possible because everybody is getting treated the same. Everybody knows they have.

whatever restrictions that property manager has put into place, ⁓ some vehicles, some properties don’t care how many vehicles they have, some properties do, okay? But everybody’s treating the same. If that property is limited to two resident vehicles ⁓ per unit, everybody’s being treated equally, two resident vehicles per unit. Nobody can put in more than that. That way, and that really creates a more content base, resident base.

Micah Johnson (17:55)
Right.

Dean Kautzmann (17:55)
When everybody knows they’re being treated fairly, they’re not being, you know, there’s no favoritism, say by a board member or anything like that, because the software prevents that, you know? They all have to abide by the same rules. You get a fair and equitable delivery of service, and that makes for more happier resident base.

Micah Johnson (18:14)
For sure. For sure. Cause if Ricky C. Shirley constantly getting five cars and he’s only allowed two, they do get kind of upset about that. Like that quickly becomes a contentious point. And one thing I’ve seen in real estate is when a community gets a bad reputation, it’s the number one thing that can drive sales down and prices down. Like you can build a lot of stuff to protect your community, the moment

Dean Kautzmann (18:21)
⁓ yeah!

Micah Johnson (18:37)
buyers start hearing like, okay, you don’t want to live there because they let this happen and this happens over here and that happens over there. And that’s what I used to go through. And even in my HOA is folks kind of get a little crazy. Like, look, calm down. Like if we start acting this way, people aren’t going to want to live here. And that makes our house worth way less than somebody painting there’s pink that you’re so scared about, right? Like it’s, not gonna

the things that could happen. So making it where everybody knows the rules, everybody knows the playing field. This is just how it works. Now you come at it from a place of, okay, it just is. And then when you see it get enforced, it makes you feel more comfortable. It makes you feel more at ease with the process, knowing that, okay, everything’s flowing and then they’ll follow the process more. When people see the process working for them, they’re way more apt to buy into it.

Dean Kautzmann (19:27)
You know, one of the things I also feel strongly about with the software is that our our property managers can work with whoever they want to work with as far as parking enforcement goes. In my experience as a president of a condo, if I as you when I mentioned before, the the tow company came in and gave us this software. And if I wasn’t happy with the tow company, they would just say, you know, of course I would fire them. You know, that’s my my role as a.

as a president to say, we don’t want to work with this vendor anymore. Well, they would just pack up their toys and leave, which meant they were taking their software with them. Okay. Now getting the message out to a resident base, takes, you know, it’s an effort. It’s a, know, you have to, and it takes a little bit of work to get it done. You don’t want to have to restart all that again when you start a new, okay, I’m going to find a new company. They’re going to come in with a different software.

Micah Johnson (20:04)
Right?

Dean Kautzmann (20:22)
And now I got to retrain all my residents on how it works. Okay. And get them to re up all their information back into the new software. Okay. And what if I’m unhappy with this tow company? I got to it again. So we, we’re not, we don’t have anything to do with, working directly with any one particular tow company. Okay. We are just a software provider. A property manager can work with.

Micah Johnson (20:35)
Now we’re just on repeat.

Dean Kautzmann (20:49)
any tow company they come, but if they don’t like the tow company that they’re working with, the parking enforcement company, because not all tow companies are parking enforcement, not all parking enforcement tow companies, but if they’re not, whatever vendor they choose, if they’re not happy, they can just release them, say, don’t want you working on the property anymore. However, the software continues. Continuity of service to the residents continues. They don’t get confused. They don’t have to change softwares. They just continue to use MyGuestBot. And then when they find a new vendor, we add them.

and to the software and we train them for free. We will put like a Zoom call, just like kind of what we’re doing with the podcast, show them how the software works, show them how they can look up the vehicles and know if it’s authorized or not authorized. And then they’ve got a new parking enforcement vendor without having to disrupt the entire community.

Micah Johnson (21:40)
Right? Man, that’s like having to rebuild an engine over and over again. Like you’re taking all this time to build it. And honestly, in condos, you can have an elderly population in there where technology is not their favorite thing. constantly giving them constantly giving them new ones to learn. It’s just making everybody’s life harder. And again, you make the residents life harder. Now you got an issue. That’s where things really start cropping up and, and things we don’t want start happening. So I love what you’re doing there.

Dean Kautzmann (21:51)
It is not. Correct.

Yeah, going back

to why we’re so proud of our software and why the design of it, it’s really designed for property management and residents. Most of these softwares are built for tow companies or parking enforcement companies. This is why we took this track and why, from my experience as a property, as a condo president, that’s the thing I wanted to do differently.

Micah Johnson (22:34)
And it makes complete sense too, because one, the tow company doesn’t have the same things in mind that a condo association has. It’s not even close. Like they’re there to solve one problem where that software is there to solve multiple problems. It’s allowing people to come in, know, registering your guests before they get there, making sure your stuff’s safe. There’s so many things it’s doing besides just telling who the tow truck needs to take away where man, you…

Dean Kautzmann (23:00)
Right.

Micah Johnson (23:01)
Again, I love that. That’s one thing I love about real estate is you’re coming at it from the inside out. You saw a bunch of problems and then said, okay, let’s create a solution that fixes problems, which is how good quality products come to market. A lot of folks want to just invent something and put it out there and hope, but hope ain’t a strategy. Too often stuff’s made that nobody wants. And when you solve real problems, that’s creating software that folks want and actually solves.

what folks like yourself walk through. So man, that’s killer. So for our folks out there that are listening or watching in, could own property management companies, what’s the best way for them to find you if they’re interested in learning more?

Dean Kautzmann (23:42)
The best way to reach us is through our website at www.myguestspot.com. ⁓ You go on there, we have just a very simple form that if you fill it out, sends right to me or my partner, and we will immediately respond and try to schedule a live Zoom demo of the software so you can actually see the tools that are available to you and find out if it’s right for you.

Micah Johnson (24:05)
Man, I love that. And if you’re listening and watching in, we’ll make sure that Dean’s website is in the show notes. So be sure to check it out. If you are looking to solve problems related to the parking in your communities, this is a tool that could revolutionize what you’re working on, give you tons of time back, create a smoother environment and more peaceful environment for your residents. So make sure you check that out, reach out to Dean, see what he’s got. Dean, thanks so much for being here today. I appreciate your time and your story. I love getting to speak with folks.

that are passionate about what they do, finding something inside the industry that lets them grow themselves and create something that they didn’t have before. So thanks for being here. If you’re listening in and you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else you think might get value out of it. And as always, don’t forget to subscribe. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Dean, who are out there building a real business and solving real real estate problems.

for managers and their residents. Thanks again, Dean. We’ll see you on the next episode.

Dean Kautzmann (25:07)
Thank you, Micah.

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HOA Parking Problems Explained — How Property Managers Can Fix Chaos and Protect Communities

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