Who is this tool for?

Any Bay Area board member, treasurer, or engaged homeowner who wants a quick second opinion on their community's budget. You don't need the full financial package — one or two line items from last year's budget is enough to get started.

Do you store the numbers I enter?

If you type numbers directly into the form, no — the calculations run entirely in your browser and never reach our servers. If you upload a PDF financial statement, the document is sent to a third-party AI service (Google Gemini) that extracts the numbers and immediately discards the file. Your data is not stored, cannot be retrieved, and is not used to train AI models. If you choose to email yourself a copy of your findings, we transmit them once to send that email and don't retain anything afterward. Nothing is stored on nexova's servers beyond the single email send.

Who built this tool and what are their credentials?

nexova ai is an AI-native HOA management company based in Sunnyvale, founded by Lawson Pan (engineer, HOA board member). Our managers are CCAM-certified or enrolled in CCAM coursework through the California Association of Community Managers. We're a BBB-accredited business and members of the Community Associations Institute (CAI) and ECHO. The tool itself was built by the nexova engineering team — the benchmarks draw from nexova-managed communities plus published industry data.

What happens after I submit the review request?

A nexova community manager reviews your extraction against your actual HOA documents and schedules a 30-minute call to walk you through the findings. No obligation, no sales pitch — the call's purpose is to validate what the tool found and give you and your fellow directors a clear picture. If you decide to explore switching management after the call, we'll send a written proposal. If you don't, you keep the review document as free due diligence.

How do I know these benchmarks apply to my community?

The tool asks for your community type (apartment-style low-rise / mid-rise / high-rise, townhome, single-family) and the water-billing structure (common-area-only vs. all-inclusive) precisely because these variables change the benchmark math substantially. Each finding's explanation cites the source the benchmark came from — a published industry survey, a California statute, or nexova's own managed-community data — so you or your HOA attorney can verify it independently. If a finding feels off for your community's circumstances, tell us in the follow-up review and we'll show you the underlying data.

How accurate are the benchmarks?

Our ranges come from public Bay Area HOA cost surveys, vendor contract data, California statutes, and nexova ai's internal data from HOAs under our management. We intentionally flag at the high end of the typical range — a finding here is a conservative call-out, not a worst-case estimate. Actual savings depend on your specific contracts, vendor quality, and community circumstances. The tool is a starting point for your next budget discussion, not a contract audit.

I'm not on the board — can I still use this?

Absolutely. Boards benefit when homeowners engage with the budget — it's easier to build consensus for vendor changes or reserve funding increases when the conversation starts from shared data. Run the audit, take the findings to your next open meeting, and the board has one more data point for its decision-making.

What do I do with a finding?

First, bring it to your next board meeting or management committee discussion. Second, ask your current manager for context on the gap — there may be a good reason. Third, if you want an independent validation against your actual contracts, we'll do a free budget review — no obligation.

Why doesn't the tool catch every expense category?

The current release detects management fee, five vendor categories (landscaping, janitorial, pool, pest, trash), two discretionary services (security patrol, answering service), mailing, legal + accounting, water & sewer, insurance, and reserves funding level. Line items we can't confidently match — special projects, one-time repairs, cellular monitoring contracts, etc. — surface in the "Needs your input" panel so you can decide whether they belong in one of the detectable categories or are genuinely out of scope. We'd rather be honest about ambiguity than mis-categorize.

Free · 2 minutes · No account required

How does your community's budgetcompare to Bay Area benchmarks?

Enter a few line items from your community's budget — management fee, vendor spend, mailing costs — and the Financial Waste Detector compares them to Bay Area benchmarks and nexova ai's data from communities under management. You'll get a dollar-denominated list of where your budget is outside typical Bay Area ranges, in plain English, ready for your next budget discussion.

How it works

An independent second opinion on your community's budget.

Step 01

You enter what your community pays today

Total management fee, landscaping, janitorial, pool, pest, trash, mailings, any services. Round numbers are fine — you don't need to reconcile to the penny. Nothing is stored. If you choose to email yourself a copy of your findings, we transmit them once to send that email and don't retain anything.

Step 02

We compare each line to Bay Area benchmarks

Our benchmarks come from published Bay Area HOA cost surveys, vendor contract data, and nexova ai's internal data from communities under our management. We flag at the high end of the typical range — any finding here is a conservative call-out you can trust.

Step 03

You get a list of findings, with dollar amounts

Each finding has a headline, a plain-English explanation, and an estimated annual savings. Bring it to your next budget discussion, share it with your management committee, or use it as a starting point for vendor renegotiations. If you want us to validate it against your actual contracts, we'll do a free budget review.

Where the benchmarks come from

Numbers you can trust.

We publish ours. No other Bay Area HOA management company does.

Every finding cites a source — published industry data, a California statute, or nexova ai's own managed-community data — so your you or your HOA attorney can verify each claim independently.

Management fee

HOA Unlimited Bay Area survey (2025)
$22–$38/unit/month full-service range
nexova ai published pricing (Proposal v0.7)
$16.50–$48/unit/month across 17 unit-count brackets

Vendor line items

Bay Area HOA vendor contract data (2024–2025)
Landscaping, janitorial, pool, pest, trash — observed ranges
nexova ai managed-community data
Real invoice data from HOAs under our management

Mailing & communications

California Civil Code §4040–4050
Statutory noticing requirements — the irreducible baseline
nexova ai digital-platform baseline
Under $3/unit/year for certified and unavoidable mailings

How the benchmarks are built

Methodology your attorney can audit.

For every detection category we publish the source, the data window, the sample we drew from, and the exact threshold the tool flags above. Disagree with one? Tell us in a follow-up review and we'll show you the underlying data.

Category	Source / citation	Data window	Sample	Flag threshold
Management fee	HOA Unlimited 2025 Bay Area survey + nexova published rate card (Proposal v0.7)	2024 – 2026	17 unit-count brackets, ~50+ Bay Area firms quoted	Flag at $48/unit/mo (top of nexova bracket)
Landscaping	Bay Area HOA vendor contract data + nexova managed-community invoices	2024 – 2025	20+ contracts observed	Flag above $18/unit/mo
Janitorial / common-area cleaning	Bay Area HOA vendor contract data + nexova internal data	2024 – 2025	15+ contracts observed	Flag above $10/unit/mo
Pool service	Bay Area pool-service vendor quotes + nexova data	2024 – 2025	10+ contracts (mostly fixed-per-pool, normalized per-unit)	Flag above $9/unit/mo (forgiving for small communities)
Pest control	Bay Area pest vendor quotes + nexova data	2024 – 2025	10+ contracts observed	Flag above $4/unit/mo
Trash & recycling	Bay Area municipal/private hauler rates	2024 – 2026	Cross-checked against city rate sheets	Flag above $38/unit/mo
Mailing & communications	California Civil Code §4040–4050 statutory baseline + nexova digital-platform data	2024 – 2026	All managed communities (digital-first baseline)	Flag above $20/unit/year
Legal + accounting	Bay Area HOA CPA quotes + retainer-style routine legal benchmarks	2024 – 2025	10+ CPA quotes, several legal retainer ranges	Flag at 1.5× baseline ($1,500 fixed floor + $8/unit/year variable)
Water & sewer	Bay Area utility tariffs (SCVWD, EBMUD, SFPUC) + nexova HOA bills	2024 – 2026	Common-area-only and all-inclusive billing structures handled separately	Flag above $900/unit/year (all-inclusive) or 2× baseline (common-area)
Insurance	Bay Area HOA broker quotes + CAI regional market reports + nexova data	2025 – 2026 hard-market window (premiums materially above soft-market norms)	Banded by community type (5 building profiles)	Flag above $400 – $700/unit/year depending on building profile
Reserves percent funded	California Civil Code §5565 (Assessment and Reserve Funding Disclosure) + CAI best practices	Statutory standard (rule of thumb stable over the past decade)	Standards-based, not sample-based	Flag below 70% (industry healthy floor); severely flag below 30%

Sample sizes describe the contracts and quotes we've directly observed in the named data window. Where the sample is small or highly variable (pool service, water & sewer, insurance), the flag threshold sits at the top of the typical range, not the mean — the tool only flags clear outliers, not borderline cases.

Questions

Answers before you ask.

Found something in your budget?

A free budget review with a nexova ai community manager takes 30 minutes. We'll validate the findings against your actual contracts, flag what else we see, and walk you through what we'd do differently. No obligation, no sales pitch — just a 30-minute second opinion from a nexova community manager.