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What is the cost to design and setup an AtHomeNet Condo or Homeowners Association Web Site for our community?
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The great part is, there is NO setup or design fee for our standard community web site. AtHomeNet will setup and customize your community web site with your desired color scheme, features, pictures, logo and wording with no initial charge. The monthly fee, which is billed in convenient quarterly payments, is based upon the size of your community and even this cost can be quickly reimbursed by selling classified ads on your community web site to local businesses in your area. Our Pointer and Premium Plans carry a one-time, $50 setup fee in order to cover the cost of creating your site at your own domain name.
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Why would our community/association/subdivision want a web site?
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The AtHomeNet Community & Homeowners Association Web Site service was developed in order to help promote and improve communications in residential communities. Having a community web site allows residents to gather and share information amongst themselves and also with board members, committee members, property managers and others in a quick and easy manner. In today's fast-paced society, there is often not enough time to perform the day-to-day activities and also keep up with what is going on in the community. With an AtHomeNet Homeowners Association Web Site, residents who miss a meeting or a newsletter don't have to miss out. They can catch up and get involved on their own schedule. Maybe early in the morning, while on lunch break at work, or late in the evening when things have settled down around the house. When it is convenient, they can visit the community web site, catch up on what is going on, offer their feedback and opinion and even converse with their neighbors. The Internet is a powerful force in our society and you can leverage this force to help create a more involved, better informed community.
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Who makes changes and additions to our community web site?
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After AtHomeNet has setup your basic web site, one or more people in your community become the "Community Administrators". This person or persons will be assigned a special "administrator" password that will allow them to add and maintain all of the necessary information for your community web site. This includes, but is not limited to, adding and maintaining announcements, surveys and votes, new users in the address book, documents, newsletters, hot links, volunteer needs and much more. See below for more information.
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How hard is it for us to make changes to the web site?
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AtHomeNet makes this maintenance VERY easy with "browser-based" administration. This means that the only thing the Community Administrator(s) needs in order to add and change information on your community web site is a web browser. No special software or knowledge of the Internet is required. All changes the Community Administrator makes are immediately available on the web site, no waiting. You can spread this job duty over multiple community volunteers or committees to make it even easier. The process is the same for each feature so, for example, once you learn how to add Announcements, you will know how to add Documents, Hot Links, Surveys, etc. If you get stuck, free E-mail and phone support is always available.
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How much space or storage are we allowed for our web site?
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AtHomeNet does not impose strict limits on the amount of storage space allocated to your community web site. We allow a large degree of latitude for communities to use the service as they see fit, as we design our Condo and Homeowner Association Web Sites such that they can be utilized in communities of any size. Should the storage requirements of your community web site become excessively large we would contact you in order to help you improve the performance and usability of your site by reducing the size of the information stored. Most communities storage requirements are below 20 megabytes, which is well within reasonable limits.
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What can AtHomeNet’s Homeowners Association Web Site service do for my Association Management company?
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AtHomeNet prides itself on offering a very powerful set of tools for association management companies. Community association management is a demanding job with hectic schedules and tight margins and we have a number of features that make that job easier, less time consuming and more profitable. From an easy to setup Online Dues Payment feature for the management company web site to online Facilities Reservation tools, Vendor Management, eMail Bulletins, and Job Bid and Task Manager features on the community web site service, we have the tools you need to help you do your job. Our Management Company and Community websites also can help on the revenue side by letting you offer vendor advertising programs, and affiliate revenue generation along with giving you a great, search-engine-friendly web presence in short order so you can be found easily where board members are looking first for all their vendors…on the internet. Beyond that, our community association websites can be “private-labeled” as a service of your management company; thus letting everyone know that you have the kind of “technology friendly” approach to management that gives you a distinct advantage over your competition. Call us today to learn more ways we can help your community association management company.
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Can we put pictures on our community web site?
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Absolutely! In fact, as part of the setup, AtHomeNet will scan and place up to 8 photos for you. These pictures can be placed on the public and private home pages and within the "Facilities" section of the web site. After setup, your community administrator can easily place pictures in many areas of your web site, such as facilities, documents, homes for sale, Photo Albums, Hot Links, etc. .
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What would the web address of our community web site be?
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Under the standard plan, your new Homeowners Association Web Site would be hosted under the AtHomeNet domain. So, for example, if your community were called "Glen Oaks", then your web site address could be "www.athomenet.com/glenoaks". If your community does want to have it's own unique web site address (domain name), we have plans that allow this also (described below).
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What if we want our own "domain name" such as www.GlenOaks.com?
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Most of our community association clients want their own unique domain name for their community web site so we have the Pointer and Premium plans. Both of these plans allow you to have your web site hosted under your own unique domain name, for example "www.GlenOaks.com". If you have not already registered your desired domain name we can take care of that for you. The current fee for this is $70 for the first two years and $35 per year after that. The other startup fee on the Pointer and Premium Plans is $50 to have a new web hosting account setup. On just the Premium Plan, you will also receive 10 customized email addresses (such as "board@GlenOaks.com") and you can add additional email addresses at any time in groups of 10 for $20 per month. We offer the Premium Plan for those communities that desire to have their own domain name and eMail addresses such as "board@community-name.com" or "info@community-name.com" or "social@community-name.com". With the Premium Plan you can also setup unlimited Email "aliases" which allow people to email you at a community email address (such as president@community-name.com) and yet you receive the email at your private email account (such as AOL or MSN).
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Will people be able to find our community web site on the Internet using a search engine?
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That depends. Search Engine Optimization techniques must be implemented, monitored, and adjusted for continued success. Once your AtHomeNet Homeowners Association Web Site is live, we can assist you with a number of helpful tips and strategies that can influence your organic listings on the most popular search engines. As a starting point, you’ll want to "Submitting your Site" or "Submitting your URL" to Google, Yahoo, and the other major search engines. AtHomeNet does not automatically submit your web site to any search engines although, if you are interested, we will be happy to provide you with a list of popular search engines that allow you to submit your site for free and also the addresses of some services that will submit your site to hundreds of search engines for a fee. The decision to submit your site to the search engines really depends upon how much you want people on the Internet in general to be able to find your web site when searching for communities in your area. This can be particularly important for Association Management Companies, who depend on internet visibility to attract more clients.
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How much is all of this going to cost us?
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The only charge for the Standard Community, Condo or Homeowners Association Web Site Service is a monthly fee that is based upon the number of homes or units in your community. Your community will be billed quarterly and the payment for the first three months is due when you sign up for the service. Please see the Pricing page to find the monthly fee for your size community. For more information about the Pointer and Premium Plans pricing, see the above question.
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What if we decide we don't like the web site after it is up and running?
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We are confident that your community will benefit immensely from your AtHomeNet Homeowners Association Web Site. If for any reason within the first 30 days of service, you are not satisfied with your community web site, we will refund all AtHomeNet Community Web Site service fees paid and release your community from the remainder of your contract with no penalties. For Pointer and Premium Plan customers, you will be refunded your AtHomeNet service fees but this does not include domain name registration fee or hosting setup fee.
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What does AtHomeNet do for our monthly fee? In other words, why do we have to keep paying you?
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Your AtHomeNet Condo, Community, or Homeowners Association Web Site is actually a web-based software program that dynamically gathers the latest information from your own private community database every time a user visits the site. This is how you can update the site so quickly and easily. AtHomeNet is always working to add new features and improve existing features in this web-based program. Your monthly fee covers any new or improved features AtHomeNet releases during the term of your contract. These new features will be offered to your community at no charge as soon as they are available. So instead of having to buy the latest "version" of our service, you will get it automatically. In addition to this, AtHomeNet provides regular backup and maintenance to the underlying database and content in order to keep your site functioning properly and efficiently. The fee also covers any Email or phone support your Community Administrator may need from time to time. Finally the fee covers the cost of the storage space that your community web site takes up on the web server, which is often referred to as a "hosting fee".
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In what format can we place our community documents on the web site?
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Your community can place documents, images, audio and video on your web site in any of at least 16 different formats. These include: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat (PDF), HTML, Plain Text, JPEG image, or GIF image. Some of these formats are viewable with FREE viewers readily available on the Internet but most are directly supported by all major browsers on the market with nothing additional needed. As additional formats become widely accepted, we automatically add support for them as well.
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Couldn't we just make our own web page if we know what we are doing?
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Certainly you could. Many communities have done just that. However, if you look at a number of these sites on the Internet a pattern will start to appear. For the most part, these "homemade" sites are very limited in functionality. Few, if any, have message boards, chat rooms, surveys and voting, reservations, dues payment, classified ads, and a number of other features available with the AtHomeNet Homeowners Association Web Site Service. The second thing you will notice is that most of these sites have not been updated in a long time and no longer offer timely, valuable information to their residents. This is usually caused when the "local computer expert" either becomes overwhelmed with the task of constantly updating the site and loses interest or moves out of the community. At that point the community is stuck because the expert was the only one who knew how to maintain and update the site. With AtHomeNet, we have automated and simplified the task of maintaining the site to the point that anyone with a web browser can do it without knowing anything more than how to type and click a mouse. In addition, our staff is constantly coming up with new and exciting features for our web site service and these are automatically available to your community without having to develop them yourself. Finally, while it may take months for your community to develop it's own web site, an AtHomeNet Community, Condo, or Homeowners Association Web Site is up and running in just ONE WEEK!
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Does AtHomeNet sell its Residents data to third parties?
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Absolutely not! Your residents can rest assured that AtHomeNet will not sell Residents' names, address, phone numbers or other data within the community database to third parties. In fact, our contract specifically prevents us from doing this. We're in the business of creating web sites for Associations, not in the business of gathering demographic information and reselling it to third parties. Your residents' personal data is just that, YOUR residents'!
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