A modern resident portal for an HOA that had outgrown its legacy tools.
Residents now have a single portal for communications, documents, and dues. The board has modern audit trails and moderation tools. Implementation cost and ongoing maintenance are a fraction of commercial HOA platforms.
Why HOAs are a perfect build-vs-buy case
Commercial HOA platforms are priced for property managers with hundreds of communities, not for a single well-run HOA. They charge per-door fees, include modules nobody uses, and make simple things hard. Boards tolerate them because the alternative — spreadsheets and email — is worse.
There’s a third option: build exactly what your HOA needs, and nothing else.
What we built
A Next.js + Supabase resident portal with:
- Resident accounts with SSO-ready authentication (NextAuth).
- Document library with versioning and category filters.
- Communications/announcements with read receipts for board governance.
- Dues tracking that integrates with the HOA’s actual accounting workflow.
- An admin surface for the board that doesn’t require a consultant to navigate.
Takeaway
Not every custom build is a multi-year investment. Community-scale software is one of the cleanest build-vs-buy wins available — once you have a modern stack and a developer who understands your workflow, custom software is often cheaper in year one than the commercial alternative.