Article appeared 3/18/2016 in the Triad Buisness Journal:
From the local neighborhood to blue skies overhead, Paul
Mengert is most at home when he's helping others.
As a businessman, his clients are groups looking to protect
the value of homes for their residents. But as a volunteer pilot, his focus is
flying patients to distant medical
appointments in a fraction of the five to 10 hours
of driving it would require
otherwise.
Mengert is the founder and president of Association
Management Group, one of the Carolinas' largest homeowners association and
condominium management firms. AMG cunently has 40 employees spread
among its offices in Greensboro,
Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Raleigh, Greenville, S.C., and Aiken, S.C. Together,
they handle several hundred condominiums, town home and planned unit
developments in N01ih and South Carolina.
Mengert launched the company in 1984 and said growth in
neighborhood associations has been driven by the proliferation of planned
communities with shared amenities such
as golf courses and swimming pools.
"By making the planned community into an association,
(developers) could sometimes use land that otherwise wasn't buildable to make
housing more affordable," he said. "The reason for associations stems
from the affordability of land use and from amenities and from the sense of
homebuyers caring about who they're going to be living around."
Or, more specifically, what other homes in the neighborhood
look like. Mengert said AMG works with a few neighborhood associations that go
as far as prohibiting lawns from exceeding a certain height and requiring that
homes be painted a ce1iain way. Not all associations are like that, he added,
but they all provide some degree of
control over the environment.
AMG has grown steadily, working as a facilitator
of homeowner associations.
It works with the leaders of the associations to expedite
whatever services are offered . That
includes everything from ensuring
lawns are cut regularly, plants and shrubs are neatly trimmed and
homeowner dues are collected
monthly.
Mengert said the competition to provide these services is
pretty stiff.
"Like a lot of
industries, it falls into a couple
different categories where there are probably a dozen or so companies that are
major players in the industry in our
state," he said. "Then there are some medium-sized companies. There
are also companies that handle just one association. It runs the gamut."
Competition is one challenge in the industry, but so are
factors that impact the real estate market. The proliferation of apartments, for
example, doesn't alarm Mengert as much as the underlying reason that some
younger adults are gravitating towards living there instead of buying homes.
Young potential home buyers aren't as excited about
homeownership as a decade ago, before the latest recession hit.
"That said, home ownership has been one of the best long-term
investments over a long period of time in the U.S.," he said. "I
still think there are a lot of consumers who are attracted to homeownership not
only because of the stability it gives them but also because of the long-term
investment. Homeownership will continue to be an important part of most
people's investment strategies."
Compared to other markets in North Carolina, including
Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, the Triad is generally more resistant to the
fluctuations of the economy and real estate market, Mengert said.
"Yes, we've had some downside in real estate values
during the recession, but I think our market got hit less than a lot of other
markets," he said. "And when you look at it from a homeowners
association perspective, those that have more turnover seemed to be affected
more by the economy. Communities where people have been there for a long period
of time -like most of those in the Triad- seem to be affected very little."
Mengert said that lately, one of AMG's big initiatives has been
helping associations outside of the Triad to maintain
or lift property values.
"It's always an undesirable situation if home values
are declining," he said. "We really try to work with different communities to help them
devise strategies if their homes are decreasing in value. We look at why that
is and what can be done about it. In some cases we've been able to facilitate a
kind of informal group of Realtors to talk about what could be done to help
the prope1iy values.
But Mengert said the biggest challenge at AMG right now is
staying on top of all the rules the different homeowners associations want it
to enforce. He said some of the complexity has to do with legislative effort that,
in some cases, change what
communities can and can't do.
"I'm not saying whether those changes are right or
wrong, I'm just saying it's a challenge," he said.
He cites as an example the big dispute over satellite dishes
from a few years ago. Most neighborhood associations AMG worked for simply
banned them because the dishes were unsightly.
Then regulators basically stated that
satellite dishes couldn't be
prohibited.
"Reconciling those kinds of things is always a challenge," he
said. "On the one hand we have
some owners who theoretically bought into that community because they
didn't want to look out their window and
see a satellite dish. We have other owners who really want satellite TV
service. Balancing the interests and rights
of all the members is really
important."
When he's not ensuring that lawns are manicured, hedges are
tidy and satellite dishes are tastefully hidden, you'll often find Mengert in
the cockpit. He has made multiple trips to deliver beds, toys and clothes to an
orphanage in Haiti, but also has since 2009 volunteered with Angel Flight
Soars. With the help of 1,000 volunteer pilots like Mengert, the nonprofit
flies 2,500 missions a year.
Late last year, for example, Mengert flew Helen Lindsey, a
quadruple amputee awaiting a bilateral
hand transplant, from Atlanta
to Winston-Salem for a doctor's visit.
"I personally suffered (and fully recovered) from a
condition that required medical treatments not available locally," Mengert
says. "Because of this, I am very empathetic to those who are in need, or
who have a loved one in need, of nonemergency medical treatment not available
in their home city. Angel Flight Soars
facilitates transportation for
people at a time of need.", the nonprofit
flies 2,500 missions a year.
This article is from the Triad Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/print-edition/2016/03/18/paul-mengert-greensboro-exec-passionate-about.html
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