Stop Running a Job, Start Building a Business

For many HOA and condo management company owners, it’s easy to treat the business like a job: you earn a fair salary, support your team, and distribute leftover cash at year-end. It’s a familiar rhythm, and for a lot of owners, it’s worked for years.

But this model can limit the company’s value, especially when it’s time to sell. Buyers don’t want to acquire someone’s job. They want to acquire a business. And the way they measure a business’s strength is through its ability to produce ongoing, predictable profitability.

If your goal is to build something that others want to buy, or even just something that gives you options, then profitability can’t be an afterthought. It needs to be a central focus.

What Profitability Signals to Buyers

Buyers use profitability to assess not only how much they’re willing to pay, but how stable and scalable your business really is. In HOA management, profitability is usually expressed through EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, because it reflects the core cash-generating power of the business.

This number isn’t muddied by owner-specific decisions like debt payments, asset purchases, or tax elections. It’s a clean, comparable metric across businesses and across deals. And since management companies rarely have inventory or capital equipment, EBITDA closely resembles true cash flow, making it even more important in this industry.

The more EBITDA your company generates, the more valuable it becomes. Buyers typically apply a multiple to EBITDA to arrive at a purchase price. But here’s the catch: if you’re operating with little to no visible profit or distributing everything informally, that value becomes harder to see, harder to justify, and harder to unlock.

Turning a Job Into a Business

The first step is to separate your role as the owner from the business’s performance. Pay yourself a market-based salary, just like you would if you were hiring a CEO to replace you. Treat everything else as company profit, not personal income.

From there, shift your thinking from income distribution to profit optimization. That doesn’t mean cutting corners or underpaying staff. It means tightening the business model so that it produces healthy margins after paying fair wages. Review your pricing, evaluate your staffing structure, and ensure your overhead is in line with your revenue base.

Track your performance monthly. If you’re not already running financial reports that show EBITDA (including common add-backs like one-time expenses or owner-specific perks), start doing so now. It will help you understand where the business is today and how to get it where it needs to be for a sale.

Profitability also supports better decision-making. When your margins are clear, you can more confidently reinvest in systems, people, or services that help you grow, without jeopardizing your bottom line. And if your team is large enough, you can tie bonuses or incentives directly to margin goals, which helps align everyone toward long-term success.

Profitability Compounds Over Time

Many owners assume that when they’re ready to sell, they’ll just “clean up” the business for a year or two. While that’s better than nothing, buyers are increasingly looking at trends over 3 to 5 years. A single year of solid profitability may not be enough to get the multiple you’re hoping for.

That’s why it’s important to start optimizing now. A more profitable business gives you more control, whether you want to sell, raise capital, bring on a partner, or simply step back. Profitability gives you options.

And even if you’re not planning to sell for several years, a focus on EBITDA will improve your quality of life. It creates discipline, reduces financial stress, and ensures that your company is working for you and not the other way around.

Final Thoughts

If you treat your business like a job, it will be valued like one. But if you build it like an enterprise, one with clear, growing, and defensible profitability, you’ll open the door to stronger offers, smoother exits, and greater long-term wealth.

At CAM Advisors, we work with owners who are ready to professionalize their operations and position their businesses for the future. Whether you're a few months or a few years away from a sale, profitability is the first and most important lever to pull.