Matt Leukroth, MBA, LCAM,
has been in the property management and developer industries for more than
twenty years. After beginning his career in food & beverage management, he
began his experiences with developers and property management by spending
several years with a public developer of lifestyle and golf club communities.
As general manager of several developer owned assets, such as elaborate
community town centers, private food & beverage operations, lifestyle
amenities, and golf club & course operations, he gained extensive development
and operational knowledge of private club facilities, in addition to
participation on multiple association boards as a developer appointed director.
During the real estate market downturn, while developers
were struggling and making massive layoffs, Matt migrated to the property
management side of the real estate arena, working with a large successful
state-wide management company. As a regional director of a business unit
comprised of mostly developer accounts (many of which being those of the same
developer for which he’d previously worked), he gained extensive experience and
knowledge in the developer turnover process by working through multiple
transitions from the property management and association side of that process.
After several years in property management working
primarily with developer-controlled associations, and with recovery of the
local development and homebuilding industry, Matt then made a move back to the
developer side as an executive with a private developer/homebuilder in
southwest Florida. In this role Matt acted as division financial manager,
project manager, and association manager for the company’s regional development
projects. This role provided experience and extensive insight into the
developer side of community association development, including document
drafting and recording, entitlement and permitting, community planning, land
development, and much more. In this role Matt also managed several developer
turnovers, but this time from the developer side of the process, adding
to the experienced gained previously from managing transitions from the
property management and association side of the process, and providing
invaluable perspective of how developers plan and manage their potential
liabilities through a turnover.
Some years later, Matt again made a career move to join a
large, nation-wide property management company as a regional vice president,
overseeing a portfolio that did not include any developer accounts. Based on
experiences to date, and because there were no developer relationships to
maintain, Matt decided to exercise the knowledge gained from prior experiences
by working to educate and provide guidance for communities under developer
control and attempting to plan for turnover. Matt has done several public
presentations on the developer turnover process, all of which have been highly
attended and highly commended.
These combined experiences, and perspective, have
provided Matt a unique and extensive knowledge base that includes comprehensive
understanding of the development process, the mindset and considerations of
both associations and developers during turnover, and the many potential
pitfalls and potential concerns for associations when working through a
developer turnover. All of this experience and knowledge (or at least most of
it) he has now compiled into this guide to provide a substantial resource—a
resource not often found in property managers or their management companies—for
developed community residents anxious about turnover of their community
association from a developer.