The History of Barrera & Company
Barrera & Company, Inc. is a second-generation, family-owned business established in 1980 by the late F. Shawn Barrera, a licensed General Contractor, who started the Company in Solana Beach. In 1984, the Company completed its first reserve study for a Carlsbad homeowners’ association (HOA). Two years later, California passed the Davis-Stirling Act, which regulated the HOA industry and would soon mandate reserve studies by law. As the need for reserve studies increased, Barrera & Company began to grow.
In the early years, Shawn used his experience in construction and knowledge of component repairs to complete the field portion of the reserve study with his inspectors, and outsourced the accounting. In 1991, Chris Sanders joined Barrera and helped consolidate the entire reserve study process to in-house, enabling the company to speed up its process and evolve. This was a big step at the time as it was before widespread and common use of the Internet or the existence of Cloud, when spreadsheet software was a new technology. Around this same time, Hawaii enacted its own legislation to regulate condominium associations and Barrera took a leadership position once again, becoming one of the state’s first reserve study companies.
In 2001, Damian Esparza joined the Company and began working with Chris Sanders. Together, they have successfully expanded the business into new markets and continually invest in the quality of the reserve study experience. For example, Barrera was the first reserve study company to develop web-based software, enabling clients to develop reserve budgets in real time, at any time, any place.
Throughout its history, Barrera has always demonstrated leadership through innovation and a commitment to improving the customer experience. The company completes over 1,000 reserve studies a year throughout the United States, advising owners and investors to see the value in planning for the future.