In this week’s episode, Podcast Host, Property Manager & Business Owner, Andrew Schultz, chats about fair housing testing and its role in uncovering evidence of racial discrimination in rental housing.
Ready to digitize your rent payment system? We’ll give you tips on how to set up rent payments for tenants digitally.
Last, but not least, what’s the purpose of a property manager and when should you consider hiring one for your rental property? Find out in our latest podcast.
Show Notes
Andrew (00:00:00):
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the rent prep.com, November, 2023. Ask me anything session. I’m Andrew Schultz, community manager here at Rent Prep. I’m also a licensed real estate broker with over 14 years of experience. Actually, it’s 15 years of experience now, um, with the property management and rental property industries, which is a long time as I sit here and think about that <laugh>. And I have, I have with me today, Josh from the rent prep marketing team. Josh, how are you doing today?
Josh (00:00:31):
Oh, Andrew, I’m, I’m good. Um, my voice is a little bit, my voice is a little bit raspy today. I was yelling at the, uh, the Bills game last night. Um, don’t even get, yeah, tough day. Tough Monday in Buffalo for, for all US Bills fans. But we’re gonna, we’re gonna still get through it. We’ve, uh, you know, we’re, that game, we’re overcoming a lot of stuff here.
Andrew (00:00:54):
That game was robbed. We were robbed of that game on a multitude of different levels. Um, yeah, it’s, I swear the refs must have had a money line bet on, on the Eagles during that game. Like, <laugh>,
Josh (00:01:05):
What? You can’t tell tell
Andrew (00:01:06):
Me that wasn’t a horse collar. Like
Josh (00:01:08):
I know. It was crazy. It was crazy. It was crazy. But, you know, we, uh, we’re resilient here at REM Prep. We’re battling back. You weren’t feeling too well, uh, last week, which is, which is why we rescheduled, which is no big deal. But as we start to, and you know, the bills yesterday and as we start to get into the snowy season here, uh, in Buffalo, we are, that’s when we get tough. Right? Yeah.
Andrew (00:01:31):
Well, so the theory goes right, <laugh>. So, yeah, I was actually, I was in last Monday in the morning and, uh, ended up having to leave midday, wasn’t feeling real good, and decided that it probably wouldn’t be a great idea to try to be on a Facebook live session for a full hour. Thankfully, we were able to, to reschedule for this week, which is awesome. So, um, we are just past Thanksgiving, how was your Thanksgiving?
Josh (00:01:55):
Thanksgiving was good. We did, we did, uh, my girlfriend and I went to both, uh, both our families on the same day. So it was a whole, it was a whole eight hour, uh, eight hour day of, of family fun, but, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it was nice. It was, it was a good, uh, a good weekend. Nice to have a couple days, days off here as I still did some last minute preparation around the house for, for the winter. As, as I said, it looks like the next couple days here we’re starting to get some light snow in Buffalo, but obviously, uh, snow will be here soon and had to get the snowblower ready and all that kind of stuff, so, oh
Andrew (00:02:35):
Yeah, it’ll be here before you know it, it’s actually, I just got my snowblower back this morning. Um, my, I don’t know if I ever mentioned to you, my brother-in-Law and sister own a tractor dealership, so they do like all of our service. Where at? Um, can I, can I say?
Josh (00:02:52):
Uh, no, it’s all right. Yeah, it’s, you don’t need to say it’s,
Andrew (00:02:56):
It’s in Alexander New York, and if you can figure that out, you can pretty much figure it out from there. Is, is really what it boils down to. But anyway, they just dropped our snowblower back off this morning for our house. Yeah. Believe it or not, I just signed the last snowplow contract this morning for our managed properties too. Like we’ve been going through and trying to get our vendors lined up for snow removal and, and stuff like that. And this year has been really, really tough to find snowplow contractors that are Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, not outrageously priced. And we have some historic data from years past on a lot of the properties that we’ve managed. But like we’re seeing in some instances plow rates double what we were seeing last year. And I think it’s honestly because of those two major snow storms that we had.
Josh (00:03:42):
That’s, that’s what I was gonna ask.
Andrew (00:03:43):
One Thanksgiving weekend, and then the one was like Christmas weekend, right? Exactly.
Josh (00:03:47):
Yeah. Yeah. It was Christmas, it was both the holidays and then throughout the rest of the winter there wasn’t, there wasn’t even that much snow. Pretty mild.
Andrew (00:03:55):
Yeah.
Josh (00:03:56):
It was a mild winter in Buffalo. And then Yeah, you had those two major storms, which for sure I, I could believe that those would be scaring people enough to where, you know, they would try to get, try to get somebody under contract.
Andrew (00:04:09):
Yeah, for sure. Well, and even the contracts that we’re seeing this year, like last year’s contracts didn’t have blizzard clauses in them. Like this year we’re seeing contracts come across that if there’s more than two foot of snow that drops in any one event, you know, at our option we can bring in heavy equipment and charge you, you know, at $125 or $250 an hour, depending on what we need to do. And
Josh (00:04:32):
I didn’t know that.
Andrew (00:04:34):
Oh yeah. It’s crazy. Like it’s, it’s all, it’s all written so that like, they have to get your okay first, but like, what are you gonna do? Like if you we’re different? ’cause it’s all residential, but like, if you have a, an office building and there’s two foot of snow in your parking lot, you’re paying the money regardless because you want to be open for business. So it’s, yeah. It’s kind of a catch 22 that way. Um, I’m hoping we don’t wind up with any major events like that, but it’s Buffalo. We’re good for a couple of decent sized snow events a year, no doubt. Yeah. So it’s just a matter of time really.
Josh (00:05:05):
Yeah. Yeah. I know. Um, and I, I don’t know, uh, Steve had sent a photo, he had a picture of the storm from last year and him trying to get into the office building <laugh> after last year’s storm and none of our, our plow guys hadn’t come or anything. Right. So it was, um, it was a funny photo. Every, the snow was pretty, pretty high up and he was trying to dig his way through. But yeah, man, I, you know, for sure, for sure I could see with winter coming, I could for sure see people, especially with the storms just for recency bias too. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, just getting scared and just try to protect themselves. But that, that storm clause, um, that’s kind of interesting. I’ve never, I’ve never really heard of people putting storm clauses in or being able to charge more, which, you know, I,
Andrew (00:05:53):
I went back and looked because it’s, it wasn’t something that I remember remember seeing in any of our contracts in previous years. And it’s definitely something that appears to be new in this year’s contracts with a lot of different vendors. We’re using three different vendors for snowplow services this year. Um,
Josh (00:06:09):
I was gonna ask you, just due to the location, the different locations of the properties, you just can’t use the same vendor.
Andrew (00:06:16):
Yeah, it’s, so we’re spread across Erie and Niagara County, so we have a pretty big geographic footprint that we cover. So there’s no one vendor that’s gonna be able to cover all of that. The other thing is we had, um, we have two vendors that are covering kind of the same area in the city of Buffalo, but my thought process is if something happens and one of the vendors is unable to perform, at least we have somebody else that’s already in the area, doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily gonna want to take us on for the rest of the season, or they’re gonna give us great pricing if we want to add mid-season. But at least we’ve already been through the process of finding an onboarding and vetting and everything else, so that if we do need to call somebody and say, I’m in a bind, can you help me by plowing this property? At least we already have all their paperwork and stuff on file. So that’s kind of what we’re, kind of what we’re hoping for.
Josh (00:07:06):
Yeah, no, that, uh, that makes sense. Always good. Just always good to have <laugh> stuff. Alright, well what else, um, before we hop in here really quick Sure. What else, uh, what other tips do you have just as far as getting ready for just kind of getting ready for the wintertime or colder weather? I know not all of our listeners are, are in Buffalo or the East Coast Mm-Hmm. Or anything like that, but, you know, what are, what are a couple quick tips just for, for getting your property ready for the winter?
Andrew (00:07:37):
Some of the things that we try to make sure that we do is like, especially on our larger multi-families, we always make sure that every entrance has a shovel and a bucket of rock salt. We’re obviously out providing the service anyway, but at least if it’s there, if somebody sees an obvious trip hazard like ice, I’m hoping mm-Hmm. That they will at least throw some rock salt down. That goes a long way. Um, making sure that you have checked your vents, um, any sort of exterior vent that needs to be closed up before winter hits or any sort of exterior gap where you can get any sort of cold air draft through. And really, it’s not even just cold air draft like vermin. It’s, it’s amazing how small the whole a mouse can fit through is when you really stop and think about it. And if you have even the slightest little gap anywhere around the outside of your property, they’re looking for someplace warm to go.
Andrew (00:08:26):
So, oh yeah. If I had to say, you know, like my top tips would be make sure you’ve got your shovels and rock salt and everything. Make sure you have a snow brush in your car. Yeah. And, um, after that I would say double check all the way around your building. Make sure that you have your, your building foundation completely sealed up around doors are sealed up, things like that. And, um, the one thing that most people don’t think to check is their dryer vents. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, make sure that your dryer vent has the little, you know, plastic louvers on it that are closing the way they’re supposed to. Right. Because that’s a very easy way for either cold air or a rodent to find its way into your house.
Josh (00:09:04):
Yeah. And they can, they can for sure climb. Yeah. I know that from experience they, I’ve watched some scale brick Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, brick walls. The sides of brick walls come on up. I’ve watched ’em in some of my, some of my early on apartments. I’ve watched them crawl, crawl up and, and hang off the, the window overhang and, uh, biting my tongue so that I didn’t scare freak anybody out by telling them that there was a mouse up there, but they can for sure climb too. And I’ve had a, a few properties that I, that I was living in that, that we had issues with, especially during the winter time. ’cause they’re obviously looking for, looking for a spot to, to hide out and stay warm.
Andrew (00:09:43):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it’s, as soon as it gets cold, you can almost guarantee that we’re gonna generate a couple of mouse calls or something. And we already have, like, as soon as the weather started shifting, we Mm-Hmm. We had a couple of tenants that reached out and said, Hey, you know, saw a mouse in the basement when I was doing laundry. Stuff like that. So it happens every year. Yeah.
Josh (00:10:02):
Yeah. No, no. That’s just, that’s part of it though. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But, alright. Let’s, uh, let’s jump into some questions. I know we’re already 10 minutes in here, so let’s, that’s alright. Let’s rip it up. Alright.
Andrew (00:10:15):
We had a lot of good questions this month too.
Josh (00:10:18):
I know we had another month of, of a ton of submissions and also we still have some, uh, Facebook questions that we need to get to from last time. So, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So let’s start this up. Alright. Uh, question from Antoinette. What can landlords do to prevent charges with discrimination from the Fair Housing Institute?
Andrew (00:10:40):
Follow Fair Housing Law? It’s that simple. Um, yeah, it’s, and this is a question that I wanted to bring up and actually somebody in the Facebook group had had mentioned, I had commented on one of the posts, somebody was doing something that was pretty obviously a fair housing violation. And, and somebody had asked me, um, Hey, why don’t you talk about Fair Housing in one of your podcast episodes? And I apologize, I can’t remember who it was, but I’m not licensed or certified or whatever to, to train people in Fair Housing, which is why I tend to refer people to Fair Housing Law or to a different website or whatever. And I don’t actually get into a lot of the Fair housing issues. Um, like I just finished my, I just finished my 22 and a half hours of continuing ed for my broker’s license and we have to take Fair Housing as part of that.
Andrew (00:11:27):
And now we’re, we have Fair housing, we have cultural bias, we have, there was something else that’s mixed in there too, and I can’t remember what, so actually most real estate agents and real estate brokers get a fair amount of fair housing training and, you know, cultural bias and cultural diversity training and things like that. And it’s important because we are dealing with the general public on a day-to-Day basis. Um, as far as what the know the average landlord or anybody else can do to pick up some education on Fair Housing. There are a ton of websites out there that offer Fair Housing Education. Um, some of them free, some of ’em charge a small sum, but it’s, it’s worth it. Like if you don’t understand the Fair Housing laws, it’s something that’s pretty critical for you to understand as a landlord. And I applaud any landlord that actually takes the time to do the research and understand what their legal obligations are under Fair Housing law because it doesn’t, there’s very, very few instances where you’re not liable under Fair Housing Law and Right.
Andrew (00:12:27):
It’s one of those situations where you’re better off knowing what you need to know ahead of time so that you are prepared. Like we always talk about having a fair housing compliance set of screening criteria every single time. If you screen somebody using a site the same set of criteria every single time, and that criteria is Fair Housing compliant, you’re never going to be in a situation where you’re discriminating on someone based on a fair housing issue. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that’s, that’s where I’m at on it. If you are interested in Fair Housing, if you’re interested in learning more about Fair Housing, you could check out Fair Housing Institute, which is actually the group that was mentioned here in the, the question asked by Antoinette. Um, or just go on Google and do a search for Fair Housing training. There are a ton of places that’ll do it. I guarantee you that if you talk to like one of the Section eight agencies in your neighborhood or something like that, um, department of Social Services, any of those agencies can point you towards Fair Housing Training. And I think it’s a great idea for any landlord to go through it.
Josh (00:13:30):
Yeah. And, uh, I I think that’s great. And I know, I know we have, and I’ve been part of it, we have a relationship with Rocket Lawyer just as far as, uh, providing any additional just legal, legal counsel or legal answers for any, any sort of landlord questions. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, and they’ve, they’ve always been a good partner of ours just as far as just giving you the correct information based on your, on your state, your jurisdiction, all that kind of stuff. So, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, we, we refer to Rocket Lawyer a lot, but yeah. I mean, it’s not something to any of these types of questions. Um, not something to really mess around with or Right. Or guess with, uh, because it’ll, it’ll come back to bite you.
Andrew (00:14:14):
Well, and we, you mentioned, uh, we tend to think about Fair Housing law as a national level thing, but there are also state and local level laws that you need to be aware of as well. Yeah. So for instance, in Buffalo, in Erie County, excuse me, not in Buffalo, um, Erie County had a source of income legislation about two years before. Um, I dunno if it’s state or federal, federal federally, there was an income protection or maybe it was state. I gotta look back into that. I think it’s New York State protects source of income. Uh, I think that’s a state level protection now. I think that was passed as part of H-S-T-P-A in 2019. But prior to that, Erie County had a local source of income protection law. So you really have to know the laws all the way across the board, local, state, and federal Mm-Hmm. To ensure that you’re being compliant.
Josh (00:15:03):
Right. Good. All right. Let’s, uh, let’s bounce over to a Facebook question from Clarissa. I would like to start taking rent payment digital, no more handwritten checks for accepting automatic direct deposit. Do I need to give tenant a certain form or what? How does that work? Thank you.
Andrew (00:15:26):
So if you’re trying to do it with your bank directly, you would have to talk to your bank to find out what their Yeah. Like how they operate. Um, I’ve never done it that way, so I don’t really have advice on doing like a direct draft from your bank to their bank. Um, we use property management software, AppFolio that handles all of our digital payments for us, whether it be an online payment with a routing and account number. Um, you can use a debit card. You can use a credit card. They also handle our, um, our payments through pay near me, which is where our tenants can go and make their payments at CVS seven 11, Walgreens and Walmart, which is super nice. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but they handle all that on our behalf. So like they take care of the processing fees and the physical movement of the money and stuff like that.
Andrew (00:16:13):
Depending on how many doors you have, that’s probably the route to go. Um, it’s going to be faster and easier to find a management software that’s capable of handling that rather than trying to do something with your bank because your bank is probably going to come with a lot of extra charges and things of that nature. And it’s probably gonna be way more complicated than you need it to be. I would go with a management software wherever possible for something like payments. Uh, and it just makes the entire process a lot easier. And honestly, once you are using an online software for your payments, it makes it a lot easier for you to track every aspect of your rental, maintenance, accounting in general, your income and expenses, the whole shot. So I don’t know, as though I would necessarily recommend any one software, I certainly would not recommend the software that we’re using for any smaller landlords. Um, but there are a ton of different softwares out there to choose from. It’s just one of those topics that we’re never gonna be able to really devote the time necessary to, to researching all of the companies. ’cause there’s so many of them. And you really need to get in depth with a company to understand if you wanna use their software or not.
Josh (00:17:18):
Right. Each, each one has a niche that they, that they excel at. And yeah. I’ll, I’ll speak candidly here. Obviously REM Prep, uh, our sister company, essa, they, you know, they are a, a more financial tracking based property management. They’re not a full solution of property management software, but they, you know, we’re, we’re very close to finishing that up. But they excel at getting you, um, helping you itemize your transactions, helping you, getting your stuff ready for tax time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, all that kind of stuff. There is rent payment available on there. Um, but yeah, you really, you really just need to find the, the application or the provider that’s gonna fit your needs. Some of them won’t have one thing, maybe they don’t have list or syndicated listings, but they have something else and you just really need to find what, what’s gonna be the, you know, the answer for you.
Andrew (00:18:12):
One, one, there’s no such thing as a perfect property management software. I think the one thing that’s critical to look into when you are looking at management software is, especially if you have intent on scaling up and growing your operation, you want a rent. So a rental management software, a property management software that has an open API integration so that it can talk to other software packages and vice versa. So like for instance, we use Z Inspector for our move-ins and move outs and periodic inspections and maintenance jobs and everything. If there’s a photo, it’s in Z inspector and Z inspector automatically links to AppFolio. So when we complete an inspection on a unit, it automatically moves that data into AppFolio for us so that we don’t have to do it manually. Um, and it does that because there’s an API, AppFolio does not have an open API, um, which is one of the reasons that we’re considering changing softwares. Um, but they do have some integrations now, which is new in the last six months. They didn’t use to have all of these integrations that they have now. They’re starting to open up a little bit, but honestly they’re not there yet. Um, but that’s the one thing I would say is if you plan on expanding your portfolio, the most important thing to understand is if your property management software allows for open API access, because that’s gonna be critical to you growing your tech stack and growing your business as time goes on.
Josh (00:19:34):
Right? Yeah. And you just need to, you need to understand the options. If you’re, if you’re somebody with, you know, one to one to four, one to five, uh, properties, but you still wanna use, you know, a software to manage, like there are free options out there. ESSA does have a free, free version of, uh, their product. Um, you just gotta do the research. That’s Well, and that’s
Andrew (00:19:55):
What comes, they offer, they offer rent payments now. Yeah.
Josh (00:19:58):
Yeah. So there’s, there’s rent payments in there. Uh, there’s e-sign, there’s, um, the financial tracking softwares that built into there, which is really nice, especially with tax season coming up. Yeah. Um, that’s really nice. And y yeah. Yeah. You really just gotta, you gotta go out and do, do your research and, and figure out what’s the best for you and, you know, if you’re planning on expanding Yeah. Take that time to, to really look into what solution might be best.
Andrew (00:20:27):
Yeah, for sure. And that’s one of the things that, um, one of the things that has been mentioned to me in the past is, you know, can you do a video on, on property management softwares? And unfortunately the answer is no. Yeah. The problem is to sit and learn all of these different management softwares. It’s so time consuming. And I can’t, I can’t move my business data from this place to this place, to this place, to this place and have seven different management softwares that I’m trying to reconcile at the end of the year when it comes time to do 10 90 nines for our property owners. So like, I’m not, I’m not the, I’m not the person who’s gonna be in a position to be able to do that, unfortunately. But I didn’t realize this Desa had rent payments. Now that’s actually a pretty big move on their part. Yeah. Makes them a lot, a lot more viable as an option I would say.
Josh (00:21:13):
Yeah. They’ve had it for, we’ve had it for a few months. Um, but yeah, it, it’s nice. It’s another feature that, that landlords are and property managers are, are just looking for. So that’s Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it definitely helps.
Andrew (00:21:27):
Yeah, absolutely. Alright.
Josh (00:21:30):
Okay. Let’s do, let’s do this one another Facebook question here while I’m down here. All right. Question from Montez. I rent my garage apartment renewal date end of month. I have noticed my tenant is home much of the time. I have, I have noticed my tenant is home much of the time. Do I have the right to ask if she has a job?
Andrew (00:21:54):
Um hmm. That’s weird. I don’t,
Josh (00:21:56):
The garage apartment’s being rented seems like the tenant is around all day. Yeah. Does Montez have, have the right to ask if they actually have a job? Does it matter though if they ran, if they ran like the income verification or, or did their due diligence and checking to make sure they have enough, you know, funds to pay?
Andrew (00:22:15):
I mean, we don’t, like, there are some landlords who will require tenants to recertify, um, every time they lease the apartment. So every year they have to submit an application and update their income documents and fresh credit and background checks and stuff like that. We don’t do that. Um, ’cause honestly, I don’t know as though it would really do anything other than waste a lot of our time. Um, as long as the tenant’s continuing to pay rent. Like maybe they have a job where they’re working from home, maybe they are split shift or something where they, you know, worked a couple days from home, couple days from the office. Can you ask, I mean, I don’t think there’s
Josh (00:22:58):
Anything
Andrew (00:22:58):
Illegal stopping you from asking, but I don’t know if I would ask.
Josh (00:23:03):
I don’t know if you need to open up the can of worms. Like you said, like if, if rent payments keep pulling in on time and there’s been no other issues with the tenant, doesn’t really matter how long they’re
Andrew (00:23:13):
Yeah.
Josh (00:23:14):
How, how long they’re at the property, if they’re paying the rent.
Andrew (00:23:17):
Uh, yeah. And I would tend to agree, like as long as the rent’s getting paid, I mean, there are so many different ways to make money from home at this point. Uh, yeah. Whether it be, you know, a job that used to be an office job that’s now an at-home job or being a content creator, being a streamer like there are mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, a billion different ways to make money online at this point. You know, uh, drop shipping, eBay type stuff. Yeah.
Andrew (00:23:41):
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t necessarily be concerned that somebody’s home more like it’s, it’s just what it is. They may even have a seasonal job. Like, uh, we don’t really have a ton of information here. They may have a seasonal job where they’re working 60 to 80 hours a week during the summer, but during the winter they’re either laid off or, um, they only work 20 hours a week or something like that. It could just be something I probably wouldn’t ask the question. To be honest with you. I, I don’t feel like that’s something it’s, I think you’re just inviting for, for more headaches. As long as your rent’s getting paid, I would probably leave that one alone.
Josh (00:24:14):
Right. Yeah. I think also the assumption, I know, I know there’s been a big push to, to get people back to work, but ever since the, the pandemic, um, I mean that just opened up every avenue to be able to do majority of, of jobs or office jobs remotely. So
Andrew (00:24:31):
Yeah.
Josh (00:24:31):
I mean, you’re really just opening up, you know,
Andrew (00:24:34):
I know that everybody at rent prep went remote for a period of time. I think you guys are all back in the office at this point, right?
Josh (00:24:40):
Yeah. Yep. We’re, we’re all back. Um mm-Hmm. <affirmative> we missed each other, so, so we’re all back here. But, um, yeah, I mean, and there’s nothing, you know, nothing wrong with it. If there’re you can still work efficiently from home, you can still make, make your money that way and yeah, you’re gonna pay your rent. Like not really something. And
Andrew (00:24:57):
There are people, there are people that are more efficient when they’re working from home ’cause they’re not constantly distracted. They’re not walking to the bathroom 17 times a day and stopping to talk to somebody and going to the water cooler and everything else. Like, right. And like the flip side to that is, yeah, you might have a a an employee that, okay, my buzzer just went off on the dryer, I’m gonna go swap my load of laundry. But if they’re not running to the bathroom 17 times a day to go to the water cooler, who caress? Yeah. Like, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I don’t know. We’re, we’ve basically been set up in such a capacity that like we can work from wherever we need to work from. Um, and I’ve been that way since the beginning. Like all of our stuff is set up cloud-based, and even our phone system is voiceover ip. I can log into it from my cell phone wherever I’m at. So it makes it a lot easier for us to be able to operate, even going back and talking about like, the severe weather conditions. Like if we get a blizzard, I’m not driving to my office, I only live like five minutes from my office, but it’s not worth the drive when I can work from home and, and run the exact same operation from home that I do from here. So yeah, it’s,
Josh (00:25:58):
Uh, I mean we, we, uh, we switched all the way from, um, we switched to just, uh, laptops and plugging in our hdmi. We have no longer have any hardware, uh, no hardware, so that you bring your, bring your laptop home every single night and if there’s a snowstorm, you still have the ability to hook up and you don’t lose anything and you have all your information. But
Andrew (00:26:22):
That’s, yeah, that’s how we’re set up here. Like, I basically have, I’m looking at my, my actual desk which has my laptop and then two monitors above and I have the duplicate set up at home on my desk there as well. And I basically, I have a Microsoft Surface, so I bought the Surface doc and I just go from place to place and it works really well. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.
Josh (00:26:41):
Yeah. No, that’s, that’s what it is, but, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I think that’s, that’s a long, that’s a long answer to, to a question there for ya, Montez, but I, uh, I hope we, we helped. All right. Let’s jump, I jump up to a form submission question from Stacy. Stacy asks, what is your thought on managing your own rental that is out of the area? Is it truly necessary to have a property management company? Not sure if my other question was received, but
Andrew (00:27:16):
It was, why don’t you jump right down to it? ’cause I have them, I moved them right next to each other in the document. Okay. So you can just read the second one.
Josh (00:27:23):
Okay. What is the actual responsibility of a property manager? I ha I am having challenges with mine starting stating that overseeing slash managing a contractor is not their responsibility.
Andrew (00:27:38):
Okay.
Josh (00:27:39):
So we got two parts here. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, what’s your thought of managing your own rental property? If it’s outta the area, is that truly necessary? And then, um, obviously what are the actual responsibilities of a property manager? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, they’re saying that their property manager, it seems like they actually are using one. It’s stating that it’s not their job to, to monitor just contractors that have to come in to make, make fixes.
Andrew (00:28:00):
Well, it probably depends. Actually. All of it depends on what your contract with your property management company says. Because I’ve seen contracts that are really, really good and I’ve seen contracts that are absolute garbage and everything in between. So really it boils down to what did you agree to with your property manager and what does your contract say? If they’re not doing what’s in the contract, then yeah, I would say you should have an issue with them. If they’re, if you’re expecting them to do something that’s specifically not in the contract or is called out in the con contract as something that they specifically don’t handle, then okay. That sounds like the property manager’s probably in the right at that point. Um, so let’s back up and say, you know, what are your thoughts on managing a property out of the area? I think that it really depends on how far outta the area you are and what your availability is at the drop of a hat.
Andrew (00:28:54):
And the reason I say that is because property management’s a 24 7 business. Um, it doesn’t matter if you have one door or a hundred doors or a thousand doors, it’s a 24 7 business. It doesn’t necessarily feel like it when you only have a few doors because you probably aren’t getting phone calls in the middle of the night all the time and stuff like that. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is still a 24 hour business. And if a tenant’s hot water tank blows up at one o’clock in the morning, you’re gonna get that phone call if you’re not using a property manager. So if you’re several hours away from the property, obviously it’s going to be a little bit more challenging for you to physically appear and change the hot water tank out yourself. Now you’re going to be relying on coordinating contractors from outside the area and things of that nature.
Andrew (00:29:38):
Okay. If you have been in the area, lived in the area and know some contractors, you might be okay, but if you bought this property site unseen from, you know, another state, you probably are gonna be in a situation where you don’t have the pool of people built up that you would need to order to manage a property remotely. So there’s a lot that goes into whether or not it makes sense to manage a rental property remotely. And I don’t think that there is a yes, you should do it or no, you shouldn’t do it. I think it’s gonna be individual for every person. And I think it’s going to depend on a multitude of factors, you know, their comfort level in managing the property where they live in relation to the property. Is there licensing required, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There’s a lot that would feed into that question.
Andrew (00:30:20):
Um, so is it truly necessary to have property management? The answer to that question is no. I know a lot of landlords that have a ton of doors and don’t have a, you know, manager. Um, we used to work with a gentleman and do a lot of leasing for him, and he self-managed about 180 ish doors himself. Um, him and his wife. And, um, they had, he did most of the maintenance work himself. She did a lot of the bookwork and, um, they had like one, I think full-time maintenance guy that helped out, but they didn’t have a manager and they had about 180 doors, but they lived, breathed and worked their properties every day. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Monday through Sunday and then some. There was never a day off for him. Yeah. Like he’s, he’s somebody that, he’s getting closer to retirement now. Wouldn’t have surprised me if he winds up hiring a manager at some point, but he le he literally lived, breathed eight, slept his properties while he was operating them.
Andrew (00:31:18):
So what is your level of commitment really, you know, um, is I think a big question there as far as what the responsibilities of a manager are. Again, that all boils down to what are your, what’s your contracts say between you and the property manager? What does it say that they will and won’t do? Some property managers don’t wanna manage your contractors because they don’t know whether your contractors can do the job, right. Have proper insurance and licensing are gonna show up on time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If it’s your contractor, then the property manager may not want to have to do all of the work of coordinating with ’em. Um, or they may charge you an hourly fee to be there alongside the vendor while the vendor’s there working or something like that. Again, that’s one of those situations that it’s, it’s really up to the contract as to what is and is not included and what the charges would be.
Josh (00:32:06):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I, um, I, my dad is a business partner and he just purchased a property out in Rochester and, uh, for those that don’t know, Rochester is probably about about an hour and a half an hour. Hour 20 hour 25. Yeah. Yeah. Right to the city about that. Um, they purchased a duplex out there, um, and he’s doing all of the, um, he’s doing all the management to start, but I know that for a fact he’s looking to eventually scale a little bit more so I could see and grow the business or grow the, grow his, uh, passive income with the properties. So I could see him for sure. Now, he did all of the original initial work. This was, uh, this was like a foreclosure, duplex kind of issue, and there was a lot of things that needed to be done there. Uh, he did all the initial work, but he, he was talking to me, I think it was about a month ago, and he was like, yeah, like I think for now, like the hour 20 drive while I’m doing, you know, my professional work here, like that’s okay, but as I start to buy, buy a little bit more and it gets more outta reach and he was looking into just, just a, you know, a company to manage and help him help him kind of do that.
Andrew (00:33:23):
Right.
Josh (00:33:24):
But makes sense. Yeah. You know, it’s as you grow. Exactly.
Andrew (00:33:28):
Well, and I’m sitting here and I’m thinking City of Buffalo has rental registration requirements. So like we have to register as a property manager. We also have to register all of the properties that we are managing, um, via the rental registration in the city of Buffalo. And essentially if you have a non-owner occupied property that’s being leased out, the city requires you to inform them who your property manager is. And if you live, I don’t think you have to live in the city. I think you have to live in western New York. Um, and if you don’t live in western New York, they make you indicate who your local representative is. Typically a property manager. I think a lot of people probably use a friend or a family member or something like that if they don’t have a property manager. Um, but they actually require you to say, Hey, we, you know, we have a local responsible person who can step in in the event that we’re not here, which is probably a good idea.
Andrew (00:34:21):
Uh, but where it falls short is the fact that no one really seems to have access to that database. So for instance, if Buffalo PD responded to a property and needed to get ahold of the landlord for some reason because there was property damage as a result of an accident or something like that, um, like they don’t have access to that database to be able to get the information to make the phone calls. And yeah, it seems like more of a money grab in the city of Buffalo, but if it was executed properly, I think that it could actually be truly beneficial
Josh (00:34:52):
Is the way it Yeah. I mean, it feels like an emergency contact essentially. Yeah. For, for your property. And it makes sense. It makes sense. And as far as just like protecting also the, the renter, I mean, you know, the renter’s out, say they’re an hour and a half in Rochester, it’s the middle of the winter, something happens. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> like Yeah. Like, I mean, I know the renter knows that maybe their landlord’s not from the area, but still like Right. I get it. Like an emergency context, you need a representative within that zip code or that di not even the zip code, but that area. Right. You know, that, that makes sense. Yeah.
Andrew (00:35:25):
And it, it’s, that’s something that it does make sense as long as it’s executed correctly. Right. Like as long as it’s not just a a $40 a year money grab for each property, which I think that’s what the going rate is, is in Buffalo. Um,
Josh (00:35:38):
That makes sense. Yeah. But
Andrew (00:35:39):
Yeah, it’s, it is what it is. I think it’s a good idea. I wish that more municipalities were onboard with doing something like that, um, but only in a way that it physically makes sense. Like it, I’m sick of money grabs. Like if you’re gonna do something, do something, but make the data accessible so that the people who need it can get to it.
Josh (00:36:00):
Right. No, I, I agree. All right. Uh, let’s do another form submission here. We’ll go right into Gloria’s question. Gloria asks, I need to ask my tenants to help share the cost for water, sewer and garbage suggestions, please.
Andrew (00:36:19):
So
Josh (00:36:20):
I’m Gloria’s midway through, probably already started the lease here and I’m guessing what
Andrew (00:36:24):
I’m thinking. Yeah,
Josh (00:36:25):
Yeah. And that wasn’t included in there originally. Yeah.
Andrew (00:36:28):
So if you’re already in a lease, changing the terms of the lease are gonna be challenging. Um, depending on how your lease is written, you may be able to make changes at the lease given, you know, a certain timeframe. For instance, our lease I think allows us to make changes given a 60 or 90 day timeframe. But the flip side to that is if we want to make a change to the lease in the middle of the term, the tenant also has the ability to say, I don’t agree to these new terms, I’m gonna move. So I would say that depending on how her lease is written, she may not even have the ability to try to make these changes until the end of the lease term. At that point, it’s something that I would say to the tenants, Hey, you know, we’re not going to bump your rent up this year, but we do, uh, expect that you guys are now going to be responsible for water, sewer, garbage or whatever. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, and make it part of the discussion when it comes time for lease renewal at that point. But if you are in the middle of a lease term and you don’t have any language in your lease that allows you to make changes, um, then I would think that at that point you’re probably gonna wind up waiting until the next lease term.
Josh (00:37:33):
Yeah. No, that makes sense. I don’t know if, um, I don’t know if I’ve ever, I think I’ve had four or five leases. I don’t know if I’ve ever paid for, uh, water, sewer or garbage, but you know, I, I have heard of people that do that do have it in their lease. And, you know,
Andrew (00:37:52):
<crosstalk>, did you ever run a single family though?
Josh (00:37:55):
Uh, yeah, I had, um, one, two, I had two single families. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and then think three multis. So,
Andrew (00:38:04):
So a lot of times with singles, especially here in Buffalo, um, if a water bill goes unpaid, it turns into a lien against the property. Yeah. And the property can literally be foreclosed on <laugh>. Like there was a news story a couple years back because there were some people that were literally going to foreclosure over Yeah. Like a thousand dollars worth of water bills. It was crazy.
Josh (00:38:25):
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew (00:38:25):
So a lot of times landlords will choose to leave the, the water bill in their name and leave the billing coming to, excuse me, coming to them, and then they’ll either rebill it to the tenant or they just include it as part of the rent. Um, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But the reason they do that is so that it doesn’t wind up going unpaid and doesn’t turn into a lien against the property.
Josh (00:38:43):
Right. No, that makes sense. That, that actually Funny, funny you brought that up.
Andrew (00:38:48):
We have another question here from Emily. Any loopholes for landlords stuck with the city, whichever town delinquent or unpaid utility bills for water, sewer, et cetera, that that ended up paying. This is why you gotta make sure you get those finalized bills, um, at the end of the lease term before you finalize the security deposit. We’ve had situations like this where like if there’s a water leak, we’ve had like a onetime adjustment type of a situation, but I think Emily’s probably gonna be in a rough spot because it’s just an unpaid bill. It doesn’t sound like there was actually a leak or anything. It sounds like it was more just the tenant. The tenant got one over on her, unfortunately, so, yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s one of those situations where we really try to monitor the utility situation, especially on water as closely as we can for that exact reason.
Josh (00:39:34):
Yeah. It, it’s funny that we brought this up. Um, I just, in my area where I live in Buffalo, we just had, I just received my, my water bill and I had logged on, checked the portal, looked at how much the portal had set, I looked at my paper copy and the bills were completely different. Not even, not even close. Yeah. And the billing dates were kind of messed up and all that. Um, but, um, luckily, like this is my, this is my prompt or my shout out to anybody to join any sort of Facebook group of your local, where you live. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, any of those Facebook groups. Uh, immediately I went right to the page and they had already issued a statement about, uh, you know, the town of blah blah, blah. You know, they issued, you know, half of 50% of the water bills that went out were incorrect.
Josh (00:40:23):
Like, don’t panic, like you don’t owe money on. Right. It, it had a date for the previous billing and I was like, oh crap. Like, did I not pay this? Like that’s not good. Like Yeah. So, you know, always one, yeah. Double check if you have a portal, cross reference your paper copy that you get if you don’t have paperless with your, with your portal, but also join as many, uh, and I’m, you know, we have around Prep for landlords is a, is a good Facebook group for us, but join as many local, local area, uh, groups that you can and not ’cause as soon as there’s an issue,
Andrew (00:40:56):
Like just general
Josh (00:40:58):
Community Yeah. Just regular groups. Yeah. Just town groups, whatever. As soon as there’s an issue, I guarantee you’re not the first person to notice it and somebody will bring it up and you will feel a hundred times better. <laugh>.
Andrew (00:41:10):
My, uh, so we had that earthquake, um, earlier this year, I think it was.
Josh (00:41:16):
Yes.
Andrew (00:41:17):
So we had the earthquake that was, that was like right near my house. The epicenter of that was not far from my place. So like all of the Facebook groups for all like the local town were like, did everybody else feel that? And blah, blah, blah. Mm-Hmm. It was everywhere. But yeah, it’s, you find out a lot of information out of those groups, you really do more than, more than just, you know, it’s, it’s more than just banter and garbage. There’s occasionally some tidbits that fall out of there that are actually worthwhile.
Josh (00:41:44):
Yeah. I know I’m in two different ones for my town. Um Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But it’s, it is crazy how fast, how fast word can travel and, and sometimes it’s completely accurate and sometimes it’s not, but it’s
Andrew (00:41:57):
Completely inaccurate
Josh (00:41:58):
Game of telephone. But it is nice to have, it is nice to have some insight from, from people that are living around you as far as, you know, somebody might’ve seen what had happened or Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, somebody issue with the water billing, uh, which made me feel a lot better. So
Andrew (00:42:12):
Yeah, definitely.
Josh (00:42:14):
Yeah. Use your resources people.
Andrew (00:42:16):
Absolutely.
Josh (00:42:17):
Okay. Let’s jump back to a Facebook question. Uh, let’s do this question from Dan. Hi. What is the maximum amount of time you will hold a house for a tenant with deposit before starting the lease period?
Andrew (00:42:38):
Um,
Josh (00:42:39):
Hold a house for a tenant with deposit
Andrew (00:42:42):
Two
Josh (00:42:42):
Weeks starting the lease period?
Andrew (00:42:44):
Let me think through this. So once an applicant is approved, they have five days to pay us their deposit, their full security deposit and to sign their lease. And then we typically expect them to move in within a couple weeks thereafter. Um, I think we’ve probably done a few that are longer than that. As a matter of fact, I can remember we had somebody that had like a perfect application, um, like drop dead perfect application. They scored a perfect score on our matrix and, but they weren’t, they were moving from out of state to take a job, take a promotion, but they weren’t coming in until like the beginning of the next month. And I emailed that property owner and said, this is the best application that I’ve seen all year. I think it’s worth it if we extend our, um, our window on this one. And he agreed. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and it worked out well. Yeah. So, but typically I would say like no longer than two weeks and we, if I don’t have your, first of all, I don’t hold the apartment at all until I have your deposit and I have your lease signed. I’m not holding anything and then I’ll hold it until your move in date, which it should be within two weeks.
Josh (00:43:52):
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Andrew (00:43:55):
And we tell our applicants that too. We actually tell them, you know, one, we, when they’re approved, we tell them your application is approved, but the apartment is not guaranteed to you until you get your lease signed and until you pay your deposit in full. Uh, and that kinda helps to, to nudge them along a little bit too, to get the job done.
Josh (00:44:13):
Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. Alright, let’s go. What do we got? We got 15 minutes left. Let’s go to, uh, let’s to form submission question, question from Jill, though the least prohibits smoking the tenant smokes in the unit. I’ve just reminded her that there’s no smoking. What are my recourses? I’m in Massachusetts.
Andrew (00:44:47):
Uh, so I don’t know what the laws are in Massachusetts. We’ll go by what I can do here in New York. Um, I would issue a notice to cure, um, and basically tell them, you know, we’ve found that you’re smoking in the apartment, we can smell it, we can see it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s easier if you can like, see evidence of it. If you see an ashtray with a bunch of burnt cigarettes in it, that’s a lot easier to Yeah. Take a picture of and convey. We know that you’re smoking in your apartment versus I walked in and I smelled cigarette smoke. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> well that might mean that somebody smoked a cigarette and walked back inside after. Um, generally we know the difference between someone is smoking in this apartment versus someone just walked through here after having a smoke. But having, you know, proof, physical proof always makes it a lot easier to enforce a no smoking clause and essentially tell the tenant. And what we do is we’ll send them like their violation letter with a picture of the ashtray, then there’s no question as to Yeah, like, we know you were smoking in the apartment, here’s a copy of your nasty ashtray. Um, that’s probably the best route to go. And if they continue to smoke at that point, I would say you may have to look into either non-renewal of their lease or evicting them for non-compliance. Yeah.
Josh (00:46:03):
Is that just a good general rule of thumb if photos if, if possible get photos and then there can’t be any, you know, banter back and forth of, you know, he said she said or or this or that. Like here’s the evidence, here’s the photo. Yeah. Like try to get another piece of the property in the photo that that identifies that it’s there, you
Andrew (00:46:24):
Know? Yeah, exactly. We like that Z inspector software that I mentioned because it takes time, date stamp photos and also records GPS coordinates from where you were standing. Oh wow. Photo,
Josh (00:46:34):
That’s
Andrew (00:46:34):
Cool. Which is really nice. Um, it’s super nice, especially for like process service. You can literally generate a PDF or report showing. No, I was physically there. Here’s the GPS coordinates from my phone and here’s the picture that I took when I was standing on the porch. <laugh> it, it, it gets the point across really, really easily. Yeah. There are apps though. Um, I have an app on my phone. Android does not have date times stamping built into their native camera app for some reason. Um, I use a program called Auto Stamp, um, which is I think 99 cents in the app store. And that works really, really well for putting time date stamps on your photos as you’re taking them so that you have that data recorded on there.
Josh (00:47:15):
Yeah. That, that is really nice. I, um, have you ever, had you ever had anybody try to argue if you’ve, if you’ve used those apps, try to argue that that wasn’t the case and you just
Andrew (00:47:28):
Oh, that we like pro shop it or whatever.
Josh (00:47:31):
Yeah, like, oh yeah. There’s no way that that’s true.
Andrew (00:47:33):
Argue that, um, I, I’ve had somebody, we had somebody try to argue that, um, the stove wasn’t clean when they moved in. So I literally showed them the move-in photos on the date that they moved in and I showed them the move out photos the day that I was there and looked at the stove and they completely dropped their, their issue at that point. So yeah, more often than not, when presented with irrefutable evidence, most people are not going to continue to refute the evidence. <laugh>,
Josh (00:48:02):
Does that make the, does that make the, um, the tenants sign off that, are you able to share the library of before photos with them and make the Yeah. Tenants sign off on those? Yeah, and then when you get back, like, I’m thinking of even, and I don’t know the software, but you know, like you share a common photo library of the before photos at the end of the MM-Hmm <affirmative>, they sign it at the end. If it doesn’t match up, how can they, how can they argue that?
Andrew (00:48:30):
So we’re still using, we’re a little behind the times even with the program that we’re using. Um, we’re not using all the features that it has. We still do a, in-person physical, um, condition inspection report when a tenant moves in and we have them sign off on that, which also notes any damages in the apartment and things of that nature. We can do that from the app. We’re just not doing it currently. Um, it would work very similar to, um, like if you’re at a craft show or something and somebody hands you their, their thing to, to sign under their cell phone, same concept. Um, so that’s an option. Um, that’s probably, yeah, that’s probably the best option actually.
Josh (00:49:17):
Yeah. No, I, I think that’s cool. I mean, I, I feel like that stuff has come a very long way. I mean, I do, I mean, when I was in college and stuff, it was, it was all like, you know, paper copies of paper copies of this, that check boxes checklist, which is, which is all good. It’s just, yeah. I, I think that the digital stuff has kind of, has kind of been cool, like you said, like being able to take a photo, have the GPS coordinates the time of, of the photo, like that’s Mm-Hmm. You know, it’s valuable to a, a landlord and also from a tenant perspective too. Yeah. Just because I feel like, and there is a, is there a tenant? A tenant can access it as well?
Andrew (00:50:00):
Um, I think we have to send them a copy of the report, but once they have a copy of the report, they can from there, download any of the photos individually or they can download a zip file containing all the photos or whatever they want to do.
Josh (00:50:12):
Yeah. I mean, that’s cool from a tenant perspective too, just because Yeah. The truth is, the truth is there,
Andrew (00:50:17):
Right. There’s no refuting it. Once you have that you know, and if they, especially if they’ve signed off on it, that makes it, whoops. That makes it so much easier at that point. Um, the section eight reports are like that. So they use a lot of the Section eight agencies are using a software called Happy H-A-P-P-Y, um, to do their property inspections and stuff like that. They definitely use the built-in signature feature. So like if a tenant is present at the time of the inspection, they have the tenant sign with their finger. Um, they’ve had us sign with our finger. If we have a management representative there, um, works really, really well because then there’s no question like when you sign saying, I understand everything that the inspector told me. You know, it, uh, yeah. Makes it a lot clearer, so,
Josh (00:51:00):
No, for sure. Okay. I think, uh, we got time for one or two more here. Okay. Um, let’s go down to Facebook. Question from Paula. I need to give my wonderful tenants notice. They have been in there almost 10 years and have treated the house very well. I need to go in and do renovations. What is a good way to break it to them? I am in Oregon. Down the, down on the coast. Is she giving them notice of just them her doing renovations or is she giving notice that they need to leave the property? Yeah.
Andrew (00:51:37):
Yeah. It sounds like she’s in a position where they’re gonna need to leave the property. Um, been there almost 10 years, treated the house very well. Need to go in and do renovations. What’s a good way to break it to them? I’m in Oregon, down on the coast, so I don’t know what the rules are in Oregon as far as what you have to do for breaking a lease or ending a tenancy or whatever. Paul, you’re on your own to do your research on that. Um, as far as giving notice would go though, like this is a situation where especially if they’ve been there for 10 years, this is a phone call. This is not a phone call. This is an in-person visit to them to say, Hey, I wanna make you guys aware that your life is about to be disrupted. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, ’cause it is, you’re disrupting the past decade of this family’s life. At the end of the day, um, it should be in person if at all possible. If you’re a distance landlord, it needs to be a phone call. This needs to be more than a letter. Hey, um, move <laugh>,
Josh (00:52:34):
Get out there. Needs Yeah, definitely adds time too. Think
Andrew (00:52:39):
That’s one of the things that a lot of landlords tend to forget is that this is the property’s only one part of the business. This is very much a people business. At the end of the day, the property’s only one part of it. It’s an important part. It’s a critical part, but it’s the people are just as critical. ’cause if they’re not there Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you’re not generating the revenue that you need to pay the mortgage. Yeah. So at the end of the day, like these people have been paying your mortgage for 10 years. The respect that they deserve is more than a phone call. It’s a visit, you know, they’re gonna be upset. Like there’s no way around it. If you lived in a home for a decade and somebody showed up one day and said, you have to move in three months time, you would be upset.
Andrew (00:53:22):
They’re gonna be upset. There’s no way around it. Yeah. But the right thing, the responsible thing to do as a landlord in that situation is to physically visit the property and have a conversation with those tenants, in my opinion. Yeah. If you live out of the area, um, zoom call, if it’s possible, phone call is a last resort kind of a thing. Um, but if it just sending a letter would be, that’s a, that’s a Blackstone type of thing to do. That’s a very corporate landlord thing to do would be to just send a letter and say, Hey, you’re on your own.
Josh (00:53:54):
I mean, I mean, think about that 10 years of a, of a quality, 10 years of what appears to be a quality tenant since they’re not gone. Yeah. Um, definitely give them adequate time. Time to figure out what they need to do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> maybe even, and this might be overstepping, but maybe even if you have some other, uh, property managers or landlords in the area that you Sure. You know, and you network with, tell ’em, you know, here’s the situation. I’ve got this great, you know, great family that’s been living here for 10 years and a referral for them. That’s anything that you can do to, to help somebody that’s, that’s given that much to you as well.
Andrew (00:54:32):
Well, and and I have seen that happen. Like there’s a couple of of landlords here in Western New York that I’ve seen pop up on different Facebook groups and say, Hey, I have a great tenant that they have to move out ’cause we’re gonna renovate or there was a house fire or whatever. Does anybody have something for this tenant? I wanna see them go to the next place. You know, whatever the case may be. And it’s, you know, it’s, landlords know when they have a good tenant. Um, like obviously the first choice would be if you have another property that you can move them to keep ’em if you don’t, you know, it’s, it’s always nice to, it’s nice to know that they are going to another place where they’re not gonna get screwed by the next landlord. And if you have that network and you can kind of help, it’s, it’s a little bit of a reach. But I don’t think it’s out of, out of the question.
Josh (00:55:23):
No, for sure. All right. Uh, what do we got four minutes? I want to share more. Share. Yeah. I want to share, I actually uncovered the photo. I haven’t covered the photo of the rent prep office. Can you see that?
Andrew (00:55:42):
Oh, yep. I can. Let me edit <laugh>.
Josh (00:55:47):
Yeah.
Andrew (00:55:47):
That’s crazy.
Josh (00:55:49):
Isn’t that why? I mean, it’s not the best quality photo, but that is. Yeah. But you could see that’s pretty,
Andrew (00:55:54):
That’s ridiculous. Like that’s,
Josh (00:55:57):
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew (00:55:59):
That’s,
Josh (00:55:59):
Um, that was, uh, I don’t think we were in office that day. I think Steve was just driving by and, and was like, ah, lemme just check and see how it’s doing.
Andrew (00:56:08):
That’s less snow than I had at my house. So like, looking at those drifts and stuff, it looks like you probably had about three foot in the parking lot. Yeah, we had three, four foot, like in our driveway on the one end, and then on the other end it was more like seven foot where it had all drifted.
Josh (00:56:24):
Yeah, it was, it
Andrew (00:56:25):
Was not fun.
Josh (00:56:27):
No, no, it was
Andrew (00:56:28):
Not. Winter was, winter is one of the most stressful times in property management. And I, I think that the, the staff here can attest to that fact. Um, ’cause they’ve watched us getting snowplow contracts and stuff in, in place and likeno. I can’t stand snow. It’s, I’ve never really been a huge winter fan to start with. But when you work in property management and every time it snows, you have to worry about slip and fall hazards and did everything get plowed? Did everything get shoveled? Are we, are we ready for the day before the day even starts kind of a thing. It’s a lot. So I, uh, you know, I hats off to everybody that owns property that has to deal with these winter situations for other people because it’s Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> a challenge to say the least.
Josh (00:57:11):
I know I was, um, I was ice skating in, uh, I mean, last year. Yeah. The, the parking lots were frozen over. And I had my pair of skates and I, uh, my hockey skates and I was skating through the, through the parking lots. It was, it was wild. And then I think the snowball melted, uh, the next week, and then it was like, like sunny out. But
Andrew (00:57:30):
I mean, that’s how it was when we had that blizzard a couple years back. The, the bigger blizzard, um, October storm knife or whatever they called it, that was another one that dropped like seven foot of snow and like three days later it was all gone because the temperatures jumped up into the fifties, might have even been in the low sixties. And then we had to deal with flooding because all of the sewer systems had backed up, all the storm sewers had back.
Josh (00:57:52):
And that’s what can happen too. And then, yeah, and the reverse side of that is you get that warm weather, everything melts, and then you get that cold drop at night or anything like that, and you end up with ice all over the place. And it’s, it’s just crazy. But
Andrew (00:58:04):
Absolutely, it’s a lot. All right. It’s a lot to worry about. If you, if you live in a warm weather climate, consider yourself lucky, because snow is not fun to deal with on a, on a regular basis.
Josh (00:58:13):
No, but, all right. I’m gonna, I’m gonna cap it there, Andrew. Yeah, I think, I think, uh, we answered a lot of questions. We, we had some good winter discussion. I do wanna make a note that if you follow us on social media, it would just be REM prep on Facebook, Instagram, or hashtag REM prep or at REM prep, uh, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We do have, I know that as far as social media posts go for the next month, we do, we are starting to pepper in our, uh, winter checklist stuff. Everything, everything for the colder weather for all of you East Coast and, and, uh, central goers. Uh, so that stuff will all be out. I know that. As far as Andrew, is there any for podcasts, what, what topics do we have coming up? Do we,
Andrew (00:58:59):
I don’t have the list in front of me at the moment. Um, I know that this week’s podcast is actually going to be the audio from this a MA, um, and then the next podcast that comes out, I’m not sure, I haven’t had a chance to look at that yet. I think we have a winter, uh, a prepping for winter tips video that’s coming out in the next couple weeks. So,
Josh (00:59:19):
Yeah. So that, that’ll be good. And, um, I think, uh, I’m ex I’m excited for winter. You’re not, you’re not as excited. I’m, I kind of learned the change. I’ve already got my tree up.
Andrew (00:59:32):
You, you play hockey, we have a tree up. We put the tree up. Uh, but you go out and play hockey and stuff like that though. Like, I hibernate all winter long. Like as soon as, as soon as the temperature drops below 50, I’m cold and I’m not warm again until spring hits. So, um, yeah. You are much more of a, a winter guy than I am.
Josh (00:59:52):
I, I for sure. Am I ski too? So I, I get into all that. All of it. Yeah. It’s a good change for me. I, I get too hot in the summer.
Andrew (01:00:00):
I get it. Well, let’s go ahead and wrap things up here. Josh, thank you so much for joining me today. Um, we’re gonna be back in December with a December MA. That’ll probably be just before we jump into the holiday season. Um, and actually I think now that I’m thinking about it, there’s a video coming out on prepping for the next year as well. So that’ll be coming up before the end of the year. Um, that’s pretty much it for me. Josh, anything?
Josh (01:00:23):
No, I, I hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving and like, like we said, we got the holiday season coming up, so we’ll be back. We’ll be back in December and we should know, we should know the date on that. I think we’re gonna pick a date this week. We should have a date, so, yeah.
Andrew (01:00:40):
Yeah. So we’ll get our date picked for that and we’ll get that one posted. Uh, apologies to everybody who had tuned in last week. Unfortunately, uh, we were not able to, to pull last week’s live session off. But I’m glad that we got to do this week’s live session. We were able to do our a MA for the month of November. Thank you all so much for watching. We’ll
Josh (01:00:56):
See you happy. Happy you’re safe, Andrew.
Andrew (01:00:58):
I’m happy. Happy.
Josh (01:00:59):
You’re okay. <laugh>.
Andrew (01:01:02):
Uh, we’ll see everybody next month.