We’re diving deep into the world on property management on this podcast! Community Manager and RentPrep For Landlords podcast host, Andrew Schultz, explores the topic of property management and what exactly that entails. From start a management business to hiring one, check out these top tips from a property manager himself.
Find out if your tenant should be getting renters insurance and what that means. It’s time to get to know the pros and cons of this type of insurance.
Does a lease start on move in day? Find out the answer in today’s podcast!
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Show Transcript
Andrew Schultz (00:07):
All right. And we are live. Welcome everybody to the, what month are we in? September. Ask me anything. Sessions here at Rent Prep. I’m Andrew Schultz, community manager here at Rent Prep. I’m also a licensed real estate broker with over 14 years of experience in the property management and rental property industries. I’m gonna go ahead and add Josh to the call. Josh is the marketing
Josh Ungaro (00:29):
Marketing manager. Marketing manager. Yeah. Director, manager, whatever.
Andrew Schultz (00:33):
I’ll give you a promotion,
Josh Ungaro (00:34):
Whatever you’d like to call me. Thank you. <Laugh>. We’ll
Andrew Schultz (00:35):
Call you, we’ll call you the director, we’ll give you your promotion. Josh is the marketing director, marketing manager over at Rent Prep. Josh, how are you doing today?
Josh Ungaro (00:42):
I am, I am good Andrew. And as I, as I was just talking to you about, I’m back in, I’m back in Buffalo. I was in, I was in San Antonio for the first time ever in a hundred degree weather with high eighties to nineties humidity. So it was, that
Andrew Schultz (00:59):
Just sounds
Josh Ungaro (01:00):
Terrible, man. It was, that sounds so
Andrew Schultz (01:01):
Hot.
Josh Ungaro (01:02):
If you Yeah. If you didn’t get out in the morning to do any, like I went for a run a couple times and if you didn’t get out before nine 30 mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you were toast. You did not <laugh>, you did not wanna be running in that. But it is, it is good to be back in, in Buffalo in the, in the fall weather.
Andrew Schultz (01:21):
Yeah. I mean, like, we complain about, obviously winter’s coming our way and we know that Yeah. <Laugh>, we complain about the winter weather here in Buffalo a lot. I know. At least I do. I’m not, I’m not good at wor at cold weather. I’m really not. Like we whine about the weather here in Buffalo when it gets cold and when we get a bunch of snow dumped on us, but I don’t really think I would want to be walking around in 120 degree weather with 90, 95% humidity either. That’s, that’s pretty rough too.
Josh Ungaro (01:46):
No, and I mean, this is, this is September. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, this is September for them. Like Right. What in, and it granted, it was like, I, I believe it was like 12 degrees higher on average than normal temperatures for this time of year for them. But I mean, it is, it is hot.
Andrew Schultz (02:04):
Yeah. No matter how you slice it, it’s hot.
Josh Ungaro (02:06):
It did give me a good perspective though. I, I, you know, I was thinking about things from just like even a property management perspective in mm-hmm. <Affirmative> in different climates, in different environments. And like we visited a friend of mine and, you know, they had the house, the house, the AC was set to like 78, and that felt like, oh yeah. And that felt like it was, you know, it was cool. Yeah. And it’s just, it’s definitely interesting to, to step out and just kind of get a different perspective of how, how you have to manage properties, how areas are mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, the different things they have to do that are, that are just different than, than where we’re where we’re from
Andrew Schultz (02:43):
<Laugh>. Yeah, definitely. Like, we see it all the time, even in like the rent prep for landlords Facebook group, but even some of the other property management groups I’m in, there’s always, there’s little weird regional things. Like for instance, in Buffalo, we have basements. Most every house has a basement here, and generally that’s where your water meter and your hot water tank are going to be located. Maybe your washer dryer might be down there. You go to Florida or Texas or someplace like that. Even
Josh Ungaro (03:08):
Texas. Yeah. They didn’t have the,
Andrew Schultz (03:09):
The, there’s no basement. They don’t have the basement. And then the water meter is actually mounted in the ground out in front yard, which if you tried to do that in Buffalo, it’s just never gonna work. You’re gonna have blown, blown water mains or blown water meters all over the place as soon as we get the first freeze cycle. Yeah. So it’s just weird, like the considerations that we have here versus the considerations they have there. Like, AC is a not a mandatory thing here in Western New York, not New York state, but there are some states that air conditioning is mandatory just because of the temperatures. So it’s a very different perspective on, on landlording and property management in other areas,
Josh Ungaro (03:44):
For sure. Alright. Do I, well, do I look tan at all? I don’t, not really, right?
Andrew Schultz (03:51):
No, not really. Not anymore than usual. I don’t know.
Josh Ungaro (03:54):
<Laugh>, I, I was, I was a little bit more tannic. Well, according to my girlfriend, I was more tan, but I, I guess it doesn’t really show through on the camera, so let’s you
Andrew Schultz (04:05):
Just, you’ve just reverted back to Buffalo Beige. It’s the color we all get during the, during the fall and winter months. <Laugh>,
Josh Ungaro (04:10):
As soon as I got back, I turned back to my pasty, my pasty self. Yep. But, all right, well, why don’t we we got our list of questions here. Yeah. We got our, our Facebook ones, we’ve got our form submission ones. So why don’t we, why don’t we jump in and let’s start with, let’s start with a question from Joseph. Joseph asks, I am an independent property manager, mostly handling sts t sorry, short term s t r. Yeah. Short term rentals in Los Angeles. My screen, I haven’t minimized on the left. I am getting my real estate license so I can be, can I, I can be legal and take on long-term rentals. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, do I need to get with a broker and pay them, or is there a way to bypass them and manage via my own company?
Andrew Schultz (05:03):
So, I don’t know what the rules are in California. I can tell you that in the state of New York, you cannot go from no license to fully licensed broker without having substantial experience. Like a couple years, actually, probably more than a couple years of experience. I’d have to look at the licensing guidelines to, to really know. But generally the progression here in New York is unlicensed to salesperson and then salesperson to broker, and that’s usually a couple year progression. And it’s based off of some different criteria. I’m not gonna get into it, it’s kind of getting into the weeds on it mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But if you’re going to manage property for another person and you’re going to collect a fee for managing that property in New York state, you either need to be a direct on the staff employee, or you need to be a licensed broker or a licensed real estate agent working under a broker that knows that you’re doing property management activities. So that’s right. That is required here. There’s licensing for New York State for property management, I would assume it’s gonna be the same in California. Most most states have some sort of qualification or licensing that you have to have in order to do property management.
Josh Ungaro (06:09):
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
Andrew Schultz (06:13):
He has a, he had a second one too. Let’s jump to scaling the property management company. Oh,
Josh Ungaro (06:18):
Yeah. I think it’s question six on here. Okay. So Joseph asks, again, any tips on scaling into my own property management company? I currently manage four long-term rentals that I own and manage 13 short-term rentals for others. But I am evolving into long-term rentals for the other owners. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I know the basics, but I want to scale to the next level. So any tips on scaling?
Andrew Schultz (06:43):
So stay as organized as you can is probably the best possible advice I can give you. And make sure that you are not cutting yourself short on anything. Specifically what I’m talking about is charge what you need to charge because your clients, your clients want the best possible rate, but they also want you to be here today, tomorrow, and into the future. And if you’re not charging appropriately, you’re not gonna be here tomorrow and into the future. And that’s going to be an issue for your clients. So, right. Yeah. There’s a balancing act there, but make sure that you’re charging what’s fair for your services so that you can continue to operate. Staying organized is critical. Staying organized is the, it’s the biggest problem in property management. It’s the biggest problem in Landlording. Any private landlord will tell you the same thing, because more often than not, the clients that we pick up are long-term landlords, long-term rental landlords, that it’s gotten to be too much.
Andrew Schultz (07:38):
And now the paperwork is overwhelming. The, you know, whatever things are starting to come apart at the seams, that’s generally when we step in as a property manager, that’s a lot of the clients that we take on. So if you are not organized, you’re not gonna be able to organize somebody else’s chaos. And that’s, that’s 90% of property management is organizing somebody else’s chaos, <laugh>, <laugh>. So I would say like, as far as my two biggest tips, stay as organized as you possibly can and make sure that you’re charging appropriately for your services. Yeah. And then in terms of like scaling or finding new clients, the best possible thing that I did was get into networking groups. Biggerpockets has great meetups. As a matter of fact, yeah, BiggerPockets meetups are probably one of the best things if you’re looking to find mm-hmm. <Affirmative> investor clients to help you grow your property management business. That’s actually where I met Steve originally. The the c e o at rent prep. Steve and I originally met at a BiggerPockets meeting.
Josh Ungaro (08:37):
Oh, wow. I didn’t know
Andrew Schultz (08:38):
A lot of years ago. A whole lot.
Josh Ungaro (08:39):
I did not know that.
Andrew Schultz (08:40):
That’s, that’s how Steve and I met originally. I was just getting into the property management industry and we were at a stage where we were trying to figure out, just like we get on the rent prep for landlords group, we had a lot of people asking, or I, I had a, we get a lot of people asking, how do I run a credit and background check? And I had the same question, being a young property manager without a ton of experience. And Steve happened to be giving a presentation at, I’m pretty sure it was a BiggerPockets meeting. It might’ve been one of our local real estate meetups, but I’m almost certain it was BiggerPockets. And honestly, the rest is history. I’ve been a rent prep client for 14 or 15 years now and been working with rent prep on the podcast and stuff for quite a while as well. So networking meetings are absolutely worth it. I know they suck. I know they’re not fun to go to. ’cause It’s already 6 30, 7 o’clock at night. You’re home. You just want to put on sweatpants and relax. They’re absolutely worth it. Yeah. Every single time I go to a networking meeting, I come out the other side of it, usually in a better mood and typically with a couple new names and phone numbers in my cell phone. So, yeah, that’s those are the things that I would recommend.
Josh Ungaro (09:45):
Cool. Okay. Let’s jump into, let’s mix it up. Let’s do a Facebook question. Let’s do this one from McKayla question. I have a new tenant that wants to move in October 20th. So when does the lease start then? Will it go 20th to the 19th of the next month? I’m confused as well. I’m planning to ask for prorated rent for October only one third of the rent deposit and the full rent for November. Please advise that you would do what, what you would do in the same situation. My rental is located in Chicago, Illinois, so she’s prorated October because October’s not full then. You then wouldn’t technically the lease for November start on the first of, of November if she’s only gonna charge you prorated rent from, from October for the rest of October, I think. So I feel like she might be tripping that up a little bit.
Andrew Schultz (10:46):
What we do in our office, and you gotta check your state law because sometimes there’ll be a state law on something like this, but the way that we do it in our office is, for instance, if we have someone that moves in in the middle of September, like September 15th we write the lease from September 15th, 2023 through September 30th mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, or 30, or 31 days. 30 days in September. So we’ll write the lease through September 30th of September, 2024. So it’s actually like 12 and a half month lease. Right. And again, that’s where I say sometimes you need to check your state laws because you might not be able to do it 12 and a half, you may have to round it down to 11 and a half. It just depends on mm-hmm. <Affirmative> what the rules are in your state. And then typically we will collect the prorated amount and the first full month at the same time. So if someone’s moving in the 15th of the month, we’re gonna collect that half month and their full first month rent, they’re actual f full first month’s rent, so that prorated September and all of October as well as the security deposit prior to someone moving in.
Josh Ungaro (11:49):
Got it. Yeah.
Andrew Schultz (11:51):
There are different ways to do that though, though. Makes, I mean, some people will write it from the 20th to the to the 19th of October the following year. It just depends on how you wanna write it. I, my preference is always to have end dates be the last day of a month.
Josh Ungaro (12:06):
Yeah. What if you, what if you just add like an addendum into the lease that says, so during the period of, of October 20th to November 1st they pay, they’re paying this amount, and then the rest, you know, each following month, proceeding month would, you’ll pay this amount. I, that’s probably the hardest way to do it, but it’s
Andrew Schultz (12:28):
Doable that way though. You can, like, you can, you can do it. Yeah. It’s, we just throw it right in the, the last paragraph of our lease is a, a text box that we can type into for additional terms and conditions. We would probably just list the, the prorated rent for the first for the half month in that box. And then honestly, as long as the math math’s out, at the end of the day, most people don’t typically care that deeply about it. Yeah. And as long as your tenant has what they need to be able to go online and, or I’m sorry, call their utility companies and establish whatever they need to for utilities, which is gonna be a lease with their name and the address and the start date on it, then you should be in good shape.
Josh Ungaro (13:06):
Yeah. I’ve had I know for a few times I’ve moved in the, there was still kind of construction going on, so mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, they allowed us to, to live in the property, but they ended up prorating the first month when the construction was still taking place just as like a courtesy kind of, hey, like, we’re gonna be coming and going. Like, we, you know, we know you need to be in there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this was back in college too, so I’m sure it was more consistent with the fact that school was starting and like, you have a place to live and you were told this state, but then there’s still gonna be construction. So Yeah, that’s, I’ve had a nice situation Yeah. That it wasn’t great, but, you know, they made it work.
Andrew Schultz (13:50):
<Laugh> college student rentals are like that though. Like, you have to hit that move in deadline no matter what. And sometimes there’s just not enough hands to go around when you’re trying to get all these units cleaned up and painted and ready for new students to move in and stuff like that. So I can understand that. Like, we obviously try to avoid having people move in until a unit is a hundred percent ready. But there’s also, I mean, like clockwork, within a few days of someone moving in, they’re always gonna come in and find a couple little things that need to be addressed. And we know it, it happens pretty much every move in, we expect it. And at the end of the day, like we can go through and test every light switch and light fixture and every faucet and the garbage disposal and the appliances and everything else. More than likely somebody’s still going to find something that’s not quite right because they’re physically living in the space 24 7. You’re not there. You’re flipping switches in and out, you know, on your way out the doors you’re doing work or whatever. They’re going to find little things along the way. So that’s just kind of something that we come to expect.
Josh Ungaro (14:48):
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. back to form submission question. Okay. Let’s do question from Theo. Would you recommend having tenants have their own rental insurance?
Andrew Schultz (15:08):
Yeah. Whenever possible. This is gonna be another one where you’ve gotta check your state laws. Some states will not allow you to mandate that a tenant has renter’s insurance, and in those states, obviously you can’t mandate it. The way our lease is written, I believe, is that we require tenants to have renter’s insurance as well as name us as an additional insured on the policy. But New York State is one of those states where you can’t require it. So it’s one of those lease clauses that largely it’s an, it’s in there. Like we want our tenants to have renter’s insurance, but ultimately it’s up to them to get that coverage and deal with a, do what they need to do to get the coverage. I hate seeing it when tenants don’t have it, because almost inevitably something’s going to happen. And it always seems to impact the tenants that didn’t spend that money on the renter’s insurance, which sucks.
Andrew Schultz (16:02):
But we’ve dealt with it before where we told tenants like, listen, if you had renter’s insurance, you would be covered right now, but because you don’t, you’re responsible for this damage or this, you know, whatever. And it doesn’t have to be on purpose. Like it’s, we’ve had tenants accidentally overflow a kitchen sink starting a, you know, starting a, a sink full of dishes and then walk out of the room to grab the baby that’s crying. Now the sink is overflowing and you’ve damaged the apartment below you. I understand it’s an accident, but you’re still responsible for the repair <laugh>. So renter’s insurance is always a good idea. It’s not,
Josh Ungaro (16:36):
Well, well, there’s a, there’s a business idea for you. You should, you should link up with a, with a renter insurance broker and, and take a nice affiliate cut for recommending a provider. Oh,
Andrew Schultz (16:49):
It
Josh Ungaro (16:49):
Your
Andrew Schultz (16:49):
Lease. Believe it or not, our management software is already doing that on our behalf. But that’s another story for another day. I, I am, we’re gonna be looking at different management softwares because it’s gotten to the point where the software that we’re currently using is mar they’re marketing to not only to us, they’re marketing to our tenants in the form of renter’s insurance and some other stuff. Yeah. And now they’re marketing to our clients as well. And I’m like, we’re done here. We’re done. Yeah, I’m done. I don’t want you interfering in my business. I don’t want you contacting my clients or my tenants ever. . Right. That’s not your job. Stay out of my business. Like it’s overreach. And at some point that
Josh Ungaro (17:28):
Is so is Yeah, that is, that is not a
Andrew Schultz (17:30):
Good, it’s crazy
Josh Ungaro (17:31):
Situation.
Andrew Schultz (17:31):
<Laugh>. Yeah. It’s crazy. I’m not gonna mention the name of the company here, but I mean, it’s not hard to figure out who we use. Just bad business.
Josh Ungaro (17:40):
Yeah, no, that that that’s a pretty quick way to lose <laugh> lose customers.
Andrew Schultz (17:46):
They’ve been making a lot of moves in the last year or so that have me concerned and have me looking elsewhere for my, my software needs. Not to mention, like, and I know this is a diversion, but like talking about property management softwares and scaling and growing, we don’t use just one software in our company. We use probably a combination of 10 different pieces of software, each one doing some aspect of the business and making all of those things talk to each other is a nightmare. And our management software is the worst. It won’t talk to anything practically. Yeah. So that’s the main reason we’re looking to go is simply because we wanna start automating a lot of different things in our business, and we can’t do it on our current platform.
Josh Ungaro (18:28):
Yeah. No, that, believe me, I, I see that stuff. Just, just working for rent prep and absolutely. Seeing what the competitors have and, and the different platforms. So for sure. Okay. I feel like this one kind of ties right into what we were talking about, at least with Joseph’s question a couple minutes ago. Why don’t we do this question from Byrd. Hello. What qualifications should new landlords look for in hiring a property management company? Ooh
Andrew Schultz (19:02):
I’m gonna plug myself here. Gimme one second. I just gotta get the
Josh Ungaro (19:06):
<Laugh>.
Andrew Schultz (19:08):
Let’s see. Can I do a screen share?
Josh Ungaro (19:11):
I think I look a little tan <laugh> against this beige against this beige wall.
Andrew Schultz (19:18):
Let’s see here. Window. This window enough.
Andrew Schultz (19:22):
All right, cool. So if you go to what’s drew up to.com, which is one of my websites, you can actually grab this right here. Grab a free copy of the 10 questions you have to ask before hiring a property manager. I’m not gonna sit and rehash the whole thing here. It’s a little, I think it’s like a six or seven page p d f document that will really help you to understand how to interview a property management company to make sure that you’re working with a company that is not just out there trying to scam you, not just out there trying to take your money. Because there are a ton of unlicensed, unethical, immoral property management companies out there that are, honestly, they’re screwing landlords and tenants both. And you don’t want to trust one of your largest assets or several of your largest assets to a company that’s going to do that. So spending the time to interview a property manager before you hire them is absolutely 100% worth the time that you take. So go grab that guide, that’s gonna help you a lot
Josh Ungaro (20:19):
A lot. Is this the guide, Andrew, that we had included a few months ago in the newsletter for REM Prep? Or was that a different,
Andrew Schultz (20:27):
It might’ve been. It might’ve been. I don’t remember if the guide has ever been included in the newsletter or not. I think we might’ve done, I know we did a video on analyzing rental property and we included that deal analysis spreadsheet.
Josh Ungaro (20:40):
Okay. That, which
Andrew Schultz (20:42):
By way, that can also be found on the same website. If somebody’s looking for that, it’s the link right above the the 10 questions that ask a property manager. It’s right above that. So either way, if you’re looking for information on how to interview a property manager, or you’re looking for information on whether or not your rental property’s gonna make you money, both of ’em are right there.
Josh Ungaro (21:00):
Yeah. And I know, I know as far as you know as far as rent prep goes, we, we’ve got a bunch of resources like that too. Calculators, eviction, cost calculator that Yep. Doesn’t give you an exact, doesn’t give you an exact cost of what your eviction’s gonna be, but it, you know, it gets you to start thinking about, you know, here, here’s how much rent missing out on, here’s how long it’s gonna take to maybe go to court. Here’s these costs, here’s that cost. So that’s under, that’s on our website under resources as well. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> along with a bunch of different blog articles that have, you know, n o I calculators in ’em and, you know. Yeah. Everything you could think of if you search it on the site.
Andrew Schultz (21:43):
Yeah, definitely. There’s a ton of resources on there. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> a ton of resources. There’s, I, I don’t even know how many blog articles at this point, <laugh>, but I know that every podcast gets a blog article, so there’s at least 413. Yeah. And there’ll be a 414th next week, so but yeah, there’s a ton of resources on the rent prep website. Yeah, we’ve, in addition to the Facebook group, obviously,
Josh Ungaro (22:05):
Right. We’ve been cranking, I think for the last couple years we’ve been doing, what, two podcasts a month, and we’ve been doing two, two unique niche video topics a month that you’ve been filming and mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, we’ve been pumping those out to YouTube, and then we’ve been publishing one blog post a month and revising blog posts that are existing. Mm-Hmm. We’ve been doing, or not one blog post a month, sorry, one blog post a week mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So from a content perspective, if we don’t have, you know, to our viewers out there, if we don’t have the answer, we don’t have something out on the content yet, feel free to message us, because
Andrew Schultz (22:43):
Yeah. Holler, we’ll write it up.
Josh Ungaro (22:44):
<Laugh> we’re interested in, whether it’s a video, whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s a blog article that mm-hmm. That our team comes up, you know, writes, we would love to, we’d love to hear from you.
Andrew Schultz (22:55):
We’re always looking for fresh content ideas. <Laugh> always looking for fresh content ideas. ’cause There’s always something new and exciting happening out there. So yeah, if somebody’s looking for a topic that we haven’t covered yet, let us know and we’ll look into doing the research and getting a, getting a, either a blog post or a podcast or a video or something done on that topic. Yeah.
Josh Ungaro (23:16):
It is crazy to still think that, like, even with like how much content we push out, there’s always like, there’s always more, there’s always more to cover. Absolutely. There’s always absolutely new things that are coming up. There’s always, whether it’s stories, just different topics, trends mm-hmm. <Affirmative> technology, like, there, there’s just so much to to cover. So
Andrew Schultz (23:37):
Yeah. Every, every day there’s something new and exciting in the world of property. No, I gotta show you, I’m gonna post this on the Facebook group later, but I’m gonna give you a sneak peek, sneak peek photo. Look here. This is a, it’s hard to see, but that’s an electrical outlet that is wired out the side of a, of a light fixture, just, just free hanging there, <laugh>. Let see if I have the other picture on here.
Josh Ungaro (24:02):
Oh my God.
Andrew Schultz (24:03):
Yeah. This one shows the,
Josh Ungaro (24:06):
Oh my gosh.
Andrew Schultz (24:07):
Yep. Just hanging on a ceiling <laugh>, so that’s
Josh Ungaro (24:10):
Insane.
Andrew Schultz (24:11):
I’m gonna post that in the Facebook group later. But yeah, yeah, there’s, there’s never a shortage of things to talk about in the real estate world. There’s always something going on. I mean, everybody’s always at a different point in their investing cycle, and people are always looking for different things at different times. But No, you’re exactly right. Like the amount of resources available on the rent preps. It’s funny how often I will go to do research on something, and the first page that pops up when I Google something real estate related is a rent prep blog article. <Laugh>. So the the s e o has been very, very good lately, I guess.
Josh Ungaro (24:43):
Yeah, no, for sure. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. All right. Let’s let’s move on. Jump back into it here. Let’s get to, speaking of well, speaking of Facebook, let’s, let’s jump back into, this one’s a little bit long, so bear with me. Okay. Question from Ruth here. Applicant did not have driver’s license for government issued picture ID requirement. I told her state ID is acceptable. She asked if passport is acceptable. I said yes. She stated that she was waiting for her passport to be sent of, sent a photo of, sent her passport, and sent a photo a few days later. I noticed that the date of issue was more than a year ago, and that expiration date was only nine years from the issue date. The State Department website states that the evidence is of a fraudulent id. I noticed, I notified the applicant that passport would be verified and this with the State Department. Upon checking with the State Department, they stated that the ID was counterfeit. I then simply told the applicant that we were unable to proceed with the application. When she asked why I did not respond, thinking she would obviously know that her ID was counterfeit. And then several days went by and she asked again. So Ruth is asking, do I simply not respond or tell her that the State Department said that the passport was counterfeit, but will not pursue a criminal investigation at this time? I don’t want someone to be vindictive.
Andrew Schultz (26:10):
Yeah. and I’m pulling up a an adverse action notice here, just so that I can throw it up on the screen. Beautiful. This has the olden the old address for, oh no, you guys are on Como Park now, right? Yeah, that is the new address. I was just looking at it and thought that we had the wrong address for you guys on here. So our policy is once an applicant is denied, we send an adverse action letter regardless of whether or not that tenant had a credit and background check run with us make sure I’m sharing the right window. So we just issue out a simple adverse action letter. The tenant’s name and current address goes there, the date goes there, the tenant’s name goes there. Thank you for your recent rental application. After a review of the provided information, we find that we are unable to accept your application at this time in New York State.
Andrew Schultz (27:00):
That’s all I’m required to say. I don’t have to give any more of a reason beyond that. Beyond that, if checked, this decision was based in whole, or in part on the information provided to us in a consumer report or investigative consumer report prepared for us by a consumer reporting agency, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s rent prep, and that’s the adverse action letter that we’re currently using. And we’ve been using it for years. We did use to use a letter that specified the reason that we were denying someone’s application, and we were advised by our attorney to stop doing that. And his reasoning to me was basically, don’t give anyone any more ammunition than they would already have when it comes to a fair housing concern.
Andrew Schultz (27:43):
You are denying an application because they provided you with fake documentation. It’s not a fair housing issue. They provided fake documentation, and that’s absolutely a valid reason to deny it’s you’re being lied to. It’s a valid reason to deny a rental application. That said, I’ve never had a conversation with someone after telling them that they were denied for an application where they didn’t immediately try to justify this, that, and the other thing. So we just don’t have those conversations anymore. We mail the adverse action letter out to everyone who gets a denial, whether we ran the credit and background or not. And more often than not, people know why they were denied. I agree with Ruth. More often than not, people know the reason that they were denied. And we never hear from those people again. Yeah. Once in a while, we’ll get somebody that calls and wants a more in-depth discussion, and typically at that point we send them to rent prep so that they can get a copy of their credit and background check. Yeah. And if there’s nothing on their credit and background check that would be a reason for denial, then they know that whatever documents they submitted must not have been accurate or forthright or whatever the case may be. So, yeah. Yeah, that’s, fake documentation is becoming a real problem, a real, real problem in property management world right now. And we we’re doing, actually, we did a video, I don’t know if it’s live yet or not.
Josh Ungaro (29:02):
I know that we were, I was actually about to, I’m not sure if it’s it’s published yet. I was about to bring that up when we were talking about just everything new, that everything new that’s been happening with technology and everything like that. You know, as cool as the, the new technology is, has been getting, like, it also means that the technology’s been getting good for the people that are trying to, to fake their way into, to obtaining properties or getting placed in properties and whatnot and Right. So, you know,
Andrew Schultz (29:31):
That that video is live, by the way. It’s up on youtube.com. Here, let’s do another screen share. Why not? We have it available to us. Yeah. Let’s see on the still, there we go. Everything just flashed on my screen for a second. So it’s actually the most recent video was just posted about two weeks ago, how to spot fake pay stubs. That’s a really interesting video. Not to, not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty proud of that one. We went through and analyzed a few fake pay stubs, and then we actually built a fake pay stub live in that video. And I show you how easy it is to, to create some of this fake documentation that’s floating around out there now. It used to be that it was just the emotional support animal letters that we’re getting faked, and now we’re seeing, we’re seeing pay stubs, we’re seeing e s a letters.
Andrew Schultz (30:19):
We’re seeing, I had somebody try to pass a fake tax document off the other day. Obviously people are out there trying to fake identification. This is a big problem in the property management industry. It’s actually, it’s not even just our industry. It’s any, any sort of lend lease industry is having the same problem. So banks are dealing with this, we’re dealing with this. Auto dealerships are dealing with this. Basically anybody where they’re selling a, a product or leasing a product in some capacity where they’re doing a financial analysis on someone, we’re all dealing with these problems right now.
Josh Ungaro (30:52):
Yeah. And I mean, I mean, this speaks to, and you know, I work for REM Prep, but Sure. Just plugging REM Prep a little bit more there. Yeah,
Andrew Schultz (31:01):
You have to, right. You know,
Josh Ungaro (31:03):
You gotta just running background checks with human F C R A certified screeners that are looking over the reports verifying that the information is correct, you know, technology, like you said, is getting so, so good that it, it can be easy for, for people to fake their way to, to get through to things and our screeners, see, see these different, see these different tactics in ways that, ways that tenants are, are faking their way through and they, they pick up on it and they’re, they’re able to make help make informed decisions. So
Andrew Schultz (31:37):
Yeah. You know, that’s, no, absolutely. It’s easy
Josh Ungaro (31:40):
To, easy to plug right there.
Andrew Schultz (31:42):
Absolutely. Well, and I think we’re gonna start doing the the payroll the income verification through rent prep because we’re, we’re getting to a point where we’re starting to see more and more and more of the fake documentation, and it’s becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger problem in our
Josh Ungaro (31:58):
For
Andrew Schultz (31:58):
Sure in our business. Sorry, I’m just trying to double check and make sure that the that the live is still live. Because we had a a, I had a blip on my screen during a filming here, but it looks like we’re good.
Josh Ungaro (32:09):
Yeah, I just went back over to it. Yep. Okay, good.
Andrew Schultz (32:13):
Yeah, we should be in good shape. And then worst case scenario, we have the recording anyway, so, and that’s on Streamy Yard servers.
Josh Ungaro (32:19):
Beautiful. Alright. Speaking of Ruth’s question, it’s, I think there was a question regarding some adverse action. I think it is, yeah. Oh, right here. Question from Tammy. Yep. So this question’s from Tammy. Hello. I had a couple apply for my unit. Her background came back great. His had a lot of stuff, eviction, low credit et cetera. So I denied them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, do I need to send both an adverse action letter since they’re go, they’re both going to be on the lease or just the applicant that denial was for, and then I would, it looks like they wrote really quick. It looks like they wrote edit, so they added to what they had asked. He said he had a collection that was paid when mm-hmm. <Affirmative> I pre-screened, but never said he was evicted. I found that on the report. Okay. And that’s, that’s basically, that’s the question.
Andrew Schultz (33:21):
Okay. Yeah. I would just issue an adverse action to anybody. Our, our policy, and it’s more just a blanket policy so that we don’t, if you have to have exceptions to policies, then it’s a poorly written policy. So our blanket policy is anybody that gets an app or anybody that completes an application with us and pays their application fee is getting an adverse action letter from us. Whether we ran a credit and background or didn’t run a credit and background, didn’t get to that stage in the process, every single time they get an adverse action letter. And then it just covers us and we don’t have to worry about it. So for the cost of a stamp, which is, I don’t know, 40, 44 cents, I’m not sure what a stamp’s running nowadays. Just mail it, you know. The one thing that I’ve never really been able to get a clear answer on is to whether or not digitally delivering an adverse action letter is considered sufficient. And I don’t know, maybe Josh, you might know or you might know of somebody there at rent prep that can answer that question, but I’m not sure if digital delivery is considered sufficient or not.
Josh Ungaro (34:24):
That’s a good question. I’ve never, I’ve done everything. I’ve had people write in and ask me questions about how to, oh, where’s your template? How do you fill it out? How do you do this? Right. I’ve had all that, but I’ve never That’s a good one. Let’s, I’m gonna jot that one down and I will, I’m gonna make a note and maybe I can post to the Facebook I can post to the Facebook community with that one.
Andrew Schultz (34:49):
Yeah. There might even be something like in, in F C R A law that says that you can’t do it. Yeah. So I’m, I’m genuinely curious as to whether or not that’s something that
Josh Ungaro (34:59):
Yeah, I can check with. I can check with Katie. Katie, bro, who’s now was our senior screener. She’s now in she’s in the compliance department too, so
Andrew Schultz (35:10):
Congratulations, Katie.
Josh Ungaro (35:12):
Yeah, she does a little bit. She wears multiple hats now, but is starting to, starting to really up her game as far as just the compliance aspect goes of everything here at Rent prep. So I will That’s cool. She’s
Andrew Schultz (35:23):
Been there for a while too.
Josh Ungaro (35:25):
Yeah. Yeah. We, our team’s been, we haven’t had, haven’t had much turnover. We’ve been everyone’s been kind of rolling for the last couple years, which is, which is good.
Andrew Schultz (35:35):
That is kind of nice. If someone needs an adverse action letter, there’s one in the resources tab on the rent prep website. If you go to landlord forms mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and you scroll down to the form package here there is an adverse action letter in the form pack that’s available on the rent prep website.
Josh Ungaro (35:52):
Yeah. And if
Andrew Schultz (35:54):
Josh, is this the free package or is this the paid package? Yep.
Josh Ungaro (35:58):
So that one will be free if you scroll down, if you just click the C t a, it brings you down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll just put in your name, your email address, or I think it’s just your first, your last name or wait your first name and your email address. And then you, you can select you could select whatever there, you could select all forms or more forms and regardless of what you kind of select there mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, if once you hit that, an email will be triggered to your inbox and you will have to just verify that it is you that’s, that’s requesting the forms, and you’ll click verify, and then you will get a, a link to the, the Dropbox folder of all of the, all the forms in there for free.
Andrew Schultz (36:38):
Yeah. And I think that that adverse action letter that I’m using is literally a rent prep template that I just changed my address on the top of it. It’s nothing, nothing overly complicated. So, yeah.
Josh Ungaro (36:48):
And we’ve gone back through and, and updated the forms to the point where they are very much pretty easy to edit even without, without Adobe Acrobat, premier, whatever they, majority of the forms are, are very editable for you. So like, like we say, they are just templates mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, if, if you live in a specific state, obviously, you know, refer to your, your state guidelines and regulations and you know, lawyers and stuff like that when you’re, when you’re making changes to the forms or doing anything like that. But we do have the basic templates for you in there. Yeah.
Andrew Schultz (37:24):
Well, and that’s, it’s worth noting, like if you’re gonna download any sort of a legal form from the internet, but be it a lease or an adverse action form or whatever, you should have a competent attorney that understands landlord tenant law in your state, review it to make sure that it’s <inaudible>
Andrew Schultz (37:38):
<Laugh>. And keep in mind that landlord tenant law moves. It’s not a fixed thing, like laws are changing. And especially now in the, in the 2020s and onward, I’m seeing a lot of legislative updates in the last few years. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So just because something was legal last time you rented out an apartment does not necessarily mean it’s legal the same time the next time you rent out the apartment. So that’s worth noting, is making sure that you review your documents from time to time to make sure that they’re still compliant with whatever the rules are in your area.
Josh Ungaro (38:08):
Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay. let’s bounce back to form submission. Let’s do question from Ron. I feel like we really never talked about this. What is your current experience with local government and contractor resources? You’re smiling, Andrew.
Andrew Schultz (38:36):
It depends on, when you ask me this question, what kind of an answer you’re gonna get, <laugh>. What is your current experience with local government and contractor resources?
Josh Ungaro (38:48):
Oh, wait, and then I, I didn’t see this part. It looks like he also wrote in New Jersey. It seems almost everything is understaffed, overworked, or unavailable or worse than a year ago,
Andrew Schultz (38:59):
<Laugh>. Yeah, I mean, I don’t disagree. I have to parse this because it’s an active situation we’re dealing on, and I can’t say too awful much, but I have an inspection coming up with a city of Buffalo inspector that was supposed to take place pre Covid, and they’re so short staffed that they’re just getting back to us to do that inspection now.
Josh Ungaro (39:22):
You’re kidding.
Andrew Schultz (39:23):
It was an inspection that was paid for in 20, let me think, COVID kicked off in March, 2020, February, March, 2020. Yeah. So this was paid for in like December of 19, and then it was weather delayed and then Covid happened and we’re just getting back around to doing the inspection now.
Josh Ungaro (39:42):
Oh my God.
Andrew Schultz (39:43):
So, and that’s, Buffalo’s a tough market to do stuff in. It’s tough to get ahold of building inspectors. It’s tough to get clear answers. It’s, it’s a little bit tough to work in the city of Buffalo as a property manager, as someone who’s trying to improve properties as a contractor, Buffalo’s a tough spot to work right up the road in the city of Lockport. I can call the building inspections department and talk to the chief building inspector just about any day. Like if I call and have a building code question, I can call him and say, Hey, how do you, how do you interpret this? And he will give me his interpretation. So it’s very different. It’s very municipality by municipality, I would say. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if we’re only talking local government, I think that’s the biggest issue I think in New York is we have a contractor’s license in every municipality here.
Andrew Schultz (40:37):
So Lockport, you have to have a license, Buffalo, you have to have a license. Niagara Falls, you have to have a license, you have to buy all these licenses for all these different municipalities, and they’re anywhere between 250 and 500 bucks a piece for the most part. So you get, you get feed to death on your licensing and your permits and stuff like that. New Jersey, on the other hand, has one state contractor’s license. So once you are a contractor in New Jersey, you’re a contractor in New Jersey, you’re not a contractor in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And then when you go to Newark, New Jersey, you need a new license versus here. That’s exactly how it is. Lock port’s different than Buffalo, different than the falls different than North Towanda. And it just makes it a lot more difficult to do business in this state as a whole, in my opinion.
Andrew Schultz (41:22):
As far as contractors, yeah, everybody’s overworked and understaffed. There’s never enough manpower to go around on the contracting side of the house, and it’s been like that for years. We’re just feeling it now because a lot of the older, more experienced, more skilled tradesmen that we had out there retired during Covid, they picked up their tools and said, I’m done. I’m going home. You guys can play in the playbook. And we lost a lot of knowledge and we lost a lot of experience during that timeframe. And I don’t know, I think we understand it because of the industry that we work in, but I don’t think most people realize just how few people are going into the trades, which is a big problem because we’re not gonna have people in the trades if we don’t have people going into the trades. And it’s wonderful that everybody wants to sit and be a YouTuber and a streamer and a content creator and a this and a that and the other thing, but we also still need people to make sure that when you flush the toilet, the toilet flushes.
Josh Ungaro (42:18):
Right. No, that, that makes sense.
Andrew Schultz (42:21):
I’m big on supporting the trades that way.
Josh Ungaro (42:23):
Yeah. Also, also, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but during Covid too, I, I feel like a lot of projects that maybe were gonna be executed just got completely put on hold. So not only did you have, not only did you have contractors retiring, the older contractors saying, Hey, I don’t even wanna deal with this. Right. Like, it’s not worth the risk. Like I feel like people, landlords and different, you know, property managers were were putting putting stuff on hold and waiting for covid to finish for the projects to get done. Yeah. And then you come out of it and where’s the, the labor’s down, right?
Andrew Schultz (42:57):
The resources
Josh Ungaro (42:57):
Are down to do the job and then the projects are up.
Andrew Schultz (43:00):
Yeah. The interest rates are higher. There are a lot of projects that were made made sense pre covid that just don’t make sense post covid because the cost of the job. Right. We actually looked at a house, we almost bought a house directly across the street from the house that I grew up in right before Covid hit. And it was a full gut and redo. We were gonna have to do every, everything in this house. There were some hardwoods that were saveable and some of the original woodwork that was saveable, but it was a shell other than that. Right. And we were outbid on it, and honestly it was a blessing in disguise because like the week after that, COVID really hit and set in. And at that point it would’ve been, we would’ve been like everybody else. We would’ve been fighting to get contractors. We would’ve been fighting against not being able to get building materials. We would’ve been paying an ultra premium for everything. It would’ve been a disaster. So yeah, I that’s a project that pre covid it made sense post covid, not so much. And that happened a lot.
Josh Ungaro (43:55):
No, for sure. That’s, that was yeah, that was a crazy couple years just, just thinking about it really was thinking back to it. All right. Let’s do I know we’ve got about 15 minutes left here and we still have some Facebook questions. So, ooh, let’s see. This one question from Deborah. In the process of my tenants moving out without notice, they started a fire in my rental, in my rental. The house is now inhabitable due to fire, smoke, and water damage. If the renters do not move all of their damage and undamaged belongings, some very large, who’s fiscally responsible for removing them? Would it be legally and or morally wrong to expect or change them, them security deposit to remove the last of their belongings? So she’s trying to, trying to include the belongings in the moving of the belongings within the security deposit is she’s trying to take that out of the security deposit, is what she’s asking.
Andrew Schultz (45:08):
And the process of my tenants moving out without notice, they started a fire in my rental. They started a fire in the rental. Am I reading it right?
Josh Ungaro (45:16):
That’s the way I’m reading it, is they might, they were, you’re taking off and they started a fire and then now the whole house is destroyed.
Andrew Schultz (45:29):
I mean, Hmm. This is an interesting one. So the tenants started a fire in a rental. So we had a fire in a rental a few years back that was caused by, not caused by the tenants wasn’t caused by us either. It was caused by a squirrel chewing on a wire. And we ended up, both tenants had to vacate. There was some property damage to their belongings and there was a lot of property damage to the actual home itself. We eventually ended up with both of those tenants signing off on releases so that we could remove their stuff from the property. But it was a very long drawn out process and our attorney was involved in it. The process, should I fire over there? I mean, if they started the fire, I can’t imagine any scenario where they’re getting any amount of their security deposit back. I’m hoping that they have renter’s insurance that you can go after mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But as far as who’s fiscally responsible for removing their stuff, if their stuff is damaged beyond repair and they’re refusing to remove it, I would think that at some point the stuff would just be considered abandoned and you could throw it out because they’re, they’re no longer a tenant. So like I understand that that’s still their stuff, but it sounds like they’re abandoning their stuff.
Josh Ungaro (46:52):
So, so I guess <crosstalk> Yeah. Maybe remove, what if we remove the fire part of it and just said, what if we just said these, these tenants just moved out without notice and left their stuff.
Andrew Schultz (47:07):
Okay.
Josh Ungaro (47:07):
Can she, can Debra, can Debra deduct the cost of moving the, the goods from
Andrew Schultz (47:14):
This? So in, in New York, you have to you have to store the tenant’s belongings for what’s considered a reasonable amount of time. That’s not technically defined in statute, but it’s generally understood to be 30 days.
Josh Ungaro (47:26):
Okay.
Andrew Schultz (47:26):
So what we do is we store the tenant stuff for 30 days, either in the unit or in a storage unit, depending on the situation. And then after 30 days, we have the right to dispose of it however we see fit, whether that be in the garbage, taking it to a recycling center, reselling it on Facebook marketplace, whatever we want to do, it’s on us at that point because the property would be considered abandoned. Okay. The fire may change that though.
Josh Ungaro (47:51):
Oh,
Andrew Schultz (47:52):
I’m not sure because there’s, there’s a lot of, just because there’s a fire in a property does not mean that that’s automatically the end of the tenancy. There’s a lot that goes into it. You would need to know what your lease says. You would need to know what the laws are in, in your state and things of that nature. Deborah needs to contact an attorney is really what it boils down to here, because anytime you’re dealing with a situation like this, it’s gonna be a very, very high emotional situation. And going between the landlord and the tenant probably is not the best move here. Having an intermediary that is emotionally disconnected, I think is probably the, the best case scenario here. Removing the fire from the scenario altogether though. Yeah, you would definitely be able to remove the tenant’s belongings from the property once they’re considered abandoned. You would just need to know what, what is considered abandoned in, in your state.
Josh Ungaro (48:41):
Yeah. This is, this is a funky one. I wish we had Debra on here to, to give us some insight because mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, the fact that it seems like they just started a fire and then left the property. I don’t, just,
Andrew Schultz (48:56):
Just threw of a natural kind of guess on the way out the door or what.
Josh Ungaro (49:00):
Yeah, I don’t know the whole story, but, alright. I think, I think those were a couple good, couple good answers. I mean, yeah,
Josh Ungaro (49:08):
That’s, that’s all we can do. All right. Got time for a couple more here. All right, let’s do a question from Andrew. It’s another Facebook question, theoretical question for everyone. You find good tenants sign a one year lease and the house starts off clean, new paint, new carpets, new appliances, et cetera, et cetera. Let’s say you go there and do a check in six months and the house is very all capitalized, dirty, greasy, kitchen appliances, fingerprints on walls, et cetera, et cetera. Here’s my question. What can I really do about it? I can’t call them slobs, I can’t call them, I can’t tell them they need to hire a house cleaner. I can’t start cleaning it myself. What do you do about it other than not renew the lease as it runs out? So not, doesn’t seem like really a hypothetical question. This really seems like something that actually happened.
Andrew Schultz (50:04):
This sounds like it might be happening. I would issue a lease violation letter. So we have in our lease that, you know, good housekeeping is expected of everyone and you have to clean up after yourselves and the house needs to be free of noxious odors and smells and free of debris. Like you can’t have just piled up garbage sitting around and stuff like that because obviously that leads to health and safety concerns and vermin and stuff like that. So that’s probably what I would do. I would start with an adverse action. So nope, not an adverse action letter. Start with a lease violation letter, <laugh> <laugh>. And then from there, if they don’t respond to the lease violation letter at that point you may be in a situation where you can non-renew the tenancy or there might be some other options that you have available to you. But realistically speaking, if you point out that somebody is in, they need to clean up the unit, most people are gonna be like, okay, we’re gonna do something. And then if it doesn’t go far enough, maybe you need to start considering other options at that point.
Josh Ungaro (51:02):
Yeah. To piggyback off that one as far as just, so it seems like you went over there a couple months in and saw that it was disgusting. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, how much just for, for the viewers and for myself, like how much, how much notice would you have to give a tenant when you are just, you wanna, you need to go over to the property. Do you need to give a tenant notice when you’re coming? Mid lease mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, look at a property. How, how long in advance do you need to do that? Can you do it through text message? How does, how does that work?
Andrew Schultz (51:33):
So again, that’s gonna be a state law type of a situation in New York state. We do have to provide notice before we go in unless it’s an emergency. So like if there’s a flood in the house, that’s an emergency. If we think someone may be critically injured and can’t get to the door, that’s an emergency. Trying to think of other situations that would be a fire obviously would be an emergency. Things that would be non-emergency. I need to change the flapper in the toilet. I need to change the smoke detector batteries. Those would be non-emergency. Yeah, so for anything non-emergency, you do have to provide notice. And in New York, I believe it’s 24 hours notice before you enter a unit. And it might be different downstate in New York City, I don’t remember off the top of my head, but different states and different municipalities may have different rules on that, so you’re gonna want to double check to see what it is in your area.
Andrew Schultz (52:22):
Most areas, it’s usually like 24 to 48 hours notice. We typically will send a text message to let somebody know that we need to access their unit so that we have a written record of it without going out there and posting it on the door. Generally speaking, we don’t have issues. Just using text messaging. Sometimes we will have someone that’s non-responsive to phones or text messaging or something like that. And at that point we’ll actually go out and physically post a notice on their door. And we use a software called Z Inspector that actually we use whenever we’re doing move and move outs or notices or whatever to do before and after photos for like maintenance. And it takes time and date stamped and g p s stamped location on the photo. So if we post a notice on the floor and say, we’re gonna be here at two o’clock tomorrow and we post it at 1 54 today, yes, we gave you a proper 24 hours notice and we literally have the proof in the form of a photo that was taken as soon as the notice was posted. So right. More often than not, text message is fine for our purposes. Most of our tenants are fine with that. But if you do get somebody that is being kind of difficult or does not want you to enter the unit, at that point, we would actually post the door so that we can prove, no, we did what we were supposed to. You don’t have a leg to stand on here by not allowing us into the apartment. So
Josh Ungaro (53:38):
Yeah. No, that, that makes sense. Good answer. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Alright. I am I think as far as questions go, it is 1 55. I am I think we’re gonna, we should wrap it up, right? We gotta wrap. We have a couple of long Yeah, we’ve got a couple of long, long questions that I don’t wanna just give, give partial attention to. We’ll just keep ’em on the list as far as
Andrew Schultz (54:01):
Yeah. We’ll scroll ’em the next month,
Josh Ungaro (54:02):
Next month goes. But yeah, I think we’re good there.
Andrew Schultz (54:05):
Cool. Very good. Well, that was exciting. That was a pretty good a m a session I would say.
Josh Ungaro (54:11):
Yeah, it felt good. A lot of energy felt good to be back. Yeah.
Andrew Schultz (54:15):
Right. The questions have been getting better and better too. Like the questions that people are submitting have been getting better and better. And if you do wanna submit questions for these AMA sessions, the best way to do that is go on the Facebook group and ask mm-hmm <affirmative> facebook.com/groups/rent prep. You can join the, it’s I think over 13,000 people in the Facebook group now. We’re,
Josh Ungaro (54:36):
We’re very close. I think we’re at 13 9 7. We’re, we’re very close to 14,000. Yeah, that’s
Andrew Schultz (54:44):
Pretty exciting. So there’s a lot of resources even in that group. We talk about the website, but even in that group, there’s 14,000 people that are all there looking to help. So ask your question there, you’ll probably get responses well before you get on the podcast or on mm-hmm. <Affirmative> on the videos or anything like that. But that’s also where we pull questions from. We get ready usually a couple weeks in advance for these. We’ll post a, a document where people can ask their questions. Yeah. And then we take the best of those and throw ’em into the, into these videos. So the best way to ask an a m a question is to be involved in the Facebook group.
Josh Ungaro (55:17):
Yeah. And I believe if you are, if you’re subscribed to our rent prep newsletter, which you can do, you can do right on our website, there’s multiple areas where you can, you can subscribe to the newsletter if you are signed up for that. You also will get an email, I believe it’s two weeks before the next a m a and that’s where you’ll have the form submission. The form submission questions come from there. Ashley sends that out. And then, yeah. Honestly, I, there’s rarely, there’s rarely a question from a landlord that’s, that’s posted to the group that does not get an answer from somebody. I, I rarely see a bear ans bear question in there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it doesn’t have somebody giving you some sort of insight. So
Andrew Schultz (55:59):
Yeah, there are a lot of really smart landlords in that group, by the way. Yeah. Like, we have some real smart people in the rent prep for landlords, group people that have been around a long time, but doing this, you know, for a lot longer than I have. Even that they just have such a wealth of knowledge and experience that it’s silly not to draw from it, like mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it’s, you know, it’s always nice to grab those experiences from others so you don’t make the same mistake yourself. Actually, I met with a client, we’ll, we’ll leave it at this. I met with a client earlier today and we were talking about a situation at one of his properties and he made a comment, something along the lines of, the tuition for this particular mistake will not be free. So anytime you can learn from someone else’s mistake, <laugh>, without, without spending the money, that’s a, a good situation to find yourself in.
Josh Ungaro (56:45):
Yeah. For sure.
Andrew Schultz (56:47):
Awesome. All right, well, let’s go ahead and wrap things up here. Josh, thank you for joining me. This was a lot of fun. Yes. We’ll get the next one set up for October. If you’re not already in the Facebook group, go ahead and join the Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/rent prep. And join us for our next ama. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, don’t forget we post podcasts every other week. We also post Facebook videos, I’m sorry YouTube videos every other week as well. Tons of content coming out from rent prep. And always you can check out those resources@rentprep.com. Josh, anything to add?
Josh Ungaro (57:20):
No, it’s I gotta start pulling the Halloween decorations out
Andrew Schultz (57:25):
By the next, by the next time it’s gonna be snow flying by the time we get,
Josh Ungaro (57:30):
Don’t say that <laugh>. I’m going, I’m going back down to San Antonio.
Andrew Schultz (57:34):
I might have to follow you. <Laugh>. Thanks for watching everybody. We’ll see.