In this week’s podcast, Andrew Schultz discusses working with restoration companies for your rental property. What are his tips for a successful working relationship?
Ooph, so you have multiple qualified applicants, but don’t want to deny the wrong one. Find out what to do when faced with this scenario.
And, last, but not least, what gets rid of tough mold? And, how can the landlord prevent mold in the first place? Find out now in today’s podcast.
Show transcription:
Andrew (00:08):
All right. There we go. We are live. Welcome everybody to the March 2024. Ask me Anything session brought to you by rentprep.com. I’m Andrew Schultz, community manager here at Rent Prep. I have Josh Ongaro with me. He’s the marketing manager over at Rent Prep. Josh, how are you today?
Josh (00:25):
Pretty good, Andrew, what, what is up with you? How you been?
Andrew (00:29):
Not too bad. Let’s see, it’s March. So I think the last time we had, I think the last AMA, we talked about the blizzard and everything else, like all of the, the gutter damage and stuff like that that we handled. Yeah. And today it is like close to 60 degrees and sunny.
Josh (00:46):
Yeah. Yeah. We’re, we’re in that, that time of the year in Buffalo where you well, we’re getting like highs of fifties and even potentially sixties, but then you look at the low and it’s down at 20. So yeah, it’s, it’s we were leaving for work, I think it was two days ago, and I, Mm-Hmm. I had told my girlfriend had asked if, if she needed a coat, and I go, nah, nah, you’re okay. Big mistake. It was two days ago.
Josh (01:10):
On Wednesday. It, it was 50. It was 50 when we left the house in the morning, and it had dropped all the way and it was snowing by the time we left work.
Andrew (01:19):
That’s, yeah. So I took Wednesday off. So I was at the house and I was just out in the garage screwing around and right around noon like I could literally feel the temperature, the whole weather pattern shift right around noon. The temperature dropped like 10 degrees and four minutes or something like that. It was very, very noticeable, the change in the weather pattern. But yeah, that was Wednesday. So we went from like Tuesday. We were very warm. We were in like the, I think, I want to say I saw 60 in my car on the thermometer. Then Wednesday we went from like the mid-fifties down to, I think the low temperature was in the twenties. And then yesterday was miserable, and now today is, we’re back up into the fifties. Like this weather’s crazy.
Josh (01:59):
I know. I was trying to play, I was gonna see if I could potentially play golf this weekend, but I, I don’t even know. Who knows? I, it’s supposed to be nicer. The only problem is Mm-Hmm. It is still soak soaking wet for all this snow melting and stuff like that.
Andrew (02:12):
No, I get it. I was thinking about, I was thinking about pulling the camper out this weekend and de-winterizing it. Like they’re, they’re already pulling the boom out of the Erie Canal, or not the Erie Canal, lake Erie. So like the lake never froze this season. It’s obviously not gonna freeze at this point in the season. I honestly don’t think we have. I think we’re probably good for one more big winter storm before everything is said and done, but I think winter might be on the way out already. Knock on, knock on wood.
Josh (02:38):
I’ve told that to my, to my dad a few times, and he’s not, he’s refusing to believe it. Yeah. So I, I’m staying strong on it. I’ve already, I’ve already talked the snowblower into the back of the garage, so it’s, it’s not in the, the plain site. And I’ve kind of Yeah, dock the, the mower, even though that’s a little bit premature. Mm-Hmm. But I’ve got the mower in the, in the front portion now, and
Andrew (03:03):
I pulled the grill out on Monday.
Josh (03:04):
I’m getting ready. I had the feeling of summer coming.
Andrew (03:07):
Yeah.
Josh (03:07):
Or spring.
Andrew (03:08):
I pulled <laugh>, I pulled the grill out on Monday. I actually, I moved the the snowblower to the back of the garage where the grill was, and I pulled the grill out and used it on Monday. So I, I can’t stand winter. I personally hate winter. I’m not a winter sports guy. I just, it does nothing for me. I hate winter. I would much rather be in warm weather where I can be outdoors enjoying myself. Like I am, I’m ready for spring. So here’s hoping that it arrives soon.
Josh (03:34):
Yeah. Hopefully. All right. Let’s we’ve got a ton, ton, ton of questions.
Josh (03:42):
Holy cow. A lot, a lot coming in through the form submissions this week, which is, which is awesome. So, so thanks to everybody for contributing. We’re gonna, we’re gonna try to get through a lot of these, so let’s, let’s
Andrew (03:57):
Yeah. Right. Let’s get…
Josh (03:58):
We always say that. We always say that, but let’s, let’s let’s rip it.
Andrew (04:03):
Okay.
Josh (04:05):
Alright, let’s start right at the top from question from Joanna. On a form submission, my tenants did not sign move-in form or fully furnished rental. Now they have stolen items for fully furnished rental. Now they have stolen items. However, I have photos of place at Move-in provided to them too on Move-in. What is the likelihood of getting my money back for the deposit?
Andrew (04:32):
Yeah, I would just charge against the deposit on this. If you have before photos and after photos showing the items missing. Even if you don’t have a signed move-in form, I would go ahead and I’d go ahead and, and take that chance. Yeah. If the tenant complains that you’re deducting from their security deposit, then show them the pictures of the items that were there when they moved in and show them the pictures of the items that were there when they moved out. Like they may very well have taken some stuff at some point along the way or broken some dishes or, you know, whatever the case may be. These things happen on furnished rentals. It may not necessarily be a stolen item. It may have just been something that broke or it may have been something that they thought was theirs. Like it happens. We had a furnished rental that the guy took a couple of pots that he thought he had brought with him, but no, they were included when he moved into the furnished rental. So it happens. Yeah. I would have absolutely deducted from the deposit though. I mean, if you have proof that the items were there, it move in and they’re not there now, I would, I would deduct that from the deposit.
Josh (05:29):
Yeah. I’ve got, I’ve got a few follow-ups there. So what if, what if the items, I guess exceed the, exceed the value of what you’ve collected on, on the initial deposit
Andrew (05:41):
At that point? I think you’re probably taking the tenant to small claims court. ’cause It sounds like they are already out. Yeah. It sounds like they’re out. Yeah. So at that point, you’re probably gonna be looking at small claims court or civil court, just depending on what the level of, of theft is, how much it was.
Josh (05:57):
Yeah. And then my other question there, and I can’t remember, it was, it was definitely a few months ago, but I think, I think we were talking about was it a software or something that was built in that allowed you to take the photo or take photos of a of a rental and like potentially date them? I guess my question there is yeah. How do you know, I guess when you bring up photos of the before and afters of the, of the property, if something’s physically stolen, how do you, right? I guess how do you prove in court that one photo was taken, you know, earlier than the other photo?
Andrew (06:29):
So time, date stamp photos is always a good way of doing it. That’s, yeah. Something that can be faked if you know what you’re doing, obviously. But there are apps for your smartphone that you can download that will time and date stamp the photos when you take them. Yeah. They can even put GPS coordinates on ’em too, some of the apps. So like that’s a good way of, of time date stamping your photos and showing where you were physically at when the photo was taken. I think that’s a pretty good method. To take it a step further, there’s also inspection software out there that does pretty much the same thing. For instance, we’re using Z Inspector. Most Section Eight agencies use a software called Happy H-A-P-P-Y. It’s like HAP contract, happy Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> like I love Z Inspector because I can take as many photos as I want.
Andrew (07:11):
It uploads them to Z Inspector server on the cloud. I don’t have to keep ’em locally. I can access them from anywhere. I can categorize it by, you know, inspection, by maintenance, by notice, by whatever. I can break it down by room, by area of the room. You can go in really in depth with a piece of software like that if you want to. But the really, the nice thing about that is I use the app on my phone. It takes the pictures, it uploads to their server, then they’re responsible for shepherding that. So they keep the metadata intact. They keep the time date, they keep the GPS location and I can actually generate a PDF report that has the photo on one side and has the time, date and GPS location right next to it. And that’s very, very easy for us to take into court in a situation like that where we’re shy trying to say, this is what was here before, this is what’s here. Now we can take those before and after reports in. So, and I, that’s, I think that’s the inspector has a, a free or very, very low-cost option for smaller landlords too. So that might be worth looking into for, for some people if they’re interested.
Josh (08:14):
Yeah, that’s, that is, that’s a cool feature. I feel like that takes, that problem is not annoying until it happens to you. It’s one of those yeah. Things in Landlording where, you know, you’re like, ah, like maybe it’s not worth me worth me using that software. And then all of a sudden you gotta try to hunt down , hunt down and find where you stored photos of the initial property if you didn’t store ’em correctly somewhere. And yeah,
Andrew (08:39):
That’s just, well, and we might as well plug our videos on doing a moving inspection while we’re, while we’re here. I know Eric and I did that series a while back, back when Eric was still with Rent Prep, but yeah, it was either a two or three-part video series on how to, how to do a walkthrough inspection, how to make sure you’re getting all of the photos that you should be taking and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s a couple-part video series, but it’s certainly worth the watch. And that’s available over on the YouTube page, Rent Prep, I’m sorry, youtube.com/rentprep. And it’s, they’re really good videos. They’re, they’re kind of evergreen content. They’re super useful. Yeah, I could probably pull ’em up on the
Josh (09:17):
I got, I’m looking at it right.
Andrew (09:21):
So, but anyway, going forward, yeah, that’s, I mean, there’s definitely different options out there for how to handle a situation like that. Honestly, all you need is a smartphone. Like just take your photos. ’cause Your phone’s automatically gonna time and date stamp ’em, and then you can send them to yourself via email. You can upload ’em via Google Drive, whatever you want to do to actually hold onto those properties or to those photos. Excuse me. So yeah, there’s some options out there. And I would definitely recommend the best thing that you can do is have a good set of move-in photos. Because when you go to do the move-out inspection and you find these missing things, it does give you that ability to go back and, and charge against the deposit. A good example of this, we just had a tenant move out that took the doorbells and the mailbox.
Andrew (10:05):
So he had swapped his, you know, single-button mailbox single button, like every doorbell button you’ve ever seen. There was one of those on the front door and side door. He swapped it for a ring doorbell which is fine. We didn’t mind that. Took his ring doorbell when he left, but he never reinstalled the old button that he had removed. And then he, for whatever reason, didn’t like the mailbox that we had installed on the side of the property. So he bought a different one, threw ours out, and then took his mailbox when he moved. So <laugh>. Wow. Yeah, it’s very random. The things that, that tenants will decide that they want to keep for whatever reason. Like, it’s super weird, but definitely make sure you’re getting a good set of move-in photos. That’s, that’s really at this stage of the game where everything costs so much to fix and to replace good move-in photos are one of the most important things when you’re doing a move-in.
Josh (10:58):
Yeah. Know. Well said. All right. Let’s let’s see this question from Rhonda right down the list here. I feel like this one’s been coming up a lot. I feel like one of the themes, and it normally does, but this year specifically, like I feel like a lot of people are, are asking about switching leases from year-long leases to month-to-month leases and, and stuff like that. So here’s what, here’s what Rhonda asks. I have a tenant whose one-year lease is up and wants to rent on a month-to-month basis. Now, the one-year lease did say that after one year, the lease would be a month-to-month basis. Okay. Can I keep her security deposit if she leaves without giving a 30-day notice? Should I have her sign a new lease that specifically says she has a month to month lease?
Andrew (11:47):
So let’s talk about the new lease first. That’s up to you. If your existing lease says that it’s automatically going to renew on a month to month basis after the initial lease term, I, it’s up to you if you wanna do a new lease or if you wanna just leave the existing one in place. If you haven’t made any changes to your lease format, like added new language or removed language or changed anything, I would probably just let it roll to a month to month at that point. Yeah. ’cause she’s still gonna be responsible for all the same rules and regulations and whatnot. It’s just that she has the ability to walk away with a 30 day notice at that point. Yeah. As far as keeping the security deposit, if she leads without giving notice you really have to check your state laws on that.
Andrew (12:25):
Every state’s a little bit different with regards to security deposit dispositions and what you can and can’t do. I know here in New York state, we have a duty to mitigate, for instance. So the chances are pretty good that the security deposit would wind up being consumed by the, just in the time that it takes to find a new tenant and all the damages associated and stuff like that. So check your state laws on that. But I would say that that’s probably probably within reason, depending on what the laws are in your state. And actually, I’m gonna, you mentioned that this is something that’s been popping up. I know that we don’t wanna spend too much time on each question today, considering that was question two and we’re 14 minutes in. No, no. We’re, but it’s relevant 13 minutes in, but I, I’m starting to see that a lot here in Buffalo.
Andrew (13:11):
Like when we have people that are looking for apartments, it seems that there are a lot more people that are looking for that flexibility of having either a month-to-month or a six-month lease term or whatever, versus a one-year lease term. That does seem to be something that is growing in popularity right now. I don’t know if that’s going to be a long-term thing or if this is like a short-term transient type of a situation, but we are starting to see that in our market as well. So I’m wondering if that’s starting to become more of a national trend.
Josh (13:38):
Yeah, and I think it, I think we were talking about it last, it was last week, and then we went into the whole discussion over house hacking and we were talking about just, just kind of the positives and benefits of, of month to month running to family members, friends, that kind of stuff and Right. I just feel like it’s, it’s come up a lot lately and it seems like, I know that we talked about, you know, charging a, technically a higher, higher rent or a higher premium on, on a month-to-month lease just to mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, you’re not locked into a year. You, you know, there’s potential of somebody moving out quicker. You have to, you have the cost of trying to remarket the property you have Right. Cost of, you know, having nobody in there having to fill it and all that kind of stuff. So.
Andrew (14:22):
Well, and Buffalo utilities are a factor too. Like if you’re in Buffalo and you have an apartment that goes vacant in the middle of winter, you might be up for a couple hundred dollars heat bill. So that’s something to keep in mind as well. And actually, it looks like Josh might have just fallen off the call, so I’ll keep things rolling here until he gets back. But yeah, it’s interesting because when you have these vacancies, especially in the winter months, you’re also gonna be responsible for the utility costs associated with that. And that can be a little bit of a headache as well just simply because it’s an extra cost. So if you’re not in a warm weather climate where you don’t have to worry about things like snow, then I could definitely see where that could be an issue. Looks like we have Josh back. I’m gonna add him back into the call here. Welcome back buddy. <Laugh>. Yeah,
Josh (15:06):
I don’t know. Yeah, man, I, I don’t even, I don’t know, I, let me, let me know if I, I hop back out again.
Andrew (15:14):
You’re, you’re looking good. You’re back on. You’re not lagged or anything. I don’t know what happened there. You just kind of disappeared, but no, I was just saying the one thing the one thing that I was mentioning was if you’re in a winter month situation, especially in Buffalo, you’re paying a utility bill, you’re paying a pretty hefty gas bill to keep that place warm during the winter. So there’s a lot of cost to Oh yeah. Take into account for turnovers.
Josh (15:34):
Oh, for sure. I, you know, I didn’t even, I didn’t even think about that. The fact that you’re in a colder climate and you know, Mm-Hmm. maintaining that property just takes a, takes a whole, takes on a whole new meaning when you’re
Andrew (15:45):
Absolutely.
Josh (15:46):
To keep the property, keep it at a certain temperature and all that kind of stuff, so. Yep. Yeah. Good. Alright, well let’s, let’s jump back in here. Let’s do this question from Ralph. How do you address pests coming from the garbage of the apartment complex from next door? I own a duplex and then plagued with coming from irresponsible maintaining of garbage from nextdoor.
Andrew (16:09):
So I would contact the property owner first and just say, Hey, we’re having a problem at our property because of your property. And that’s generally speaking, the best route to go. Like person to person contact is probably the best way to handle it. That’s step one. If you can’t get anywhere with the actual property owner themselves, at that point, I would probably say might be time to call code enforcement or something like that. And I know that that’s something like here in Buffalo, especially with it being a city a little bit more dense, like they take pests real, real seriously. Like they will come out and they will find you for having garbage all over your yard and stuff like that because it does draw pests in. So that’s probably how I would address it. I would try talking to the property owner first, and then I would talk to a code enforcement official distant second.
Josh (16:59):
Yeah. That, I feel like that’s reasonable. I, that’s I the place to start, try to try to mitigate it with the, with somebody, you know, the person next door and, you know, I feel like any reasonable person Yeah. And I’m assuming here, which is not what, what you should ever do, but Right. You know, I feel like if you at least have that conversation before you start, before you start, I think we were talking about this last week too, these are common questions.
Andrew (17:24):
I think we did, I think we might, you were talking about it from the tenant side.
Josh (17:27):
Yeah. Or noise, or an aggressive tenant. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But yeah, having that conversation first, just to at least let, let the neighbor or somebody who’s around you just, just understand that you’re, you’re right. Issues sometimes can work in your benefit and obviously act accordingly as you know, you know, with the outcome of, of that conversation.
Andrew (17:46):
Yeah, exactly. I think that most people forget that step one should be a conversation. Like, you don’t have to run to an authority figure and tattle first thing. Like, have a conversation with your neighbor. Mm-Hmm., they’re probably not gonna bite your head off. They might, they might be a real jerk, but like, still try to have the conversation first. You’re gonna, if you, if you don’t try to at least have a conversation with somebody and just blow them into code enforcement and they found out that you were the one who called code enforcement on them, yeah. They’re not gonna make your life any easier. Like it’s No, you’re better off trying to have the conversation first and in pretty much every circumstance really.
Josh (18:23):
Yeah. And, and we don’t, we don’t have to go too far in depth with this one, but Chandra has a question right below this that, you know, what is the best way to approach tenant complaints about another tenant’s crying baby at night?
Andrew (18:35):
Yeah. I’m not gonna spend too, too much time on this one. We actually just had an episode, I think it was a podcast episode where we talked about tenant to tenant complaints. And my approach is to tell the tenants to deal with it amongst themselves. Mm-Hmm. . Like there’s very little that you’re gonna be able to do as a landlord. You’re not living there mo in most instances. You’re not living there 24 7 to monitor the situation or whatever the case may be. I would definitely go and reference that podcast episode. I must, I don’t remember which episode it was, but I know that it was one of the more recent episodes. Yeah. So I would just say look at the last maybe month or so and I know it’ll be in there.
Josh (19:12):
Yeah. Alright, let’s, let’s jump into, we, we’ve got some Facebook questions too. So we’ve just rattled off a bunch of form submissions. Let’s look at, let’s look at some of the, the Facebook questions here. I’ve got a question from Heather. Heather asks, talk to me about allowing dogs on the lease. My current tenant wants to resign his lease with a part-time dog. I’m thinking renter’s insurance with pet policy and pet liability. Does anyone ask for any additional pet rent or deposit beyond this new to renting? And this is my home. I live in the unit above, not excited about the idea of a dog, but he is a great tenant. So considering, let me know your thoughts.
Andrew (19:59):
I actually just had this conversation yesterday with one of our clients because we’ve been thinking about making some modifications to our pet policy. And our pet policy is currently no pets. The problem with having a no pets policy is that it seems to increase the likelihood that you’re going to wind up with an ESA certificate that you have to deal with and Yeah, obviously there’s no, there, you can’t charge a tenant when they have an ESA, like any sort of an extra rent or an extra deposit or anything like that. So, Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, it’s certainly a discussion worth having, talking about people that are trying to just sneak pets in without the extra fees and whatever, and getting the ESA certificates, whether they be valid or invalid. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And we could have an hours long discussion on that, but at the end of the day, we’re in a position where in New York State and actually you asked about renters pet rent or pet deposit in New York State, we can no longer charge a pet deposit. We can only have one month of rent, the equivalent of one month of rent on hand as a security deposit. So we don’t have that option of saying, yeah, you can move your pet in, but it’s gonna be an extra $500 in security deposit to offset the risk or whatever. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So now essentially what you have to do is make it pet rent. So figure out what your deposit would be. We
Josh (21:14):
Charge that as the months, break it up throughout the months.
Andrew (21:17):
Exactly, exactly what I was gonna say. And that’s, it sucks for the tenant because in the event that the dog doesn’t do any damage, they’re just out this money, like, versus a deposit that they have the potential to get back if the animal doesn’t cause any damage. Right. So that
Josh (21:36):
Said that, yeah, animals cause
Andrew (21:37):
A lot of damage really, really quickly. And I don’t hate the idea of having a constant stream of revenue coming in to offset that constant wear and tear that’s happening on the property. I don’t love it. I honestly think that New York should have not made the amendment to the security deposit laws that they did, because it really does not benefit anyone. It doesn’t benefit pet owners, it doesn’t benefit low income individuals who struggle to find housing. It’s
Josh (22:06):
No. Yeah. It really doesn’t. And yeah, like I, the deposited lease rewards the tenant for, you know, if their pets, you know, well behaved and there’s no damage that’s been done, like you said, like they can Right. They can get that deposit back. But if you’re paying a monthly, a monthly fee, which, you know, it’s, it’s security for the landlord. Right. As far as just wear and tear like you’re saying there, but Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s still that, you know, I, I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about it. I,
Andrew (22:36):
Yeah, it’s kind of weird. It’s a, it’s a tough situation. Like as far as adding a dog to the lease, we have a separate animal addendum that we use. It lists the animal, the, like, the name, the breed, the weight, the color. I think we require a photo. I know we require UpToDate vaccination records. Our animal agreement also specifies like where the animal is allowed to be, like out, like if it’s a, if it’s a home, like can the dog be in the backyard or whatever. So it’s, you know, it’s a good idea to have some documentation with regards to the animal. I would certainly make sure that you get a copy of the vaccination records for the animal. I think the renter’s insurance policy is probably a very, very good idea as well. Just make sure that their renter’s insurance policy lists you as an additional interest so that you get the information on renewals and discontinuance and stuff like that.
Josh (23:28):
Right. No, that’s, I think that’s good. I, yeah, that one, that one trips me up with New York state just as far as Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> as far as what you can do and what you can’t. But that’s, you know, that’s, that can be tough. Alright. Question from, let’s do pop back to the form submission questions. It looks like question eight on here, Andrew, which is a question from Scott. What is being done about the visitor parking situation? I can’t have friends visit because residents are using those spaces. So it looks like the landlord potentially lives, lives in that property and Mm-Hmm. it looks like just because residents friends are, are parking in his spots. So I think that’s gotta be something that you gotta outline in the lease.
Andrew (24:15):
Yeah. So that’s actually a good point. You should be outlining parking in your lease. We actually have it in ours, whether off street parking is or is not provided. If you have like an apartment building that has assigned spaces, maybe the spaces are numbered or whatever, you can include the spaces that are assigned in the lease and you should have something in there about where people can and cannot park when they have guests over. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. For instance, we have a property up in Lockport that the driveway is it’s a shared driveway with the neighbor. It basically, it comes back and then it tees off to, into both yards. And we have written into our lease that you cannot under any circumstances park in the driveway because you’re not blocking just one household, you’re blocking two households at that point. You have to park all the way back by the garage.
Andrew (25:00):
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So there’s not, like, I don’t care if you’re unloading your groceries, take the extra few steps, like it’s so it’s something you just have to make sure that you, you specify in the, in the lease. I know that you can also, like, again, if you’re in a situation where it’s a bigger building with more than a few parking spots, you can actually have a towing company that will come out and monitor the lot. They’ll check to make sure that residents are parked in the right spot and that they have the resident parking permit displayed. And if the guests don’t have a guest parking permit, then their cars get towed. Or if you’re parked in a spot that doesn’t belong to you, you get towed. There’s more that goes into that, obviously. Generally speaking, you’re gonna be dealing with that in more of a larger apartment complex-type situation. Yeah. But it is an option that’s available if that’s where you’re at. So,
Josh (25:48):
Mm-Hmm. Yeah. And I feel like, I feel like a lot of weird situations arise, like in, in areas like ours where Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> if there’s snow in the winter, no. Yeah. And, and stuff like that, like tenants and, and you can understand it to some extent, but I know especially in larger properties with, with multiple doors on ’em just right. Apartment complexes and that kind of stuff, like, I feel like people, it’s kind of a free for all with the parking when the spots are <laugh>. If it’s not plowing adequately, kind of, people are parking all over the place and it can lead to blocking people in doing different stuff like that. And, you know, it’s, it’s a unique situation, but it happens.
Andrew (26:27):
Yeah. No, it ha and it happens a lot and it’s a bigger issue with smaller parking lots because you still have to put that snow somewhere. Like the snow piles can only get so large. So oftentimes you wind up losing spots and as the spots start to disappear because of snow piles, that just makes the problem that much worse.
Josh (26:45):
Yeah. Yeah. Even our, even our office here at our headquarters of REM Prep is the parking lot was during those times. Like there’s still, it just melted last week. The the snow that was blocking, you know Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> 3, 4, 5 spots. So it was, you know, it was tricky.
Andrew (27:02):
I remember being up there for an all hands maybe last year or the year before. Yeah. It was, I couldn’t find a parking spot in the parking lot. It was, it was filled with capacity.
Josh (27:11):
<Laugh> <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s not a huge lot, but still, like when you with snow and like you said, like they can only push it, you can only push it so much and push it in certain locations and Right. You know, it’s hard to remove it and, you know, if you’re, if you’re just a you know, a contractor well,
Andrew (27:29):
And, and it’s expensive to remove it. Like if you have to have somebody come and pull a snow pile out of your property Yeah. You can plan on for, for most skid steer or excavation operations, you’re talking probably 250 to 350 bucks an hour. Yeah. And then they have to find someplace to go and take it. So Yeah. It’s, it’s not cheap to get rid of large piles of snow when they start to pile up like that.
Josh (27:51):
Yeah, for sure. Okay. Question from Mike will stick with the form submissions here. Mike asks, what is the average annual rental increase in a sub Oh, in suburban Detroit or Midwestern metropolitan areas? If, if, if specific information is not available based on the current inflation information, and I know this is Yeah. Gonna be one that we’re gonna have to Right. You know, as far as just location specific might be a little bit more difficult for us to
Andrew (28:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I like this question though ’cause it gives us an opportunity to talk about like, how do you figure out what your rent should be from one lease term to the next and Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> we’ve started to experience here in Buffalo situations where some of our apartments are at the top of market. I mean, we were in a situation where in some ways the rental market is starting to soften here. And I think it’s starting to soften a little bit on a national scale as well, just because the rent has increased drastically over the past few years. And because of that, I think that now more than ever, people are paying more out of pocket into their, into their rent. So I think that it should not necessarily always be a percentage based thing. I think that you should probably look at your unit and compare it to other units that are on the market currently.
Andrew (29:10):
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> and make your adjustments based on that. Yeah. So if you’re in a situation where you are way under market, you might want to adjust to market and in some instances that may take more time. For instance, in New York, you have 30, 60 or 90 days notice that you have to provide to someone if you’re increasing their rent by more than 5%. So, and that’s based on the length of time that they’ve lived there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s a situation where you need to know what your state laws are first and foremost, and then you need to understand where your rental sits in comparison to other rentals in your market. Just a blanket 5% across the board, I don’t think works anymore in, in 2024.
Josh (29:53):
Nope, for sure. For sure. Yeah, definitely. You know, pull up, pull up properties, pull up what’s, you know, comparable in, in square footage area, all that kind of stuff, and, and just see what people are doing. Is is a great step to take.
Andrew (30:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s how we comp our rentals when we’re going ready, getting ready to list them on market. It’s Zillow’s a great source of information. Facebook marketplace has a ton of rentals on it. Lots of good info out there to grab data.
Josh (30:20):
Yeah, yeah. Alright, let’s bounce. Check that one off from Mike. Let’s bounce back to well, might as well stay, we’ll stay on this type of question. We got a question from Pru down at number 20 on the form submissions. He said 5% rent increase legal in New York. The tenant did not renew his lease just because he’s obstinate. The lease says if he doesn’t renew, he can be charged 5% per month. Additional rent.
Andrew (31:01):
I don’t remember if we answered this one, or maybe it’s a carryover from a previous episode. I’m not sure. So I’ll kind of outline the laws here in New York as I understand them. Again, I’m not an attorney, so make sure you’re talking to your attorney before you act on any of this. Back in 2019, yes. New York passed a pretty sweeping change in the landlord tenant law called H-S-T-P-A, the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. And it was the largest change to the landlord tenant law in decades. And as part of that law, New York state basically stated that if you are raising someone’s rent by under 5%, you can do that with a 30 day notice. If you’re raising someone’s rent by over 5%, 5% or more, then you have to give them either 30, 60 or 90 days notice depending on length of tenancy. And it’s under a year, one to two years, two plus years. So a 5% rent increase is legal in New York, but you do have to potentially offer the tenant more time in that situation. And that’s based on when they moved into the apartment, when they moved into the apartment, not when you took possession of the building. So if you have a legacy tenant that was there before you bought the building, it’s their move in date, not your acquisition date that you’re going by.
Josh (32:12):
Hmm. That’s good. Yeah, that’s good. Now we can, now let’s jump back to the Facebooks here. Sure. question from, let’s see, this one’s interesting question from Hunter. Hey guys, I have a quick question. One of our tenants just informed me that when his wife opened the shower door last night, the door shattered. Mm-Hmm. I’m wondering if that’s something they need to pay for or do I cover it? They have been amazing tenants.
Andrew (32:46):
So this is a very, very unique situation. Typically in a situation where a tenant breaks a piece of glass, I would say that the tenant is responsible for that glass break, even if it’s an accident. However, in this situation and one other situation that I’ll describe, I would be willing as the landlord to take that expense on. And the reason I say that is because over time glass develops little micro cracks in it. And especially on a shower door, Josh, think of a shower, not like a back and forth door, but like one that you pull the door open every time you pull those doors open, they shimmy, they shake, they wobble. Yeah. That’s creating micro cracks in that glass. Yeah. So I could very, very easily see somebody opening the door and one of those micro cracks just gets a little bit too big and that’s it.
Andrew (33:36):
That’s all she wrote. Yeah. We’ve also had that exact same situation play out on glass the glass in the stove doors, never a glass top, but on the glass in the stove doors, we’ve had that same situation happen. And I know it sounds crazy and I know it sounds unbelievable, but you will not believe it until it happens to you. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And that’s, I’ve seen it happen, which is why I understand that this is one of those very weird, very unique situations where I think that it should be the landlord, despite the fact that the glass did break while the unit was in possession of the tenant.
Andrew (34:12):
And it looks like we might have just lost Josh again for a second. So we’ll keep moving forward here and we’ll come back to Josh when he gets reconnected. So in that particular situation, yeah, I would probably say that that would be on the landlord, and that’s probably one of the only situations where I would say a glass break would fall on the landlord. Even if a tenant is in possession of a unit and something happens whereby the glass gets broken, welcome back Josh. If a tenant’s in possession of the unit and a landlord and a glass gets broken even by something that has no impact on them, accidents do happen, but they’re in possession of the unit at the time the accident happens and they would be responsible for it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So even if the neighbors, you know, if the neighbor kicks a, a rock up through a window when they’re mowing the lawn, the tenant would be responsible for it, and it’s the tenant’s responsibility to go back to the, to the neighbor and try to collect that money. At that point, it’s not on the landlord. So Yeah, it’s very weird to have a situation like this where you would think that yeah, this should be the tenant, but I’m saying in, in my opinion, this is an Andrew opinion situation, this is a landlord thing.
Josh (35:20):
Yeah. I don’t know if you said this when I jumped off, but I I think it also helps that it, it, it looks like this tenant is, has been a good tenant for a very long time or Yeah. You know, at least a little bit. So not that that’s the ultimate answer, but, you know, sometimes it is worth, if this is maybe a tenant that that is, you know, planning to stay a little bit longer, you know, resign a lease, they haven’t caused you any problems, stuff like that. You know, something like this may just be something that something that you just fully just come right out and just say, you know, I got it. Like, we’ll, we’ll cover it and not really put up a, a huge fight,
Andrew (35:58):
A huge fight on it,
Josh (35:59):
Anything like that. Yeah.
Andrew (36:00):
Yeah. It’s a weird situation. It really is. And I’ve, I probably wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it happen myself. And I get it. Like it’s one of those things that sounds super, super unbelievable when a tenant says it, but they may be 100% truthful in that situation.
Josh (36:15):
Yeah. All right. This what’s, I feel like the theme this week from the form submissions are different breakages and different things kind of going wrong within the property. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this one from Vandell. Is this a form submission? No, it’s, this
Andrew (36:31):
Is Facebook
Josh (36:33):
Van DE’s asking tenant’s washing machine malfunction and overflowed into the floor causing damage to the subfloor. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> do I file with my homeowner’s insurance or her renter’s insurance under her personal liability? In my opinion, the washer did not come with the house and is her responsibility as it’s hers.
Andrew (36:54):
I would agree with that statement. Yeah. So this is a situation where, again, this is an accident. The tenant did not mean to overflow their, their washer accidents happen, but you still are responsible for taking care of the accident when it happens. Yeah. So it’s not something where you need to get bent outta shape and mad at the tenant, but it is something where the tenant needs to step up and, and handle the situation and deal with the accident and get things restored.
Josh (37:18):
Yeah. If, if I remember correctly, you, you had also talked about, I think we talked about it might not have been washing it was it think it was dishwashers that we were talking about maybe a few sessions ago. And Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you had said, I think in your lease, you, you don’t allow portable di or maybe
Andrew (37:36):
It was washing. Oh, portable was, it was either portable washing machines or portable dishwashers. They make both. But yeah, it was one or the other. We don’t allow ’em for that reason. Yeah. Because the, the way that those work is typically they, they hook onto the faucet and then the bottom of the tube, it’s basically two tubes that run to it, and the top one is your feed and the bottom one is your discharge. So it comes back to the sink and discharges into the sink. Yep. There’s a lot that can go wrong there. Like if there’s anything in the sink that blocks up that drain, you’re going to have an overflow from the kitchen sink. You could also have water just splashing all over the place, depending on how much force it’s coming out with and how far it’s falling into the sink and whatever.
Andrew (38:14):
Like those can be really, really big damage causers, we do ban those in our lease. I don’t think we have any tenants that have those at the moment. We try to keep watch for those when we do our, our biannual inspections and stuff. But yeah, that’s definitely like, and again, like I don’t get mad at a tenant when they call and say, Hey, this happened, it was an accident. But I do expect them to, you know, take care of the situation and make sure that the property’s restored back to where it would be. And with regards to the insurance end of it, you would start by trying to file under the tenant’s renter’s insurance policy. And if you get denied there or if they tell you that they won’t take your claim, then go to your homeowner’s insurance policy and then they will try to subjugate it back to, I think it’s sub, it’s either Subjugate or Subregate. I can never remember back to the other party’s insurance.
Josh (39:01):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Hope that, hope that helps Fandel. I know. Yeah. Fandel is one of our active,
Andrew (39:08):
He’s very active
Josh (39:09):
Members within the Facebook community. So, Mm-Hmm. We appreciate the question and hope that helps. All right. We got 1 1 40 Eastern. Let’s look at, we got, we’re flying through these today.
Andrew (39:21):
I know, I know.
Josh (39:23):
Question after the slow, after the slow start, you were thinking we were only, we were on question two 15 minutes in, and now we’re,
Andrew (39:30):
I know we’ve cranked them. I I’m shocked we’re cranking ’em out. This is but this is like, I don’t think everybody understands, like we have probably, I bet you we have 40 questions in the queue for today. Oh, yeah. And we typically get through like a handful at best. So a lot of stuff rolls over and the queue just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and we try to pick the stuff that’s most seasonally appropriate or the stuff that makes the most sense to talk about given what’s going on in the world. But yeah, like thank you guys for submitting questions. It’s awesome. It gives us a lot of stuff to work with and we love it. We can never get to all of them no matter how hard we try. I’m just too long-winded. Sorry.
Josh (40:10):
Well, yeah, it’s, it’s that, and it’s also, I, you know, we’d rather give a more in depth answer. Yeah. You know, and, and a lot of these sometimes you look at these and some of them are, you know, very much the same situations, but just like slightly different like, oh, my washing machine broke versus my dishwasher and this caused a spill and this, and you know, who’s responsible. So a lot of ’em do, do apply to multiple situations. So, you know, we, we try to go keep it as short as we can. I remember the Stephen White Days back when he used to, he used to jump on with with Carlos and I think a few times with you, Andrew. Correct. and yes, Steve’s, Steve likes to go in depth too. So you get two titans of two titans of industry together, like, like you guys. And sometimes, you know, you’re getting through four or five questions out of, out of 40
Andrew (41:05):
<Laugh>. If you, if you think that’s bad, you should, you should see the two of us when we sit down. I don’t get to see Steve all that often. We see each other maybe a couple times a year, but like when we get to sit down and actually have a, a cocktail or something like that, it could be hours and hours and hours. It’s, it’s rough. But yeah, it’s always a good time
Josh (41:21):
For
Andrew (41:22):
Sure. We gotta get him on for an episode. He hasn’t been on in way too long.
Josh (41:25):
It has been a while. I
Andrew (41:26):
Think. I know he is a busy dude, but
Josh (41:29):
Yeah, I, I think it would be fun. I think definitely look into getting him and maybe even, you know, maybe we do like a mega episode where we can bring on a couple different experts kind of, kind of, yeah. Bring in Carlos Carlos, Steve, me, you, and who knows. Well, I feel like we could have some really good discussion there.
Andrew (41:48):
Absolutely.
Josh (41:50):
All right.
Andrew (41:51):
You wanna knock out two at once?
Josh (41:53):
Yeah. What do we got?
Andrew (41:55):
Let’s do the question from Jeff and then the question from from Sheik, Sheik Shake, sorry, we’ll start with Jeff. What can I do if rent is two weeks late? And then number 16, my tenant stopped paying rent. He says, you’ll be leaving shortly, but did not give anything in writing. What are my options? Shall I file for eviction? So the answer to both of these questions is yes, file the eviction. And that’s why I wanted to talk about both of them. At the same time, if your rent is two weeks late, start the eviction process. You’re never going to be able to rewind time, but you can get in line now and start that process. So every state’s a little bit different with regards to how notices need to be served pre eviction and how to actually start the eviction process. I’m not gonna jump into all that, but the, the biggest piece of advice I can give to both of these individuals is start the eviction process now.
Andrew (42:51):
Start it as soon as you can. Evictions in New York State, we used to be able to do a complete eviction soup to nuts in 45 to 60 days. Our evictions are now taking us, we started one July, beginning of July that the tenant was not removed from the property until the end of December. So we’re talking about six month eviction cycles in Buffalo right now. And I know there are other states and other areas that are just as bad. Get in line as soon as you can and start that process because the process is only going to get longer and longer and longer.
Josh (43:27):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean it that, that is the thing. Do start as soon as start as soon as you can. I mean,
Andrew (43:35):
Start as soon as you can. Yeah. Like literally as soon as you can. The day after rent is. So in New York State we have there’s a five day grace period built into state law. On day six. We’re getting ready to start eviction procedures. We’re gonna send you your five day notice and your 14 day notice, and we’re gonna get that ball rolling. Yeah. ’cause we know the process just takes so long now.
Josh (43:56):
Yep.
Andrew (43:59):
Again, before we, before we jump off that you can always rescind an eviction notice. I don’t think people understand that. Like if a tenant brings their account current, you just rescind the eviction notice and that’s the end of it. Their account is current. You’re done with the situation you’ve moved on and that’s, you just move on. Like, you don’t have to take an eviction all the way to the eviction every single time. If somebody brings their account current and there’s no further reason to continue, that’s the end of the process at that point.
Josh (44:26):
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Alright. Right. Let’s do how about this one question from Kate. Question from Kate is a Facebook question. Do you have to give a lead paint disclosure if your house was built after 1978? Or do you have to add that to the disclosure?
Andrew (44:55):
We give the disclosure to everybody, so it doesn’t matter to us if the house was built pre or post to 78. We actually give the, the paperwork to everybody and actually, I believe the top of our lead paint addendum gives the option to check pre or post 1978 construction. And then obviously you check whether or not you have any records of lead-based paint and this and that and the other thing. You can get that form right from the HUD website. Just go to the HUD website and search for, for lead paint disclosure, and it’ll pop right up. And I do it for everybody just because if I do it for everybody, then I don’t have to worry that I didn’t do it for somebody that I was supposed to. And when we built our lease packet, we actually have our lease packet as a PDF, like a form fill, PDF with the lead paint form as a PDF, and with the, the booklet as a PDF as well, all of that gets combined into their one lease packet, if you will. And we just send the entire thing out for e-signature.
Josh (45:48):
Yeah. And I think on the REM prep site, one of our, one of our forms that it is available on there is the lead paint disclosure. And, and I think, I think if I’m interpreting correctly, I think not if it’s before 19 built before 1978, it is supposed to be mandated and then everything after that is, it’s not, it’s not generally required. But why would you, why would you even
Andrew (46:13):
Risk it? I went looking, I actually went looking on the HUD website for a couple minutes before, before we started filming to actually see if I could find, if it was technically a requirement for post 78. And I couldn’t find anything one way or the other. I didn’t have enough time to research it. But honestly, it’s, it’s so simple to do a lead paint disclosure that I would probably just do it by default anyway and then you never have to worry about it. Sometimes it’s, there’s not a lot of times where I think that you’re in a position where you should ever over disclose anything. But this is one of those situations that I would just write the disclosure and know that it’s done and then I don’t have to worry about whether or not I did it. Right.
Josh (46:49):
Yeah, no, that’s for sure. Say, you know, save the headache, save the worry. Don’t, don’t even, don’t even think twice about it.
Andrew (46:57):
Right. I mean like, so for instance, HUD now says, I found on their website that we don’t have to include it in our renewals if nothing has changed. But we still include it. It’s still part of the packet. If it’s the same way every time, you don’t have to worry about deviating from what you’d know to be Correct.
Josh (47:14):
Yeah. Okay. Let’s do, let’s knock out this long one from Janet. It is a Facebook question. Question from Janet. We have a house up for rent after doing pre-screening, walkthrough, background screening and income verification. We already drop the lease. We asked the future tenant that would be the move in date. We asked the future tenant what would be the fu, what would be the move in date? Sorry, we can put on the lease. It’s been two days. I finally emailed her again. She replied quickly with, she was calling utility companies trying to figure out what her monthly utilities will cost. Okay, that’s fine. But then she writes between paying rent and utilities, it will be above her monthly budget. She now has asked me to reduce the rental price. So that is within her budget. She’s asking me to reduce it by $250 each month. I’ll swim my lease. I require them to have renter’s insurance and other expense. I feel that I went through all the necessary steps to get up to drawing of the lease and now she tells me ’cause she can’t afford it. So my next question is, do I reduce the rent for her or stay firm with my total, my rental total and let her walk away and I’ll have to start this all over again. My, any advice would be appreciated.
Andrew (48:35):
I am going to give an opinion based answer on this question. I would tell this tenant absolutely not. I’m not going to take a $3,000 loss over the course of the year. Simply because you want a reduction on your rent price. Yeah. You knew what the price was when you looked at the unit online or wherever you looked at it. You knew what the price was when you came out and saw it. You knew what the price was when you applied and you knew what your income situation was prior to any of that. So I’m not going to reduce my rent by $3,000 for the year because somebody else didn’t do their math right. Yeah. And it might sound a little bit harsh, but I wouldn’t, I mean, it’s no different than someone who doesn’t income qualify. I’m not going to bend my income qualification guidelines to make somebody fit into a unit, you know?
Andrew (49:28):
Yeah. My criteria are the same every single time I screen and I base my income criteria off the rent amount. They said they did income verification. It sounds like everything must have checked out. So I don’t know if I don’t know what they’re using for like an income verification Yeah. Total or whatever, or if they’re using gross or net or whatever the case may be. There’s a lot of ways that you can look at income. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But no, I would not discount this tenant in the, this applicant. They’re not a tenant. I would not discount this applicant’s rent in the slightest. Yeah. It sucks that you’re gonna be in a situation where you have to go back in and start marketing this place again. My recommendation is always to continue marketing an apartment until such time that you have a signed lease and a security deposit.
Andrew (50:13):
Because that’s, in my opinion, when the apartment is officially off market, that means that you’ve secured a tenant and their money and they’re probably gonna show up for move in. Not always. I’ve had people not show up after signing a lease and paying a deposit. But that’s more than likely, that’s the point where you’re safe enough to take it off market, in my opinion, <laugh> don’t, don’t pull it off market. Keep showing it until you have that signed lease and you have that security deposit. Because at the end of the day, you’re just losing time. If you do, if you take it off and wind up in a situation like what Janet is, you just burned a whole bunch of marketing time
Josh (50:47):
For sure. Going with that one, I guess. Let’s do, I think there was a question about marketing your rentals. Oh yeah. Question from Q. Yep. It’d say yeah, it’s a Facebook question. Where do you advertise your rentals? I’ve been using Zillow with very few inquiries. Also any property management companies in Pasadena or any recommendations of someone that can assist. Thanks so much.
Andrew (51:12):
Hmm. Okay. so we advertise on Zillow, Trulia, HotPads, the big three mm-Hmm. Is what we call them. And we market on Facebook. Those are the predominant place that we get most of our leads, I would say Zillow and Facebook are, are probably 90, 95% of our tenant leads right now. Yeah. There’s a bunch of sites out there. There’s apartments.com. I’m not gonna sit here and list all these sites. The one site that I can tell you is absolutely dead is Craigslist. No one goes to Craigslist looking for apartments anymore. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, which, when I started my career, all those u years ago, like Craigslist was the place to go look for apartments. And over the course of time, people’s tastes changed and Craigslist just kinda lost that lost that market where people were looking to find apartments. And now it seems to be marketplace. Facebook marketplace and Zillow are the, are the main places.
Josh (52:02):
Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think, I, I think every single apartment I had in my, in my rental days have was, was through Zillow. Yeah. I don’t think there was, there was anyone that I, I didn’t, didn’t have through there.
Andrew (52:15):
So do we want to talk for a second about property management companies in Pasadena or finding property management companies in general?
Josh (52:23):
Yeah, I think that’s good.
Andrew (52:25):
So I made some comments on the Facebook group the other day, and actually this will probably be the last thing we wind up talking about. Yeah. ’cause We’re, we’re short on time. I made some comments on the Facebook group the other day too. Another, another person who I know to be a professional property management company owner, and he and I are both members. Lemme back that up. He and I were both members of the professional organization, npa, the National Association of Residential Property Managers. And I let my membership lapse this year because I feel that NPA doesn’t do enough for its membership to help support the LANDLORDING and property management industries. I think that npa M’S educational events, their conferences and things of that nature are topnotch, NPA m puts on some great educational events, but you need to understand that those happen at the local level and the state level and not at the national level because the national organization is not strong.
Andrew (53:19):
Yeah. All that being said, I’ve said multiple times that people should get involved and join organizations like narpm, like National Apartment Association, look to your local chapters first, look to your local organizations first, because that’s where you’re going to have the best local resources before you start looking into the more national organizations. That being said, the national organizations that are out there, like npa, I went to a NPA conference before I was ever a NPA member. The only benefit to being a n RPA member when you’re talking about the conferences, is it counts towards some continuing education and it you get a little bit of a discount, but the discount does not justify the membership to the grand organization, in my opinion. And mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, I am reorganizing where we’re spending our money this year when it comes to trade organizations to focus more on our local environment, our local situation.
Andrew (54:16):
Right. So it’s worth pointing out that these organizations do have value. Some of these organizations need severe reform, but there is a ton of information out there. The people that you meet and interact with and network with is the value inside any of these organizations. The organization itself is only as good as the people inside of it. Right. And that’s probably about all I’m gonna say on the topic. But I did want to clarify the comments that I made there. I did leave npa, I’m no longer going to be a NPA member when my membership comes up for renewal. I do value their conferences. I’m still on the conference mailing list for most of the regionals in the area. And it’s one of those situations where I just felt that the money that I was spending on that membership could be better used locally to support some of our local landlord organizations.
Andrew (55:09):
So a little bit off topic there, but it is worth worth discussion. That said, NPA does have a property manager look up on their website, and NPA does have a good set of standards that their members are supposed to be following, just very similar to NAR having a code of ethics. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> NPA has a set of criteria that you’re supposed to be following as a property management professional as well. If you are looking for a property manager, definitely check out their website, but vet your property management companies on your own. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, just because they’re affiliated with an organization doesn’t make them better or worse than any other organization. Do your research. Do your d do your due diligence and understand what it is that you’re signing on for.
Josh (55:54):
Yeah. No, I think that’s valuable info.
Andrew (55:57):
Yeah.
Josh (55:59):
Cool. All right. Well, we’ve got 1 57 Eastern time. We knocked out. What do we do? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 35. This is probably a new high square 17 <laugh> one. About 2121 questions. That’s, that is a, a good day’s work for, for a Friday. I’d say <laugh>,
Andrew (56:22):
Hang on one second. I’m putting a new banner up. There we go.
Speaker 3 (56:25):
<Laugh>. There you go. Let’s go baby. Let’s go.
Andrew (56:30):
I’m really proud of us for that. I don’t think we’ve ever answered that many questions on one
Josh (56:34):
Of the No. And after, after a slow start, we kicked into gear and I got bounced from the I got bounced from the chat twice from the session twice.
Andrew (56:42):
Yeah. That’s crazy. I hope that everything uploads the way it’s supposed to, but we’ll have to deal with that after the fact.
Josh (56:48):
Oh yeah. Okay.
Andrew (56:49):
We’ll go ahead and, and wrap things up. This was the March a MA Thank you everybody for watching and tuning in. We do love doing these and we do one every single month. The best way to stay on top of these is to join the Rent Prep Facebook group. If you’re not already a member facebook.com/groups/rentprep. And our Facebook group members do get to ask questions in these AMAs as well as there’s a bunch of other benefits to being in the Facebook group, PPG Paint and Sherwin Williams Paint. And you can interact with all of us. Josh is in there. I’m in there. It’s a good time.
Josh (57:21):
Yeah, you can, you can always reach out to me and Andrew in there. I will say just as a, as a leak to anybody that’s, that’s listening. We are, we are looking at doing a couple promotions coming up as far as some discounts on tenant screening and, and the REM prep background check and the in the TransUnion full credit report, smart Move product that we offer in there. So keep, if you join, if you join the group, that’ll be, that’ll be a great way for you to, to be able to participate in those discounts if you’re looking to, to screen tenants in the near future.
Andrew (57:53):
Speaking of discounts, I’m so mad that I didn’t plug this video at the start of the show today because I’m really happy with how it came out. We just dropped a video over on the YouTube page on how to get discounts at Home Depot, how to get the best possible deals on clearance, how to get the best possible deals through Pro Desk, how to save on paint. It’s like a 20 minute video, but every minute is packed with information on how to save at Home Depot. That’s available on our YouTube page, youtube.com/rentprep. Don’t forget to check that out. That’s a really good video. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> I think you’ll get a lot of value out of that.
Josh (58:25):
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got some stuff going on at, at my house. I’m gonna take a look at the video again just to see. I was at Lowe’s. What was I I was starting to write a list for Lowe’s and Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. I’ve got a Home Depot right next to it. So I think I’m definitely gonna use the, the video as reference and kind of get in there. And
Andrew (58:43):
I know the I know the Home Depot that you’re talking about. And actually some of the video clips in our video were shot in that Home Depot. They’re very, very, very good at going through their their clearance stock. ’cause We were talking about penny items. Oh, the penny item that I found was in that store. Okay. ’cause I know, I know which one people you’re talking about. ’cause That used to be my, my store too, but now, yeah, when I lived up that way. So <laugh>
Josh (59:07):
Yeah, with, with with Spring coming, I’ve got a, I’ve got a laundry list of laundry list of things that I, I wanna try to get accomplished. So all, it’s almost time for, for that. And with that I would like you know, I wanna get some discounts on this, on the stuff that I’m doing, so.
Andrew (59:24):
Absolutely. So yeah. Cool. We’ll go ahead and wrap things up there, Josh. Thanks for joining me. We’re gonna be back and do this again next month. Be sure to check out the Facebook group if you are interested in getting a question answered during one of these. And we do try to answer as many of ’em as possible. We did have 21 questions answered today, which was a, a new high score. So we’re very proud of that. Yes. Otherwise, thanks for tuning in and we’ll catch up with everybody next month.
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