Speaker 2 (00:00)

Welcome back. We are live for the lever up your life show where I bring on guests to share their strategies and secrets for leveraging their knowledge, resources and contacts to lever up their life. Super excited to have Jeremy on. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Speaker 1 (00:15)

Thanks man, first time guest. Maybe I’ll come back at some point if I’m good enough.

Speaker 2 (00:19)

Yeah, that’d

be great. Well, here’s the thing, man. you know, I have your backgrounds. It’ll be in the description when we repost this, but it’s like, dude, I feel like there’s not a lot that you haven’t done in real estate. And correct me if I’m wrong, but pretty much all in Tampa Bay for what your 10 plus years in real estate now.

Speaker 1 (00:36)

Yeah. Yep. So I was born and raised in, I was born in Orlando, but I moved to Ruskin and I was like two. So basically grew up here in the local area. So one of the few sort of natives and yeah, everything’s mostly been Tampa Bay based. And I think that’s, you know, it’s been such an exciting time to be in the industry in this area too. Which you can probably attest to from like landing up here. Even though you’re on the way out, but yeah, dude, it’s just a cool time. So exciting to see everything that’s been developing and just been fun to see.

the growth in the area, especially from being here for so long.

Speaker 2 (01:04)

Yeah, dude, if you picked a 10 year timeline to be in Tampa, I think you pretty much friggin nailed it for being a real estate here. you know, I am like, like to your point, I’m heading out the door. Can you keep most of my business in Tampa? I’m sure. But I just like think about Tampa and I’m like, dude, I don’t know if there’s a lot of better places. If you wanted to grow a business specifically in real estate business.

It’s just such, there’s so much collaborations, so many young people, so much development, so much opportunity. And you know, this isn’t Seattle, this isn’t Austin. Like you can still get into a deal without much money. and speaking of, I know you got into your first deal without that much money back in what, 2013?

Speaker 1 (01:44)

Yeah, I get it. So yeah. Yeah, so it’s actually a it was actually a small mobile home deal that just did some private lending on for for yeah, it’s like 2 % or 10 % for return like two months or something. And it was a really small

So it’s like 10 grand, right? So it’s like, I think the challenge too, for people that want to invest is like, you know, if you don’t have at least 50k to put together, it’s really hard to find a place to put your money. But yeah, so I did that. I’ll say, All right, cool. So I’d always been reading books about

investing and wanted to like do that. So I knew when I got out of the military, I just like transition into real estate. But that was a good like sort of intro into it. And it gives you some perspective and it was just very obviously like super passive didn’t do anything. So money.

Speaker 2 (02:24)

How did you know it was like legit?

Speaker 1 (02:25)

I was somebody I knew through through high school and so somebody I had a prior relationship with that was like doing it already full-time or I learned from his parents and stuff as well and so yeah it was comfort level there obviously if somebody I knew went to school with and it was relatively small amount well I mean at the time it was still like a lot for you know what I put together but it was like you know made it comfortable

Speaker 2 (02:48)

Yeah, yeah, I’ll just say like I I sent somebody 18 grand the other day and I’ll make like 600 bucks on that money in 1015 days like it’s not easy but you keep your ears to the ground you and I I felt this like a very good opportunity you don’t need that much money from that I’m not saying 500 bucks you can really make a difference in the life

Speaker 1 (03:08)

Yeah. Well, oh yeah, dude. It’s like for sure. It’s like, you know, pays for car bill for two months or something. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the thing too. It’s like, just like I mentioned, it’s like, you know, when people come up to the, come out to the meetups that we host or like people would just interact with and they’re like, Oh, I want to get started and stuff. You know, it’s, it’s like one of the first things like how, what do you have to put together now is, know, to understand the sort of the strategy and like what best way to point you to, cause it’s really difficult to put any money to work if you know, you don’t have at least

50 or 100 to the Linden and cover rehab or something. So, you know, just makes it so like even being able to find an opportunity to like place that as like, it’s pretty cool. It’s you know, not everybody knows like, hey, who needs a little bit here and there. And gives you flexibility and it gives you a chance to do something and make a better return maybe then you know what the banks or whatever are given for Yeah, 5 % do

Speaker 2 (03:59)

500

bucks on 18 grand in 10 days is that’s a great angel. Yeah, it was like, I’m gonna lie. Yeah, yeah, that’s the beauty of points. It’s like, you know, get things paid off quick, the the way percentages work, annualized, it makes it look amazing. So after you do the small private loan, make a little bit of money, you get out of the military, and then it was like, go out of the agent.

Speaker 1 (04:04)

thousand percent over a year or whatever

Yeah, so I studied before, so I knew I was going to get out. had like my bachelor’s and stuff, but I wasn’t intending to like use it for, you know, like employment or whatever. But I just got it because GI Bill was free. so, yeah, I basically had studied past the exam for real estate license before I got out. So as soon as I landed, this was, you know, January 2015, went ahead and got the license here, just started doing general sales and

for about a year and a half just doing buyer-sellers. I wholesaled a few deals too. Nice. And then just got the broker’s license about two years after that. And that’s when we opened up the brokerage. The year after that we did the property management. So yeah, it was just like, want to be in real estate somehow. Let me just start getting the license and sort of figure it out. So that was kind of how we started. The brokerage piece was understanding the investment side. So partnering with Greg Simpson, like he was flipping, he was full sailing, didn’t have the license. I had the license. So it was that classic like,

They don’t want the cash offer. just listed, right? This was sort of whole theme. And so that sort of what kicked us off and just, you know, did some other things through throughout there, but that was how it kind of initially got into it. So that was very purposeful, kind of intentional, getting into the sales side and real estate specifically. So

Speaker 2 (05:30)

I don’t want to breeze past this. I don’t want to make sure I’m right when I see this, but you guys had 40 agents in the brokerage.

Speaker 1 (05:36)

Yeah, that’s what we have now. so we have that right now. Yeah. So we’ve gotten up to even like 75 at one point, but different models, right? You sort of learn over the years what model works best split flat fee. How much training do you want to do? Do you want to offer no training, no coaching? Like there’s a bunch of models. Sometimes the market I think dictates to, you know, um, when the market’s tough, everyone just leaves to go to the lowest cost a lot of times. So, know, do you have a monthly fee? Don’t you? So work, you know, just tried stuff over the years. I feel like we have stuff.

pretty dialed in now. It’s a little bit more hands off for us and stuff. But yeah, we have about 40 agents and most of those are active. We have a few like referral agents. yeah, so it’s given us good perspective. And then, you know, the management company will generate some listings throughout the year too. know, like I don’t do any sales anymore, but my broker’s license holds for both the companies. so, yeah, it’s kind of like, it’s nice to have. It gives us some deal flow here and there, either from agents or, you know, networking meetups and stuff from

Other agents, sales or property management stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:34)

I mean, maybe I’m wrong because I feel like you’re humble in nature, but I look at like a team of 40 agents, mostly active. Let’s just say like 35 are active. Like, isn’t that like a pretty big team?

Speaker 1 (06:45)

yeah, I mean, it’s pretty good size. I think, you know, like it’s probably that.

Speaker 2 (06:49)

It’s nice to have.

Speaker 1 (06:51)

Well,

it’s like that 80 20 or I mean, you this in the lending business, right? It’s like, you know, it’s probably worse than that. It’s probably like 90 10 to like people that actually rush it at full time, like doing really some real volume, right? But it’s like, yeah, you get people that are part time full time mixture, whatever, you know, they want to be doing some some of them are just investors that have their license. So it’s not like they really do sales for in general. just like for their own properties and stuff. So yeah, good mix. But yeah, it’s a it’s a it’s a decent size.

We sort of have it structured in a way where, you know, we have some support. Some, you know, people aren’t calling me for all sorts of like transaction questions, but yeah, yeah, it’s been a good thing. Like at this point, um, we opened that specifically in 2016. So coming up on 10 years for that entity. That’s awesome. Yeah. Good experience. Good thing to have never hurts obviously to have your license.

Speaker 2 (07:37)

Yeah. So let me ask you this, because you mentioned previously, you’ve tried a bunch of different models out, some is more training, some is less training, someone was an agent. And like, this isn’t my space, right? But I hear agents all the time, you’re like, I left that brokerage, I didn’t get support, or I didn’t like that. If you’re an agent, what would you look for in a brokerage? That’s like, this is the spot.

Speaker 1 (07:57)

Yeah, it really depends on how long you’ve been licensed and if you’ve been doing some deals. Like I think that, you know, if your first 12 months, you know, lot of training and stuff. So I started originally with Keller Williams is who I was with. So like, you I to all their all their stuff, man. Right. So I just like did all that stuff. And so I think if it sort of depends, each broker, even a small brokerage can have tons of training and support. And that’s usually going to be reflected in like a split model or something. So it just really depends on.

your experience in real estate. If you’ve been investing for 10 years, now you just decided to get the license. Like they could be completely different of what you’re looking for than somebody that’s like got up nine to five and they’re like, just want to start part time and do a few deals a year. So it just really depends. I think the model itself for those people that are considering open their brokerage or investors that think about maybe just getting a license and having one or two people to help with like acquisitions or sales, you know, if they’re like wholesaling, but they want a different vertical integration.

You know, keeping it just a small team, you know, but then they can just capture more of the revenue of the listings or helping buyers or whatever, right? It complements their existing business. So it just really depends just like investing what somebody’s sort of bring it to the table to kind of guide them in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (09:03)

And it sounds like on one hand, if you’re getting more training, you’re probably taking less from each deal. And then on the other hand, if it’s like, basically the broker’s just there so I can do it legally, but I’m kind of on my own, you’re more likely to take home a larger piece.

Speaker 1 (09:17)

Yeah, correct. The agent would. Yeah. Traditionally agent, less training, less support. You’re probably taking more home or more. And then teams, right? You could be, you could be on a brokerage with teams too, where, you know, you’re splitting leads, you’re getting all these leads flow lead flows, or, you know, if you’re just gonna self-generate everything, obviously keeping more too. So I had some good referrals when I first ramped up, but I basically did it all on my own. And I think I did 12 deals first year and like almost 24 the second year. And then I just, you know,

took off that hat, was like, I’m gonna go property management, got the residual income, much more dependable, much more like scalable business in my opinion. And so that kind of became the core focus.

Speaker 2 (09:55)

Yeah. I mean, speaking of, I want to ask you a question. So five years ago, let’s go actually let’s go pre COVID. Let’s say 2019. Would you call Tampa true cashflow market? Like people are going here to buy cash flowing rentals.

Speaker 1 (10:08)

Yeah, cause that was about when I bought my first primary was 2018 and I’m still holding that one in Tampa Heights. And that was great. That was just like such a great time to get in. it was like, think the numbers were obviously like, you know, better than now. Yeah. And single family is obviously quite different from one type, but, but if we’re just talking about like single family house, yeah, it was definitely a much like those three years we, we, we doubled in size three years in a row.

Uh, from, think it was going into 18, 19, 20, those like three years was like crazy. We went from like 25 units to like, whatever it was like 200 units or something really fast, um, growth or up to almost 300. And so it was a great time. then the past few years still been like growing, but it’s been like slow, you know, uh, people just not buying as much, um, especially single family, right? Like hardly any of the numbers just don’t need a really pencil and they should get a good discount.

Speaker 2 (10:58)

That was like exactly the question I was gonna ask because like I’m not super tuned into the rental market, but I do do some DSCR loans and I therefore get requests for this. And it’s like, it’s very rare in Tampa that I see a property that ratios. In other words, the debt service coverage ratio is 1.15 X, right? Your rent is 1.15 times basically your PITI, which is not your cashflow. DSCR.

1.15, then you’re probably negative on cashflow or close to breakeven like actual, you know, vacancy, maintenance, etc. I do I hardly ever see these deals even a lot of times on like duplexes, even triplexes sometimes. I’m like, dude, do you think that Tampa is just like, hey, it’s not a cash flow market, and it won’t be moving forward? Or do you think it’s just like a question of rates? Or it’s an appreciation play now? Like,

Speaker 1 (11:39)

So.

Speaker 2 (11:52)

What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (11:53)

Yeah, I mean, think if people grew up in other markets where like they should take a look at them, if they know the market really well, if have family there, like, you know, certain parts of, you know, Tennessee or Indiana, like some of these areas where like, if you have a support circle that you might be able to get some decent rentals, I think you should consider other markets if it’s like, if we’re talking rentals specifically. I think there’s still opportunities here. just like super hard to come by. you know, none of the single family stuff I see makes sense. And even multifamily, like we work with a lot of the brokers, Franklin Street, CBRE.

like these guys, they’ll call us because we manage up to 50 units. they might be like, hey, what’s your rent roll over there? We’re comping something and we’re going to take it to market or do you have clients looking to buy? even their pro formos, I’ll take a look at. that’s something like from property management perspective, I think we’re our sort of professions underutilizing that due diligence acquisition phase of like, make sure that what you’re getting proposed to is a performance like realistic for the market.

Yeah. So administrative costs, the management fees, of capex or just realistic expectations around what you’re spending because it’s no secret that it’s more expensive now than ever for maintenance and the labor costs, labor and materials. so that’s something you have to factor in where I don’t think people are budgeting enough for that stuff on the front end.

Speaker 2 (13:02)

You

don’t think brokers are putting together an appropriate budget on the pro-formas?

Speaker 1 (13:06)

Well,

it just depends. It and at a certain size, they sort of like break it out a little bit differently than if it was like a four unit, like it’s gonna perform is gonna look a little bit different. It’s gonna be sort of wrapped into a little bit more simpler idea of expenses. But yeah, some of the stuff like, you know, just small stuff, but it all adds up right the pest control and yeah, those costs. Some of the routine stuff that like the current guy may not be doing.

So it’s, yeah, you just want to shake down. I think the biggest thing though I’d be concerned about is rent growth. the last, at least 12 months, know, rent’s been softening and we were at the broker owner last week, is like National Property Management Conference just for founders all across the US. And so everyone’s market is soft, declining. They’re flatlining or decreasing in rents that they’re getting on fresh new units. And we’ve had a few that have rented for less than the last tenant was in there for. Now it may only be a hundred bucks or something, but it’s still.

It’s still soft, right? So I wouldn’t, you know, I would be very cautious with that 3 % for the next three years, right? Like, I don’t think that’s realistic. So if I was underwriting a deal today, I would say like, assume no rent growth for two years. And I would even buffer in like if they dropped by, you know, a point or two just to be safe. So like from a lender’s perspective, too, I don’t think like, assuming that they’re already at market rates, right? Not that you’re buying something for 800 bucks a unit, right? know, right. And then they should be 16. But if they’re already at market,

Be very cautious if you’re an investor or a landlord. And that’s what we’re doing with our clients. A lot of our multifamily guys are like, hey, 50 bucks, no increase. I even have one client that’s like, should we decrease the rent? I’m like, no, dude, don’t do that. But it wasn’t a lot, but I’m like, dude, then I don’t get paid for it, right? are we getting a percentage, right? So you want to give me a pay cut? No, it was only $50 difference, but I’m like, you know, he walked into this scenario. But yeah, time to be conservative on renewals.

properties going to market. So if you have a property that’s going to for somewhere between 24 to 26, I’m always super conservative. So I’m like, boom, chop that thing 24 right out, right out of the gate. Or if you do 2500, drop it down to 24 in the first two weeks. And the national averages are like way over 40 days on market for the average rental. And so it’ll have been flow throughout the year, but at least long term rentals. That’s super common. Now it’s, you know, some market and it’s could vary by price point, of course, asset style.

class as well. generally, if you price it right, I think at least right now you could still move it and you know, within 30 days at least getting applications. So our average is usually that 21 to 30 day mark but but we’re having to be aggressive with the clients on either the starting price or the reductions until we get what we need. So definitely it’s not what it used to be the prior years where you could just sort of ask whatever you want and you would get it.

Speaker 2 (15:35)

That’s dude, it sucks for me because I’m terminating my lease early. So I’m on the hook for the next three months until it releases. So like y’all better be smart and like actually friggin be aggressive with price because I don’t want to pay two months of rent when I’m not.

Speaker 1 (15:49)

yeah, because they’re letting you like, if we get a tenant, we won’t charge you all the extra something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, get that. That’s cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:57)

It’s fair, but I’m like, I can’t control what they list this. You guys better not be too aggressive. So talking about rental average days on market is like 40 days roughly, right? What are you doing outside of price to get stuff rented faster and make sure that you’re not going to get the tenant that you regret?

Speaker 1 (16:17)

Yeah, so lot of it’s know, there’s some basic things like application fees, pet fees, pet deposits, like that sort of stuff. You want to make sure you’re in the general guideline of what the market is. So like if someone’s like, what should I price as pet deposit or pet fees? I can’t give you like specific amounts to sort of, you know, be cautious there on like, you know, price fixing.

You just look at the multifamily guys, right? Go to apartments.com, look at the big guys, Class A buildings, what are they charging for application fees, move-ins, like get an idea if you’re in the range of what’s fair within the market, at least so that stuff’s not overpriced. But aside from that, it’s kind of like, it really depends on the units, the properties themselves, right? Like in the whole value add right now is like, you want to invest as little as possible to get like the minimum viable product that still gets a rent that achieves what you want.

You don’t want to be dropping 10 grand think you’re going to get, you know, an extra 150 200 a month because like it’s probably not really going to happen that way right now in the market. So we’re kind of looking as the units are coming up vacant. What’s the minimum that we just need to do to kind of spruce this up? And even if it’s like, you know, not getting the ideal rent this year that the owner is looking for instead of 1600, we get, 15 or 1450, but we’re only spending, you 1500 bucks on a turnover versus like eight grand. Right. There’s like this shake off right now where like the value isn’t there in my opinion to spend a bunch. So

The pricing and then showings right like we we do a hybrid model Self showings are available for residents of potential applicants or in person showings So if a company is like really at this point a company’s outdated if they only do in person showings There’s there’s reasons behind That sort of statement and you know, people are big. Oh, we won’t have a personal touch with everything But it’s like, you know If I’m doing the pocket of right now and then we get a call that a tenant wants to see this property down into you E-board in 20 minutes

Who’s going to be available? Yeah. Right. It’s impossible. So having flexibility around showings makes it really flexible for people to see it when they want to. There’s a lot of good technology that we have, copies of licenses, all stuff that we get before somebody could like just self show a unit. But that’s, you know, that’s something that’s obviously the industry has been doing it for a little bit. A lot of these national companies, Progress, Residential, a lot of these like you’re never getting an in-person showing, right? It’s all virtual. Yeah. That should be like just to me, that’s like a bare minimum standard that

You as an investor or your property manager should have flexible showing schedules and some self-showing capabilities just for those time crunches. if you’re the leasing agent, you go out of town or you’re an investor and you self-show it and you’re going out of town for a week to Mexico, who’s going to show the unit? So having that technology is just like, to me, that’s like the bare minimum standard that we should be doing if you own rentals, but a lot of people don’t. So that’s like a small example of how I’ve just helped capitalize on the vacancy downtime.

Speaker 2 (18:45)

It’s crazy. Do you hear this leaf blower going on like right outside my place or no?

Speaker 1 (18:50)

No, but I noticed that your mic started picking up your voice a bit better actually when that clicked in so.

Speaker 2 (18:55)

really? Well that’s good.

Yeah I was like I’m just gonna mute myself.

Speaker 1 (19:00)

You know

Sam Watson that like guru on Instagram’s tattoos and stuff. There was like a viral clip of like his since a mansion. I think he’s a fake guru. anyways, his the landscaper was like a leaf blowing outside. He got so mad because like the audio was coming in on his video. Yeah, from like we got when you have professional setups like you and I then it’s like you don’t get all the excess noise.

Speaker 2 (19:19)

$150 mic has solved all my challenges.

Speaker 1 (19:22)

Yeah,

drop the link in the description below. Yeah, yeah, yeah. affiliates.

Speaker 2 (19:26)

go and buy this mic. So you get it from my link. Yeah, I was it’s kind of interesting to me. Like, I actually I don’t know if you know this. So I managed a mobile home park for Brandon Turner’s open door capital company for a And even on these class D parks, we were doing all automated showings.

Speaker 1 (19:28)

Support the channel.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

mobile stuff’s crazy. We actually haven’t really managed those before. That was the first wholesale deal I did actually was a single mobile home. One of my agents though, actually one of my leasing, she has a small park, it’s like towards like, I don’t know, Plant City or Suffner or somewhere over there. But yeah, like that’s, dude, that’s just like the technology coming in industry for the rental market is crazy. Like the stuff that’s available now for people that are self-managing owners that can take advantage of technology or just the management companies. It’s probably, I think it’s a really exciting time to be.

and the property management space specifically with what we’re able to do and optimize and increase value to the owners without them having to necessarily pay more essentially. Yeah. And act more as asset managers like then just like, you know, go to my rental, like just go do these things for me. That’s what I makes us a little bit unique is there are perspectives on, you know, having the mortgage company before the architecture stuff. it’s like just running the meetups to it’s like we come to the table with a little bit different idea of like

you want to raise capital, you’re raising capital for the deal. Like, here’s some ideas to think about, like that changes. How do those dynamics change how we manage the property as well? Investor expectations, are there GPs on the deal, LPs on the deal, like general partner, limited partner? I could sort of create friction too with how the management company needs to operate if there’s like friction at the ownership level. anyway, sort of got on tangent there.

Speaker 2 (20:56)

Yet to your point, man, it’s it’s kind of equivalent. Like if you listed a property, you’re fixing flip and you’re like, hey, guys, look, I want somebody to buy this. But only if I’m there to let you in, can you look at it. It’s just like.

Speaker 1 (21:09)

Well, yeah, it seems funny when you you mentioned it out because it’s like, dude, realtors been doing this freaking box now. I know, like, right. It’s another agent that’s supposed to be showing it. So most of the time, that’s sort of how those are restricted. But the manual lockbox is, you know, agents are given their freaking codes out when they’re not supposed to and stuff. yeah, it’s like for the for the management company, we have protections like for different things if someone is happening on a self show. But yeah, that’s again, these are like the basic things that think people should be doing that like, you know,

At least self-managing owners probably are not doing at least, but most management companies I would hope are doing it because yeah, it’s like we don’t get paid unless the unit’s filled and we don’t get paid unless the tenant pays. So yeah, interests are aligned. yeah, that’s what it’s like. We’re trying to change sort of our educational content, sort of how we operate with our owners to have much more of a, know, take somebody that’s an accidental landlord that wants to be an investor. Where do they need to understand about asset protection, estate planning, taxes?

all this sort of stuff, investing with your self-directed IRA, like all these options, whereas like property, like we as property managers can be looked at just a little bit different than just like, this guy just collects my rent.

Speaker 2 (22:09)

Yeah,

yeah, more of a consultant as opposed to just a box checker on, know, making sure that the property doesn’t catch on fire. protecting yourself is easy. Just, you know, put it your personal name. Let the tenant know you own it.

Speaker 1 (22:21)

Let them sell you their rent every month.

Speaker 2 (22:23)

Yes, yes. Collect rent only through Zelle and have a lease that you don’t know where it’s at, but it’s got signs.

Speaker 1 (22:28)

You

it off of like the Zip Lawyer. Yeah, dude. He’s got a freaking lease. That’s one thing I will say. Like if he was watching this, like do not use the state, the realtor lease man, that stuff’s garbage. Like it’s just as light on fire, throw it in the trash. But you’re better off even just hired a management company just to do the placement, which we don’t do that anymore.

Speaker 2 (22:33)

Yeah, yeah, like rocket lawyers.

Speaker 1 (22:50)

just do full service, there’s some companies you can hire that just do like the tenant placement part and then you can self-manage after. It’s like, at least then you sort of get the benefit of a lease that’s probably pretty good. Right. Because that thing’s junk.

Speaker 2 (23:01)

think

that’s what David Susan, his team does. I don’t know that they manage. I think they just do placement.

Speaker 1 (23:06)

Oh, yeah. And then so it might be a real routine that is doing it or maybe it’s property management. yeah, so that’s kind of like why I think our value is to the marketplace and then, you know, adding some of those due diligence pieces to the puzzle and then you guys as lenders, too, it’s like, you know, is this realistic for what this stuff’s going to read for? Right. So like, think going if you’re going into a new market or just like definitely rentals is like your property manager is going to have so much knowledge of the local area to just guide you like what to buy, what not to buy. So I almost feel like

Especially in the rentals place, you need to find a property manager first and then you can find an agent or that property management company might have somebody doing sales. But it’s like, I see people buy deals that just don’t make sense. I’m like, dude, you should just call me or know, can remember numbers.

Speaker 2 (23:48)

a

better data than an agent. At least I think from like the number of deals that properties that you’re like have eyes on every single day doing agent like if you do 20 transactions a year as an agent like you’re doing, you know, it’s decent. If you had were only managing 20 doors is like a property management company is like, yo, dude, like, that’s not that much.

Speaker 1 (24:09)

You don’t want to context. mean, we still, so we’ll still look at like MLS for data too, but they will also pull like what’s internal to like what we manage. That’s helpful for this, you know, running comps and stuff like that. But yeah, it’s just like, you know, don’t hire an agent to do property management stuff. It’s completely different ball game. Um, you know, and, we have some agents that do placement, right? Leasing for their client, which is fine, but it’s just like, you know, you’re not getting the lease and a bunch of other stuff that is behind the, behind the scenes. But, um,

But yeah, so I don’t want to dog the agents. Yeah, but it’s just a completely different thing. Just like you wouldn’t want property measures. So you’re, you know, list your house.

Speaker 2 (24:42)

Right. Yeah. Fair enough. So what about this picture? If I like, let’s say I’m the accidental landlord and I’m like, yo dude, I want top rent and I don’t want to deal with like vacancy and whatever. Like, should I spend like actually go out and spend money on photos, the unit and like get it virtually staged or is it like, Hey, iPhone, iPhone pictures with good lighting does the trick account for no photos and getting your place rented.

Speaker 1 (25:06)

Yeah, super important. We pay for that as part of our leasing fee. So it’s just included for our clients. But that’s like, seriously, that’s the only thing you do for your property and you’re like your self manager, your like investor, landlord, just on your own or doing your own thing. Like that, that’s again, that’s like the bare minimum bar. Like, yeah, if your people aren’t doing that, it’s like you’re wasting your time. Now the photos and photos like that, obviously I just got the new iPhone, so it’s been like four years since I got one, but cameras are pretty good, but it’s still, you know, good photos.

the drone shots are cool, helpful. then like, you know, Zillow at least will let you sort of optimize like a 2D and 2D floor plan and 3D walkthroughs. Like the Matterport camera system, there’s some cameras, different cameras you do 360 stuff on. And all that stuff helps, know, especially if you’re doing self show, like if you’re doing the self showing stuff, you’re not always talking to the people, but they’re like, they can look at the video, they’re to go look at it in person. Like that’s so super important. So that’s like, again, that’s like the bare minimum stuff that people should be doing for sure. It makes a huge difference.

Speaker 2 (26:00)

And so like full on 3D drone photos for rentals.

Speaker 1 (26:04)

Yeah, you can. They’re like our guy just includes it really. The drones extra, which we don’t do often unless it’s like multifamily and we want to show or like close to the water. There’s something like we want to show. But like the floor plans and stuff that it’ll spit out sort of included actually with the guy that we use. So it’s just like benefits as part of it. It’s just kind of include the price. We do like a bunch of volume with him. But yeah, again, that’s just like nice. These sites are allowing you to do more and more with either the photos or videos you’re providing or just other information that you want to include.

and the listing itself. like renters have like all the information they need, whether they’re finding you on realtor.com or Zillow or whatever it is. So they’re making more advantages for investors or landlords to have all the relevant info for the residents on the front end.

Speaker 2 (26:45)

insight. We’re coming up on time here. So I want to ask one question kind of selfishly, just because I’m curious more than anything else, not that it’s relevant to me. And then we’ll wrap up. But so I know, like, you’re kind of involved in the commercial multifamily space brokers, you have conversations with them. Take a 20 unit decent location Tampa Bay. What’s cap rate on something like that trading for right now?

Speaker 1 (27:07)

I think like, I think that we’re still seeing somewhere in that, like four or five, maybe six. I haven’t seen anything that’s been like super sexy. just lightly looked at a deal just this week from someone that was like a six, but that’s still like, like still like, know, the asset style itself, it’s up and set up not new. So you’re just buying stuff from either the, know,

70s, 50s, maybe the 20s, 1920s. that’s where it’s just like the opportunity cost of like, let me just lend this out at 10 % where you have no extra headaches of maintenance, the unknown, tennis, not pain. just like the opportunity cost. if you’re not just making a decent clip, it’s like just put that money in the bank at 5%. I just need to wait for a deal versus buy something that’s like a six, seven, eight, because it’s once you factor in everything else, you’re getting smoked. One thing goes bad.

Unless you’re really underwriting on the front end, like heavy vacancy loss, maintenance, like your budget and all that is pretty heavy and then you’re getting like a six or seven, it might be okay. I think generally how people are underwriting stuff, they’re just cutting it way too close on what it needs to generate to really work.

Speaker 2 (28:11)

think just generally speaking, my dumbed down sense of this is like, yo, if cap rates are under the interest rate on your loan, like the deal probably is not gonna work. Unless to your point, there’s a lot of value add or rent increase opportunity. Because it’s like, dude, it’s pretty much the same math. Like, hey, I’m paying 7 % for my money, but the calculated return on it ignoring the loan is 6%.

Speaker 1 (28:33)

Yeah. And there might be like some tax benefits, right? You’re like, taxes are costs are blah, blah, blah. Like versus lending out at 10%. But it’s like, that’s really like somebody maybe a little bit more sophisticated or, has a tax problem. But like, think a lot of us, it’s like, you know, the deal just needs a pencil first. And then just like you said, like what if maintenance cost, like let’s see these tariffs, you know, come down and there’s some extra construction costs, you know, 12 months down the road and, taxes and insurance are not going to go down. Right. So it’s only going to get probably worse and rents are just not keeping up.

That’s the other thing is just like, they’re just not going to keep up. even if the cashflow is now and you’re, know, you got a little house that you’re making 400 bucks out of my dude in two years, you’re going to be probably negative. yeah, mean, it’s cost taxes, insurance, rent growth stalling or going down. Like then you’re getting just squished. So you just gotta forecast. Be careful.

Speaker 2 (29:15)

Yep. So speeding up as we wrap up here for the many people out there that need the consultation, need guidance and need help with their properties. Who ideally is it that you’re looking to help with? Like what areas, what size properties and then how do people contact you if they want to like chat with you about potentially doing some having you do some property management for them?

Speaker 1 (29:37)

Yeah, so companies outfast property management were most Tampa Bay. So I like to say, you know, our preferred areas within like 45 minute drive around Tampa International Airport. So most of Hillsboro, most of Pinellas is where we like to stay. And mostly single family, multi-family, you know, we’ll do townhouses, we’ll do single family. We don’t do condos. We don’t like condos or mobile homes. So multi-family anywhere up to 50 units. We really like that sort of five to 30 is like a real like bread and butter. But offsite management is typically going to be within that, you know, that count.

And yeah, they could just go to our site. have our pricing testimonials, case studies on our site. We got 260 Google reviews with 4.5, which is really hard to do for a management company because you just get…

Speaker 2 (30:14)

Yeah, especially the tenants.

Speaker 1 (30:16)

But no, I’m and then just finding me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and my cell phone, you know, we can put in the notes or whatever, but it’s just like, yeah, you reach out to the website, shoot us a message, find me on Facebook. You know, I’m still heavily involved in the day to day. So we’ll take a look at the property or something you’re looking at buying and just see if it makes sense. Well, yeah, our pricing is pretty fair to what’s in the marketplace. And I think we bring a lot more value and education content to the clients that work with us.

Speaker 2 (30:38)

Yeah, I just gonna say who cares about the price, dude? All about the value.

Speaker 1 (30:41)

Yeah, that’s just it. It’s like, you know, it’s just funny sometimes like lose a client over like, you know, 20 bucks or something like to just that’s that’s kind of the tough thing to with property management is there’s so much we do behind the scenes that is our job for the owners not to hear about where we’re creating that value, right? Like, you know, versus spending two grand on a plumbing repair, we got we got it done for 800 because this was like the extra troubleshooting we did. And like, this is what we negotiated with the vendors. So it’s like we we easily pay for our cop, you know, our

our services for a year, if not like way more than what we paid for sure. But yeah, that’s kind of a disconnect. what I think the industry hasn’t done a great job of like as property managers, like communicating the different ways that we really add value and that we really pay for ourselves like tenfold, know, especially when it comes into those lower income, more challenging properties, you know, like we do section eight to and it’s like there’s a lot of extra work that we don’t charge for. And even more so when people are like, these cap rates are great.

I’m like, dude, you’re buying a hood, I’ve never had this happen in 10 years. My cleaner’s like, we’re not cleaning that property. We just drove by. I can still carry, keep the guns on me. But you don’t want to put yourself in this position like that. it’s like when we really try not to manage that stuff anymore for new clients is certain areas where you’re just like, dude, it makes it so hard from leasing standpoint. People know it’s vacant. They’re breaking in.

Speaker 2 (31:37)

Yeah

Speaker 1 (32:00)

paintball on that. They’re like, bro, it’s like, I would say like, if you’re buying rental properties, do not buy in local income areas, wait till you can buy a better asset hands down. the numbers never are as good as they seem when you’re like, the cap rates are like really high because you’re buying and you know, there’s a sketchy part. It never works out ever does.

Speaker 2 (32:16)

It’s it’s an art and a science. You can’t just listen to the spreadsheet for sure. dude, you know, kind of a random thought here would be awesome. I don’t know this is like easily implementable in your business, but like, yo, annual report that shows all the stuff that you guys solved in the background, blah, blah, blah, cost savings versus like, how much you paid.

Speaker 1 (32:37)

Yeah. Hey, yeah. So like we do a monthly newsletter for our clients where we talked about like I posted a little bit on one of them recently about short-term rental, like nightly rates and some other things. I was like, that was actually a snippet from my newsletter. And so yeah, that’s all sort of stuff that we’re like working towards and like, you know, average work order costs and across the US has basically doubled the price over the last five years. So your average work order used to be like 250 knots 500. Right. And that was like just market sort of nationwide averages. And so it’s like

All these little things are things that we have to communicate, especially around maintenance, which is like, you know, if you can’t control insurance and taxes, like maintenance is just getting scrutinized so bad with, know, how are we working to bring that cost down in-house guys? Like, how are we navigating that to make sure that like the numbers are still working as good as they can? But yeah, it’s like that’s, that’s part of what we’re trying to do is communicate that stuff more and like, you know, the amount of calls we get messages we receive, you know, I think last year we had like 40,000.

messages on certain stuff from residents and all this stuff. that’s, that’s it. The data, the metrics communicating that to owners that like what we’re solving behind the scenes and what we’re working towards. And, know, we may be to, we may troubleshoot a maintenance issue over the phone that never gets a work order created that the owner never sees. And those we did that we just saved, you know, a hundred, $200 trip charge plus, you know, some extra supplies. And we just like, that’s just part of what we do. Right. And that’s not, that doesn’t get communicated easily unless we’re really proactive about how we’re using the data.

to make better decisions. And a lot of that’s around maintenance or vacancies, right? Like the two killers, two killers for your best friends, vacancy and maintenance.

Speaker 2 (34:05)

Yeah, yeah, don’t don’t blame the lender for your place.

Speaker 1 (34:08)

I mean, you just got to make it look good on the spreadsheet. They got to execute. That’s right.

Speaker 2 (34:12)

Yeah.

Well, Jeremy, so much fun having you on man. Pleasure. You are truly a wealth of knowledge and appreciate you coming on today.

Speaker 1 (34:20)

Cool, yep, happy to help. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (34:21)

Well, that wraps up this week’s episode of Lever Up Your Live. Peace.