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Why Property Management Is the Real Path to Passive Income with Jason Hull · Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew

• 0:00
  the problem with interest not being aligned is that a lot of investors have really bad mindset and a lot of property managers have really unhealthy businesses.
• 0:08
  Most property managers suck and most investors probably also suck.
• 0:12
  the best investors usually understand how advantageous a good property manager is.
• 0:17
  instead of going and finding property first, the smarter move is to go find a property manager that's good first, because that property manager knows the market better than
• 0:26
  anybody.
• 0:27
  the best investors understand this if I find the right property manager and I pay them well enough they're gonna protect my interest my investments and my time and attention and
• 0:36
  I don't have to think about the property.
• 0:37
  but you gotta find good property managers.
• 0:39
  And good property managers, you'll feel safe doing that with.
• 0:46
  Well, we have Jason Hall here and you can find what his team can help you with by going to door grow.com.
• 0:53
  That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes.
• 0:55
  Jason, you also have a podcast too,
• 0:57
  I do.
• 0:58
  It's called The DoorGrow Show.
• 0:59
  It's a podcast for property management business owners.
• 1:03
  Yeah, you should definitely check that out as well.
• 1:05
  Really appreciate your time here, Jason.
• 1:07
  Absolutely glad to be here, Jack.
• 1:09
  Thanks for having me
• 1:10
  Yeah, it's been a while.
• 1:11
  And I hope we can shorten the next visit.
• 1:15
  But we're going to be talking all things property management and probably go down a various number of rabbit holes here.
• 1:21
  But Jason, things have changed quite a bit in your business since the last time you've been on.
• 1:26
  What's going on now?
• 1:27
  What's your primary focus?
• 1:29
  Well, mean, our primary focus is still coaching property management business owners and helping them grow and scale.
• 1:35
  But we were really good at helping them add doors, but it would create a problem because they had too many doors and then things start to fall apart.
• 1:44
  then we started really getting dialed in on coaching them on hiring, process, operations, and planning.
• 1:53
  And so.
• 1:54
  Now we're able to really create what I call infinitely scalable property management companies.
• 2:00
  Well, I don't know, based on what I've seen, this is definitely uh something that is needed in the market.
• 2:07
  I mean, it's one of those things that, you know, with real deal crew, I don't know if you check that out yet, but I help real estate investors with operations and automations and a
• 2:18
  few other things setting up the operations aspect of their of their business.
• 2:23
  And
• 2:24
  There's a lot of low hanging fruit there because it's it's surprising how many people start companies.
• 2:30
  And they don't take a second to just do do some basic documentation, put some basic things in place to, to free up that time and to make better use of their time.
• 2:42
  Yeah, yeah, we see that.
• 2:44
  I think that's in every business.
• 2:46
  So, yeah.
• 2:48
  get so busy with the with the details.
• 2:51
  It's hard to take a step back sometimes and put some processes in place.
• 2:56
  Yeah, so usually if a property manager comes to me, usually ask them like what just identify or triage them.
• 3:03
  say, what would lower your stress more as a business owner more right now?
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  Would it be adding another 200 units to your portfolio?
• 3:10
  Or would it be getting your team processes, systems and operations dialed in?
• 3:14
  And so depending on how they answer, I know which program we need to put them in and how we can best help them.
• 3:20
  So.
• 3:21
  Usually people start with the challenge of growth and then they move on to the challenge of operations.
• 3:27
  Sure.
• 3:29
  Well, know, a lot of people that are listening to this show, and I'm going to just speak as an investor here now, I've definitely have found that it's really difficult to find a
• 3:39
  property manager where our interests are aligned.
• 3:44
  And could you talk a little bit to that?
• 3:47
  Maybe help us, guide us through the process on picking a good project, a property manager.
• 3:54
  Well, okay, so the problem with interest not being aligned is that a lot of investors have really bad mindset and a lot of property managers have really unhealthy businesses.
• 4:05
  Most property managers suck and most investors probably also suck.
• 4:09
  And so the challenge is they both have different expectations and issues.
• 4:14
  yeah, the best investors usually understand how advantageous a good property manager is.
• 4:20
  So much so that instead of going and finding property first, the smarter move is to go find a property manager that's good first, because that property manager knows the market
• 4:30
  better than anybody.
• 4:31
  They're actually in it constantly.
• 4:34
  They're working in it.
• 4:35
  They know what needs to be done to properties.
• 4:37
  They know which areas in that city or town are places you could or want to invest instead of a rental.
• 4:44
  And so a lot of people don't start with property managers.
• 4:48
  They don't have property managers you trust.
• 4:50
  And then they're playing Russian roulette, hoping they could find one after they found a property.
• 4:54
  And then a lot of times real estate agents, they're not motivated to help you find the best rental asset ever.
• 5:01
  They're focused to sell whatever they can sell you so they can get their commission.
• 5:05
  And so a lot of them are not really giving you great advice as an investor.
• 5:09
  And so they're not the person to be talking to about an investment.
• 5:12
  A property manager would be much better suited, especially if they know I'm going to have to deal with this later.
• 5:17
  I'm going to be more careful about giving you advice and letting you know whether a property would be good or cashflow or run a pro forma on it for you.
• 5:27
  And they know how to look at it through the lens of an investor because most property managers started their business because they were an investor.
• 5:36
  They couldn't find any property managers that were working well for them.
• 5:39
  So they decided to start a business themselves.
• 5:42
  That's almost the universal origin story of property management business owners.
• 5:48
  You mean property managers don't just start off, you're just not born a property manager?
• 5:53
  Yeah, there's not a lot of kids walking around saying I want to be a property manager when I grow up.
• 5:58
  So, no.
• 5:59
  Yeah, it's one of those things that you end up doing some self property management.
• 6:06
  But in the end, it's like investors were probably some of the worst when it comes to actually wanting to deal with the tenants.
• 6:14
  Because it's just one of those situations.
• 6:17
  It becomes a big pain in the butt.
• 6:19
  But
• 6:21
  for as much as we would like to believe, we kind of step outside of the situation.
• 6:27
  It's easy for us to get manipulated by the residents sometimes.
• 6:31
  I think, well, maybe I'm speaking to my own situation.
• 6:34
  No, I think that's accurate.
• 6:35
  think with investors, the challenge is there's a lot more emotional involvement.
• 6:43
  I mean, you have to remember like a property manager has heard every excuse for not for people paying rent late or they've heard they've heard all the stories.
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  They're basically now immune to this stuff.
• 6:55
  But if you're a property owner, you're and you're having to deal with your own tenant, you're not insulated.
• 7:01
  You're not protected.
• 7:03
  and there's emotions connected to things.
• 7:05
  And so it's difficult to make business decisions when there's a lot of emotion involved.
• 7:12
  And, you know, it's easier to fall prey to their BS or to stories or to drama or to get become part of the drama that they're involved in and have a bleeding heart and stuff like
• 7:23
  this.
• 7:24
  Like during the pandemic, lot of some of the investors I knew said they were down 50 percent in rent.
• 7:30
  But I'm connected to a lot of property management business owners and they didn't have issues getting rent during that time.
• 7:36
  But it's because people came, oh, pandemic's hard, it's tough, like money, whatever.
• 7:42
  And they're like, okay, I guess we gotta do stuff.
• 7:45
  But property managers are like, well, you have to live, you still have to pay rent.
• 7:49
  they just assumed you're gonna continue to do it.
• 7:52
  Were there some bad actors that stopped paying rent or didn't do stuff or?
• 7:56
  had some hardship, sure, but it was like really small.
• 7:59
  It was surprisingly small.
• 8:02
  In fact, the only property managers that really dealt with significant issues are the ones that pre-framed the problem.
• 8:07
  They emailed all their tenants, say, hey, if you're having problems with rent, let us know, we'll work with you.
• 8:13
  So they presupposed that there were gonna be problems and they created problems.
• 8:19
  But the ones that didn't do anything like that and just acted like nothing was happening, everybody was still paying rent.
• 8:25
  And so that's the challenge is when you allow, you get what you tolerate basically, and you get what you allow.
• 8:32
  And it's difficult.
• 8:34
  And that's why property managers exist because the three most complained about things on the planet just might be landlords, tenants, and rental properties.
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  And a good property manager is this magical superhero.
• 8:47
  If they're good, that makes all three behave better.
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  And they're in the middle.
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  And so it's not an easy job.
• 8:54
  But if they have good systems, if they have good boundaries, if they have a healthy mindset, like they can make this work really well.
• 9:01
  And it's a really great systemizable business.
• 9:03
  Yeah.
• 9:04
  But most property managers suck.
• 9:06
  Like, let's be real.
• 9:06
  So, and there's reason, I don't know if I mentioned this when we last were together, like five years ago, wow.
• 9:13
  but there's this cycle suck that kind of property managers fall into where they take on any client.
• 9:20
  and then they have crappy clients by default.
• 9:23
  And so in any business, you have to filter what you take on.
• 9:26
  Just like an investor can't take on every property.
• 9:28
  Not every property would be a good investment.
• 9:30
  Not every owner is good for a property manager to manage.
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  And not every property is good.
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  So if the owners are bad, then the properties are bad.
• 9:40
  And then the tenants become bad because now they're, you know, the owner's pushing back on things, being difficult.
• 9:46
  And so the tenants now frustrated.
• 9:48
  even if they did all the tenant screening in the world and they had A grade credit, if the owner's a cheapo and the owner's difficult on things and the owner's like trying to get
• 9:56
  you to, you know, it takes two weeks to get the water heater replaced because they've got to have like four different guys give bids and you know, property managers know how to
• 10:05
  keep things moving and they know how to find that balance because they're negotiating for all parties but their primary interest is to protect the owner.
• 10:13
  That's their client.
• 10:14
  And so,
• 10:15
  But if they have bad owners, bad properties, bad tenants, that leads to a bad reputation.
• 10:20
  And that then attracts bad reviews and then that attracts more bad clients.
• 10:25
  And so they end up in this spiraling, downward spiral I call the cycle of suck.
• 10:29
  And that sums up the whole industry in aggregate.
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  That's the majority of property managers.
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  They feel kind of desperate.
• 10:36
  They're trying to do digital marketing stuff to grow their business.
• 10:40
  They're wasting a lot of that money.
• 10:41
  then they're attracting usually the crappiest clients that are at end of the sales cycle that are looking just, they view property management as a commodity and think they're all
• 10:50
  the same.
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  So they're just looking for the cheapest one.
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  And those are the cheapest owners and they have the highest operational costs for a manager to deal with.
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  a bad owner and a bad property for a property manager could be 10 times, even a hundred times more operational expense for them or cost or time than a good owner and a good
• 11:09
  property.
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  And this is where property managers fail is they aren't filtering enough.
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  And so if they take on any owner, any property, and then you're an investor and you go to a property manager, you might be one of the good ones.
• 11:21
  You might have a good property, you might be a good owner, you want to the property maintained well, you have a long-term vision for this property as an asset, but your
• 11:30
  property manager is using your revenue from your property that he's making.
• 11:35
  to subsidize all the crappy ones that are in his portfolio that he's losing money on.
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  And a lot of property managers are losing money on owners and losing money on units that they're managing, but because it's all kind of lumped into one pile, they don't even see
• 11:49
  it.
• 11:50
  So this is some of the stuff like we work with clients on at DoorGrow to help them clean it up.
• 11:54
  Like I had a client come to me once with 600 units and they were making zero dollars in their property management business.
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  Can you imagine?
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  And they had a...
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  the team that was twice as big as it needed to be.
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  After I coached him, he fired 250 units from his business and half of his team.
• 12:13
  And he had way more margin because it's kind of the 80-20 rule in the negative.
• 12:18
  Like 80 % of their problems and operational challenges and phone calls and tenant issues and stuff were caused by 20 % of the owners and properties, right?
• 12:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:28
  And so this is some of the challenges that property management companies deal with, which is why there's a lot of bad ones.
• 12:34
  So there's milestones though of development that I've identified over time.
• 12:40
  Different stages, different problems they deal with, and it can be a really great business if they do it right.
• 12:47
  Well, you brought up a couple things there that I kind of want to dive into for a second.
• 12:52
  One of them is that I really, you you talked about spiraling out of control.
• 12:57
  And I think that the bigger lesson there, and I've brought it up in previous episodes is the fact that what we focus on grows.
• 13:05
  And we can see that as a positive.
• 13:07
  And we see that a lot of people talk about that in the positive.
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  But we can also see that in the negative.
• 13:13
  m Yeah.
• 13:14
  if we get focused on putting on Band-Aids to fix a problem or we're in a situation where it's just a negative mindset and we start to constantly focus on the negative, more
• 13:27
  negative stuff is going to happen.
• 13:29
  in this example you gave where the 80-20 rule, we're just scrambling and we're trying to fix something.
• 13:39
  And sometimes, in a way, we kind of create more problems instead of taking that needed step back and focusing on the positive side of the business, if I'm making sense there.
• 13:52
  Yeah, I think a lot of times it's easy as business owners to optimize for the wrong thing.
• 13:58
  We get too caught up in the drama or in the problems and we start trying to optimize.
• 14:03
  Like one mistake property managers make is instead of determining whether calls should be happening at all, like tenants calling them, owners should be calling them, instead of
• 14:12
  doing that, they try to optimize for being able to take every call from every tenant and every owner all the time.
• 14:19
  And that becomes basically for a property manager, that's like writing a blank check that they give to every tenant and owner that says, steal all of my profits, call me anytime
• 14:28
  you want to.
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  And that's not profitable because people are expensive and having team members are expensive.
• 14:33
  And so it's very easy if you write that blank check as a property manager to not have a healthy business.
• 14:39
  And so it really is about setting boundaries and really the smartest investors.
• 14:46
  find property managers they can trust and they let the manager manage it.
• 14:51
  I know that's wild but they actually let the manager do the management which means you're not calling them you're not checking on them you're not micromanaging your manager to
• 14:59
  manage your property.
• 15:01
  And the best investors understand this they understand if I find the right property manager and I pay them well enough they're gonna protect my interest my investments and my
• 15:10
  time and attention and I don't have to think about the property.
• 15:14
  but you gotta find good property managers.
• 15:16
  And good property managers, you'll feel safe doing that with.
• 15:20
  Yeah.
• 15:21
  And just to remind everybody we're talking to Jason Hall at door grow you can find more information there at door grow.com that's going to be a clickable link in the show notes.
• 15:31
  You know, this show only grows if you share it with an investor friend so please consider doing that and if you're watching us on YouTube, give us a like and subscribe.
• 15:40
  One of the things that I'm going to point a finger back at the investors is it goes to the old adage of buying the property right at the beginning, because I have a feeling that
• 15:50
  some of this pain and micromanaging that you're pointing out is coming from the fact that we're watching every penny because we didn't buy the property at the right price.
• 16:02
  Is that what you're saying?
• 16:05
  We're trying to band-aid again.
• 16:07
  it's not the right price or it's just not a property they should have invested in at all.
• 16:12
  Or they bid off more than they can chew financially.
• 16:15
  Because, I mean, what happens if the HVAC goes out and you have to spend 11 grand?
• 16:20
  Do you have resources available to take care of the property?
• 16:24
  So good property managers will ask questions like this and they say, if you don't, you should sell this now.
• 16:29
  Like you should get out of it.
• 16:30
  Because one of these things happen, you'll be upside down, you'll be in a difficult situation.
• 16:35
  So, know, good property managers will help you assess your position as an investor to figure out, are you in a good position?
• 16:42
  If not, then maybe you need to get out of that property and get into something that makes more sense for what your goals are.
• 16:49
  But that's where, you know, finding a good property manager first is better than finding a property first, for sure.
• 16:56
  I think the biggest mistake investors make is to not
• 16:59
  get a property manager.
• 17:00
  It's probably one of the biggest mistakes because they want to have a turnkey investment.
• 17:05
  They want to make money passively, passive real estate income, but it's not passive if you're a manager, if you're doing it yourself.
• 17:13
  I don't know if I saw it on your website or it might have been in the email that was sent over, but you made the statement that, you know, why property management is the real path
• 17:22
  to passive income in real estate.
• 17:24
  Is that what you're referring to there with that line?
• 17:27
  Yeah, because if you have somebody that you trust as a partner to take care of the asset and make sure that it's cash flowing and make sure that people are paying rent and make
• 17:37
  sure that maintenance being done and make sure it's getting leased and marketed and all this stuff, and you're not having to do all of that, then yeah, if you have a good
• 17:47
  partner, then it becomes a passive investment.
• 17:49
  But otherwise, you have to do all that stuff.
• 17:52
  It's not passive at all.
• 17:54
  It's very active.
• 17:55
  A lot of investors, once they hit four units, they realize they have a new part-time job.
• 17:59
  I would imagine too that I don't and I think this is really under looked is the fact that a good partnership with a property manager could also generate some of your best leads for
• 18:10
  acquiring additional properties.
• 18:13
  Yeah, so property managers have direct access to off-market deals.
• 18:18
  This is one of the great secrets.
• 18:19
  Like if you are an investor and you want to get access to the best off-market deals, you might want to consider if you're already managing a decent sized portfolio, you basically
• 18:28
  already have a management company that you've built.
• 18:30
  And you may want to start doing a third party because it's going to feed you a lot of deals.
• 18:34
  So I'll give you an example.
• 18:35
  I've got a client right now.
• 18:37
  He has, I think, somewhere around 300 units.
• 18:40
  but he owns all of them.
• 18:42
  Now he advertises that he does third party management, but when people come to him for management, he basically has conversations with them about the long term, about them
• 18:51
  cashing out eventually and the tax implications connected to that.
• 18:55
  And then he says, well, what if there was a way you could avoid the tax implications?
• 18:59
  And he convinces them to do seller financing deals with them.
• 19:02
  And so he uses his property management business as third party, as a honeypot to just get more ownership of property.
• 19:10
  And so there's creative opportunities like that.
• 19:13
  There's, know, property managers can put together syndication deals sometimes.
• 19:18
  You know, we've got a GallinR program that's working on a multimillion dollar fund in Florida and getting investors, you know.
• 19:25
  And so property managers have access to a lot of off-market deals.
• 19:29
  And if they have an owner that's selling a property, it's totally in their best interest to get one of their other owners to buy that property.
• 19:38
  And so if they have a deal that's there's like, yeah, I want to cash out of this, no problem.
• 19:42
  They're going to put it out to their list, their audience.
• 19:45
  And some property managers, especially if they've been listening to me, there's systems for this that get you access to a network of property management companies with these off
• 19:55
  market deals because the property manager listed on these networks because they want to keep the property management, even if the owners change hands.
• 20:05
  m Yeah.
• 20:07
  so yeah, there's an opportunity.
• 20:08
  So if you're one of those investors and you're connected to the network through your property manager, then yeah, you get access to off market deals.
• 20:17
  Those are the best deals.
• 20:20
  Sure.
• 20:21
  But you know, I would imagine, like, I'd like to cover a couple things.
• 20:25
  One of them is the economy right now.
• 20:27
  You know, with, we do some house flipping, and, uh you know, the market is soft for that type of thing.
• 20:34
  Are you seeing the inverse when it comes to rental properties right now?
• 20:37
  are you seeing a lot of activity there?
• 20:42
  Like, tell me what the economy impacts.
• 20:45
  I mean, just in the last couple of weeks, I've been hearing, this is very anecdotal, but I'm hearing from a lot of clients and property management business owners that they're
• 20:55
  having trouble getting things rented lately.
• 20:58
  That, you know, people are just, and this is probably partially just because of the season, you know, we're going into the fall a little bit, but it seems to be a bit more
• 21:07
  dramatic than normal.
• 21:08
  People are noticing property sit on the market longer.
• 21:11
  people are maybe tightening their belts, I don't know.
• 21:14
  Then you've got markets like Florida where some properties are just, it's really difficult for them to cash flow because rent amounts have either dropped or they're just, yeah,
• 21:23
  they're just, there's so much inventory.
• 21:25
  And, but for the investors, the conversations that my property management business owner clients are having with these investors is even if you're not cash flowing,
• 21:37
  for a little while on your property or maybe even for several years, in the long run, it's still a good investment.
• 21:43
  It still is going to make you money.
• 21:46
  Real estate's a pretty stable bet.
• 21:48
  But some people don't want to be floating a little bit of cash flow each month.
• 21:52
  But it's worse if it's vacant.
• 21:53
  so sometimes the owner's like, I'm not going to drop rent down.
• 21:57
  I want cash flow.
• 21:58
  But sometimes you have to be willing to take that hit to win in the long run in some markets right now.
• 22:03
  Yeah, this was a number of years ago, but I was even seeing, you know, people a few years ago, making all kinds of incentives, you know, TVs and what have you to get people into
• 22:14
  into these into apartments.
• 22:16
  It just goes, it just goes against the whole housing crisis situation that we keep hearing about.
• 22:24
  When you're saying that there's there's not a lot of movement there.
• 22:27
  Yeah, mean, yeah, I think it's just difficult.
• 22:31
  think that you've got these big organizations like BlackRock that own massive amounts of properties that are not even on the market to be rented.
• 22:40
  They're just sitting on them in some instances.
• 22:42
  the whole market can be a bit crazy.
• 22:46
  And when the real estate market shifts,
• 22:49
  Property management generally is always stable because people still need help, but it may be time to sell and get rid of some assets and then reinvest later.
• 22:57
  And a good property manager can help you kind of assess that and figure out, does this make sense to keep this now or should I finally get this thing sold?
• 23:07
  And you might be in a position like in some areas where...
• 23:11
  the market's not really favorable for selling, you may have to hold on to that asset for a while and you may have to take less rent than you want to get.
• 23:17
  And that's part of the gamble of doing investing.
• 23:20
  yeah.
• 23:21
  And it's been good for a lot of years.
• 23:22
  Like there's a lot of people that were doing really well for a while.
• 23:25
  So.
• 23:25
  Technology has really been advancing rapidly just in general.
• 23:30
  What have you been seeing over the past few years, or what do you see on the horizon regarding tools and operations?
• 23:37
  Well, all right.
• 23:39
  So we're in the middle of this AI revolution right now.
• 23:41
  And, um, it's pretty dramatic.
• 23:43
  And just for perspective, like Google was in an antitrust lawsuit with the government, the government dropped it because of chat GPT.
• 23:51
  Like this is how significantly disruptive this is.
• 23:54
  Like we've all come to like trust and rely on Google, but more people are searching and asking questions on chat GPT now for a lot of things.
• 24:02
  And so.
• 24:03
  Everything's changing very rapidly.
• 24:05
  Everything's speeding up.
• 24:07
  The people that are at the forefront of this are making a lot of money.
• 24:10
  The savvy property management business owners are, there's a lot of AI tools and leverage that's coming out.
• 24:17
  know, like one of the sponsors of our pod, one of my podcast episodes was Vendaroo.
• 24:22
  They do AI maintenance coordination.
• 24:24
  And you know, you have to feed in.
• 24:27
  a lot of data into it, but it's a property management maintenance coordinator that never forgets and works 24 hours a day.
• 24:34
  And it is consistent and it learns.
• 24:39
  And so for those that are savvy, they're leveraging these tools, but the horizon looks a little scary.
• 24:46
  I've done a lot of AI stuff.
• 24:49
  I've been really studying it.
• 24:51
  I've been going to AI trainings.
• 24:53
  I can see very quickly with the agent to gay I and some of the stuff that's coming out that a lot of people are going to be losing jobs like massively.
• 25:02
  I like you can already replace a lot of roles.
• 25:06
  People just don't know how to do it yet or they're just not aware that it's possible.
• 25:10
  But there's a lot of people that have no idea but their jobs already on it's already on the chopping block and there's some big companies that are already rolling stuff out like
• 25:19
  they're just replacing entire sales teams with AI callers.
• 25:22
  They're like
• 25:23
  crazy stuff.
• 25:24
  so, yeah.
• 25:26
  So it's gonna be interesting.
• 25:27
  I think there's gonna be a lot of people making a lot of money initially and there's probably gonna be a big bubble burst.
• 25:33
  maybe bigger than the dot com.
• 25:34
  Yeah, it has been kind of interesting to watch.
• 25:37
  I've unfortunately have seen that AI is kind of the hammer and everything's a nail right now.
• 25:42
  We're just shoving it and everything and hoping something sticks.
• 25:46
  Yeah, Yeah, and I think human interaction is going to be a premium thing.
• 25:53
  It's going to be valued even more.
• 25:55
  Reality is going to be valued even more because there's so much fake now.
• 25:59
  Like, I don't know if you've seen all these Sora videos that are just flooding Facebook right now.
• 26:03
  They're absolutely ridiculous.
• 26:05
  It's like we just amplified garbage videos like 100x, you know, and but it's it's this is the worst it'll ever be.
• 26:15
  and it's just gonna get better.
• 26:16
  this lends more credence to the fake internet theory where they say like half of all traffic is just bots.
• 26:24
  It's probably way higher now that there's AI.
• 26:28
  And so we're living in this world where I think in-person interaction is going to be way more valued and we're actually gonna start shifting towards valuing human connection more.
• 26:39
  Leaning into you, you mentioned there's going to be a bubble that bursts here.
• 26:45
  One of them I just don't think people like the general public understands is the fact that the amount of compute and electricity and power, you know, we give CHAT GPT $20 a month.
• 26:59
  They're losing on that at this point.
• 27:01
  There's no way that they're making enough to pay for the just the compute for some of that.
• 27:09
  Yeah, there's a race right now for nuclear power.
• 27:13
  And like I was just at an event and the CTO of a company called Allo that's here in Austin, they're making like micro nuclear power plants that are pre-built that they can
• 27:24
  deploy and ship that can power data centers or power things.
• 27:28
  the biggest, and then I met, I was hanging out with a entrepreneur who runs a company that he's very connected to.
• 27:34
  all the data centers, he's, they do all the testing of all the equipment and maintaining all the equipment in data centers.
• 27:41
  And he says, anytime a data center pops up, there's already 200 plus companies in a waiting list.
• 27:46
  Like it's just that want access to it.
• 27:49
  There's not enough data centers.
• 27:51
  And the biggest constraint for data centers is power.
• 27:55
  There's just not enough power.
• 27:56
  And so I think we'll see somebody's going to crack this code because there's so much money to be made and so many people focus on it.
• 28:03
  But
• 28:04
  it's probably gonna have to be something big like nuclear power to supply a lot of power with not a lot of space.
• 28:12
  And we just don't have the ability here in the US to deploy large nuclear power plants.
• 28:17
  We've done it so rarely, there isn't an infrastructure for it.
• 28:22
  So that's gonna be pretty wild to see who cracks the power code, because this is the biggest constraint.
• 28:27
  Yeah.
• 28:28
  So, you know, and I know this is kind of an odd uh question to ask towards the end here, but for those people that are managing their own properties, do you have any low hanging
• 28:39
  fruits for them to make things a little easier other than hiring a project and property manager?
• 28:45
  I mean, that would be the obvious thing, because no matter how good you get at it how many tools you think you can afford with your little portfolio, a property manager can beat
• 28:53
  you, especially if they have a much larger portfolio.
• 28:56
  They have easier access to tools.
• 28:58
  They have much more leverage.
• 29:00
  They know landlord-tenant law probably way better than you.
• 29:04
  I mean, they're going to eviction courts when necessary.
• 29:06
  Like, they understand how this all works.
• 29:08
  And so by not leveraging that, I think people are making
• 29:11
  a very risky mistake, a lot of times legally.
• 29:14
  But if you're wanting, there's plenty of tools out there that you could leverage to help facilitate your investments, but you're basically starting a property management business.
• 29:23
  You're doing it yourself.
• 29:25
  There's nothing wrong with the DIY route.
• 29:28
  You know, if you want to get a property management business started, then you're going to need to find a really good system, a good system for collecting rent online, a good system
• 29:36
  for giving tenants a portal to go to.
• 29:39
  you know, good system for, you know, manage maintenance coordination and there's plenty of systems and tools out there.
• 29:46
  It's just difficult to leverage those when you have like less than 50 units, for example.
• 29:53
  And if you already have 100 units and you're managing and it makes sense for you to get some of this leverage, some of these tools, you might as well start doing it third party
• 30:00
  and get access to deals.
• 30:02
  Like if you really want to expand, this is going to bring in more revenue.
• 30:05
  give you the ability to get more tools and more leverage and hire people to do this so you don't have to.
• 30:11
  And so if you get, if you hit that situation as an investor, reach out to DoorGrow, we'll help you get your business going and help you get to market, you know, to third party if
• 30:20
  you want to do that.
• 30:21
  But, so that'd be, that'd be my advice to, to investors is there's plenty of tech and tools, but this is a people business and it's going to be difficult.
• 30:31
  Maybe with AI you can create a little bit more leverage than you used to, but
• 30:34
  there's still a lot of negotiation and conversation that has to happen in property management.
• 30:38
  And I don't know that that's gonna go away anytime soon.
• 30:41
  Well, Jason, this has been a fantastic conversation.
• 30:44
  Again, remind everybody check out door grow.com for more information there.
• 30:49
  Check out the podcast.
• 30:51
  And uh before we jump into the rapid fire, is there anything else we should have tried to hit on here today?
• 30:57
  No, I mean you mentioned you're closely connected with processes and so I'll share a quick tip that we share with our clients about processes.
• 31:05
  You know, I saw this pattern in my own business.
• 31:07
  We identified there's three levels of process systems in a business and the first level, level one is just documentation.
• 31:13
  Problem with documentation though, nobody looks at it.
• 31:15
  It's like the owner's manual in the glove box of your car, right?
• 31:19
  And so over time processes actually devolve away from the actual what's in the manual.
• 31:25
  And the level two we started then is I call checklist.
• 31:29
  This is where you something like process street or a sauna or Monday or some sort of system where people have to do the process and mark that they've done it.
• 31:39
  And so I call that checklist.
• 31:41
  Level three is visual workflow.
• 31:44
  And so this is where you have flow charts.
• 31:46
  You're actually working through a process.
• 31:49
  The challenge with checklists is that checklists are linear and
• 31:53
  most processes in property management are not actually step one, step two.
• 31:58
  It's like a decision.
• 31:59
  Do they have pets?
• 32:00
  Do they have this?
• 32:01
  Like in property management especially.
• 32:02
  And there's concurrent things that are happening at the same time.
• 32:06
  And so this is where being able to build out your process in a flow chart and leverage that.
• 32:11
  And so there's tools like Flusos, F-L-U-S-S-O-S I believe, and stuff like that.
• 32:16
  that we use at DoorGro to manage our processes that makes it easy for our team to understand the process visually, even if it's really complex, and it makes it easy for
• 32:28
  them to edit it.
• 32:29
  So I don't have to be the resident nerd building logic in something like Process Street where it's hiding and showing steps and then people skip steps on checklists.
• 32:38
  And so that's a little tip I'll give on process and systemization.
• 32:44
  I appreciate that way.
• 32:45
  Great way to end out that episode.
• 32:46
  Again.
• 32:47
  uh Well, if you're ready, Jason, we'll jump into the rapid fire and close out this episode.
• 32:52
  Let's go, Jack.
• 32:54
  What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
• 32:57
  Ooh, I will save money by doing it myself.
• 33:01
  I think the slowest path to growth in business and life is to do it alone.
• 33:05
  If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it be?
• 33:08
  There is so much I would love to tell my younger self, so much.
• 33:11
  One big piece of advice, yeah, I think it would be to focus on investing in myself.
• 33:18
  and stop trying to please everybody else so much.
• 33:20
  Do you have a book recommendation, or what are you reading right now?
• 33:23
  I am always reading many books, but I think a really great book that would be beneficial for anybody is Learning to Be Better at Sales.
• 33:32
  And I think one of the best books I've read about sales maybe ever, I don't think it's even a well-written book, but the things it teaches is really good.
• 33:40
  And it's The New Model of Selling by Jeremy Minor.
• 33:44
  And I believe since the pandemic.
• 33:47
  and everything that's gone on politically, we're in what a lot of people are calling the post trust era and people trust is at an all time low and sales and deals happen at the
• 33:56
  speed of trust.
• 33:57
  I often say and people don't trust salespeople.
• 34:00
  People don't trust pushy manipulation.
• 34:03
  All the old sales tactics I think are now out the window and there's this new model of selling that's question based that's empathetic that allows the person to figure out what
• 34:13
  they need and what they want by you asking really good questions.
• 34:17
  And Jeremy Minor, think, is at the forefront of this with his NEPQ model and his book gives away a lot of really great info and it shows the difference between old model ways
• 34:27
  of doing things and the new model way of doing things.
• 34:29
  So it makes it really obvious and clear.
• 34:32
  Yeah, when you mentioned that, was like, I've seen that somewhere.
• 34:36
  I think I keep getting Facebook ads for that book.
• 34:39
  He's not that book.
• 34:40
  That book's on Amazon.
• 34:41
  You can go get it.
• 34:42
  He's always pushing his NEPQ book or whatever.
• 34:45
  Yeah, but yeah, it's yeah, that book's really good.
• 34:49
  I like flipping it open, reading the scripts from time to time and coaching my sales team on it.
• 34:54
  So.
• 34:55
  And then finally, what single process or tool have you implemented that has had the biggest time-saving impact?
• 35:01
  Ooh, biggest time saving impact.
• 35:04
  I use a lot of tools, so that's difficult.
• 35:07
  I think the easy answer everybody should be saying right now is like AI.
• 35:11
  So my favorite tool right now in AI is actually called Poppy.
• 35:16
  I think the website's getpoppy.ai or something like this, but Poppy.
• 35:21
  The challenge with AI, if you're feeding lots of input, it becomes difficult to manage and know what's being fed into it and trying to get the right output.
• 35:28
  So Poppy is like a whiteboard that you can drag and drop visually objects into, like text documents and YouTube videos.
• 35:36
  And then you can drag and connect little lines of chats, almost like a flow chart to a chat box.
• 35:44
  And you can then pick which AI model, like Claude.
• 35:46
  I love working with Claude, for example.
• 35:49
  or chat GPT or whatever.
• 35:51
  You can pick the model and then you can interact with that.
• 35:55
  And so I've used that to write books, I've used that to write playbooks for clients, and I'm just dragging and dropping in videos of trainings I've done, stuff that I've created,
• 36:05
  and I'm able to then leverage it very quickly.
• 36:10
  And so it allows...
• 36:12
  That's the challenge I think is that when everything is just text, it becomes very difficult mentally to manage, especially if there's a lot of pieces going into something.
• 36:20
  so Poppy, the Poppy AI tool is pretty, pretty nice.
• 36:24
  I really like it.
• 36:26
  Well, Jason, this has been fantastic.
• 36:28
  One more time, you can learn more at door grow.com.
• 36:32
  That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes, but hope you'll be back sooner than five years this time.
• 36:38
  Yeah, absolutely.