Latest / The Academy Presents podcast / Mastering Property Management: Communication, Site Visits, and Resident Psychology

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Mastering Property Management: Communication, Site Visits, and Resident Psychology · The Academy Presents podcast

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  Did you know that 90 % of the world's millionaires
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  invest in real estate? Well, I'm Angel with the
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  Academy Presents Real Estate Investing Rocks,
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  and I'm here to help you if you want to go for
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  your piece of that pie. Are you new? Are you
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  but you feel stuck, you feel like you've lost
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  momentum, you don't know where to really head
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  from here? Are you a seasoned real estate investor
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  who is doing great but maybe you just want to
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  costly mistakes, and begin living the life you've
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  dreamed of all through real estate investing.
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  You're already taking the first step. just by
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  joining us here today. Hey guys, thank you so
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  much for being here and for being a part of this
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  summit. It's just awesome. I said it like every
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  single time I think I get on here that these
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  are my six favorite days of the year and I'm
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  super glad that you're a part of it and I am
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  super glad that we get to hear from Janet Fields
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  because she and I have been chatting a little
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  bit here before we started recording and I think
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  this is going to be truly amazing because I already
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  heard stuff that I'm like that would be really
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  awesome. So I'm super excited to hear what she
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  has to share with us and Jan I'm going to kind
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  of toss it over to you and let you tell us a
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  little bit about your background and what you
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  can bring to us today. Yes. Well, I'm Janet Field,
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  CEO of Oak Trust Properties down in Charleston,
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  South Carolina. I pretty much was born into the
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  business. I grew up around real estate just through
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  osmosis. I learned a lot about business when
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  I didn't even know I was learning about it. I
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  bought my first book of business in 2014. I worked
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  alongside my father doing a DBA. As his company,
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  eventually we did another acquisition and then
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  we joined forces, brought all the businesses
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  together and recently I actually just bought
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  him out. So now I'm just one big sole company
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  owner. I have about a dozen people who work for
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  me and we manage about 600 properties. I have
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  many other businesses I'd like to get started
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  in the next three to five years and they're all
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  feed off of real estate. And I'm super pumped
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  about that. No, and that's awesome because like
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  I've heard so many different people talk about
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  their teams and How much more productive they
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  are? Once they do the personality tests we haven't
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  done it on our team yet But like my husband and
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  I we know I know what's his lane. He knows what's
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  my lane And we tend to stay in our lanes because
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  they're vastly different like he's numbers Underwriting
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  that is his thing. That is not my thing. I am
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  like relationships, relationships with vendors,
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  with property management companies, with GCs,
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  with handymen around town, with our investors,
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  like that's my part. Meeting other people, doing
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  what we're doing, going to conference, that's
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  my thing. And I love it. I can do it on like
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  two hours of sleep for eight days straight and
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  I am fine. If I drag him with me, he's like,
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  can I just go back to the room and take a nap?
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  I'm like, you know what? I forgot my meds. He's
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  like, I will get them. he goes back to the room
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  and an hour later I see him he's like here you
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  go I also forgot mine see you later but it's
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  like it's just uh we're just two different very
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  very different people so we work really well
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  together as a team but hearing you talk it it
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  makes me wonder if maybe our GP team shouldn't
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  do some personality testing because we would
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  like to move forward and do more things but we're
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  having or maybe maybe it's just me but i'm having
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  a really hard time getting this one under control
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  and feeling really good about moving forward
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  um if you're feeling it everybody else is feeling
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  it i just went through something similar and
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  um i didn't think anybody felt it and after we
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  made a major change people came to me and was
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  like yeah we could always tell something was
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  going on like nothing was said you guys were
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  always aligned but afterwards like it felt a
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  lot lighter and i was like oh okay then I guess
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  we don't really hide things you know I guess
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  we can't really just push through and grind through
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  it and make it work so if if an owner had an
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  issue what would be the best way for them to
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  bring that up to you or to your team so that
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  it could be addressed and taken care of um you
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  mean just like picking up the phone or making
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  a phone call or shooting us an email sort of
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  thing like which avenue channel Yes, I'm just
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  thinking like There's things like there's hard
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  conversations that I prefer not to have oh, yeah,
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  so like other people on the team have those not
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  me but as a property manager like Would you prefer
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  somebody just be direct and call and say hey,
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  this is how I feel This is what's going on and
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  we need to fix this 100 % There is something
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  what we call the snowball effect in our office.
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  And I'm going to use it as an example of residents.
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  So a resident moves into the property and somehow
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  it was not clean to their expectations. But everything
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  else in their experience is amazing. So they
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  don't call. And then they find out that their
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  washer and dryer knocks, makes an annoying noise.
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  But everything else in their experience is fine.
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  No big deal. Well, then one more thing happens,
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  and say the dog next door barks, and they don't
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  like their neighbors, there's nothing they can
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  do about it, but now that's the last straw. It
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  doesn't matter what this last thing is, but it's
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  always like, so your second or third strike,
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  but you didn't know about strike one and two,
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  and now they're livid, and now everything is
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  garbage, and you hear about everything, and it's
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  like, I wish you would have told us in the beginning.
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  So we actually do send out customer surveys.
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  We do check in with them and say, how is everything
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  going? And we almost... inundate them with texts.
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  So through our software, we can text our residents
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  and our clients. So we're texting them all the
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  time. Hey, how's it going? Hey, there's a storm
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  coming in. We just want to let you know that
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  we don't board up windows because of the fire
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  hazard. We'd rather you be safe than the house
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  be okay, you know, stuff like that, which isn't,
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  you know, we want everything to be okay. But,
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  you know, we keep open these lines of communication.
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  And then after the storm, it's like, hey, We
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  know you went out of town. We just want to know
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  if you guys are safe and when you guys are coming
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  back. And when you come back, do you mind taking
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  pictures of the property? Mind doing a walk?
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  So just keeping that positive flow of communication
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  does help us because that snowball effect, it
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  sucks. Just tell us. Tell us the minute there's
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  a problem because we will correct it. We can't
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  serve you unless we know your expectations. We
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  have expectations, but when we're not meeting
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  them and we don't know what they are, we can't
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  improve. and that's that's my life mantra is
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  like if i don't know your expectations you can't
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  get upset with me if i'm not meeting them absolutely
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  so do y 'all have a pretty high completion rate
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  on your resident surveys um not really so our
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  client surveys that we send out we send out uh
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  90 days so those are better so 90 days after
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  our residents are on board we call it 100 days
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  left it's actually 100 days We send out a survey
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  and it says, you know, how was your experience?
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  And it's just 20 questions and they can do a
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  two to three minutes to tell us that. And almost,
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  I would say 20 % do that, which is great. And
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  it's always great. They always tell you, well,
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  not always, but five stars, right? Tell us you're
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  fabulous. And then in the back it says, you know,
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  what else can we do? And then they ask, you know,
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  we're not short terms. We want this, we want
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  that. And that's a great thing just to kind of
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  keep a pulse on. how is your customer service
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  going? Just because there's no squeaky wheels
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  doesn't mean everything's fine. Wow. Yeah. Now
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  you got me thinking now it's like, how do you
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  get your residents to tell you the first thing
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  that's going wrong? Yeah. I think, um, I don't,
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  we haven't mastered that, but keeping the communication
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  open and telling them that you want to know instead
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  of like, whenever they send in a work order and
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  be like, responding them in a week tells them
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  you don't care, you know, telling them that we
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  don't really have any vendors tell them that
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  you don't care. So you have to be prompt and
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  courteous and kind and just kill them with love
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  to smother them. And then I feel like they are
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  more proactive. Wow. So we've walked units for
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  friends and I think there's also a difference
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  in the residents from say a class C to a class
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  B. Yep. But we discovered that in the class C
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  Not only are they less likely to tell you problem
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  one two or three or maybe even four Even when
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  the whole AC is out and you're running four box
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  fans You're still not telling them your AC is
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  out because you don't want to bother them. Yeah,
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  because they're underserved Because they're underserved
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  and they've been forgotten and pushed aside and
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  every other life experience they have so it's
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  a lot of psychology and like Just like you said
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  you have to know who you're working with and
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  who you're dealing with and if you're working
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  with these Um, I would get in that property more
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  often because they're not going to tell you and
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  almost thank them when they do tell you Be like
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  this is amazing. We love that. You told us this
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  we never get to hear this and this is exactly
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  what we need It's like you have to stroke their
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  ego and tell them how great it was Wow. Yeah.
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  No, I just I remember walking in into that unit.
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  I was like Dude, you are cooking in here and
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  i'm not talking meth i'm talking you're cooking
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  like a like a chicken in the oven, dude It's
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  so hot We took over some properties to an out
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  -of -state resident. It was a C class. And walking
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  into a bucket under the kitchen sink, because
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  the kitchen sink didn't work. There was no pipe
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  at all just trained into the bucket. That is
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  still memorable to me. And he lived like that
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  for five years because he didn't want to bother
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  his landlord. So that has just been completely
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  burned in my mind. It's like they're so underserved
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  that they don't even bother serving themselves.
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  So how often do y 'all do site visits and walk
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  -throughs? So we do three times a year and I'm
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  working on building in more especially for places
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  with pets and monetizing that. We now have a
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  third party who does inspections for us. We still
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  use the software but there's times when it's
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  more appropriate to use the software and there's
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  times when it's more appropriate to have somebody
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  walk. So after you walk the property are ready
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  and we've already had like our periodic or annual
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  inspection and we're getting closer to the lease
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  turn and we want to know if they're renewing.
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  That's when we use our app because that's the
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  time where it's like, okay, resident, what do
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  you want to show us? Not what's wrong with the
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  property? Um, and is there cats or that shouldn't
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  be there? Does it smell? Is there extra roommates?
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  That's when we need a person in the property.
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  But when we just need to know like what sort
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  of maintenance things have you not told us about?
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  We send them the app and that's when they show
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  us those things. And we just get slight eyes
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  on the property, but it's not a full report.
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  So that's kind of what we learned. And we're,
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  I plan on the next 30 days adding an inspection
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  for pets that's monetized and funded by residents.
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  So we'd have additional pet visits where we put
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  people in the property to look for pet damage,
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  make sure everything's okay. And that would be
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  paid for at move in. Cause I'm just thinking
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  about like, There were pluses and minuses to
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  me being on site and taking care of the hoarding
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  and all those things I think one of the biggest
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  takeaways I had is how do I stop that from happening
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  in the future? Because it was it was rough It
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  was hoarding But it was like in the bat in the
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  farthest bedroom. The trash was like a foot a
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  foot and a half deep okay, and I was just like
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  Holy night, I wouldn't when I left the when I
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  left the apartment that first day I called one
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  of our GP team members and I was like That was
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  horrible. I've never seen anything like that.
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  I will never again call my house a hoarder paradise.
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  We just got a lot of stuff My voice jokes. So
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  yeah, we have a hoarder paradise, you know when
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  a family member passes we get all their stuff
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  Which is how we got all the stuff but I will
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  never ever ever again call it a horror paradise
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  because after being in they knew me it's like
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  it hurt my heart to know that somebody was living
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  there like that yeah how do you what do you say
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  how do you stop that from happening well i don't
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  know that you can stop it i do believe it's a
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  protected class you got to be careful with that
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  word um because once you say it you might be
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  stuck um so i think site visits a lot of site
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  visits uh we have an instance like that where
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  um there was a we already knew the person had
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  a rough background they were um they have ptsd
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  They lost their spouse and adult child within
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  18 months. They now were living on their own.
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  And things started falling apart. All the red
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  flags started popping up. The late rent, strings
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  of emails with no punctuation and no proclarity.
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  We'd go to the property when we said we'd go
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  and we couldn't get in and the guy would be angry.
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  All the red flags. And it's just really hard
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  to navigate those situations, especially now
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  that's the protected class. Yeah, we ended up
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  sending out services to them. We did have to
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  evict, but we also brought in social services
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  and VA services to help support that person.
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  That was, I think, the best thing for everyone
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  on the team and them, is to get to know that
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  person was going to be okay after the fact. I
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  don't know what we can do other than to, you
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  know, um, to correction, forced correction, 14
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  day correction, send it out, whatever your state
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  laws are. Yeah, well, this, this particular person,
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  um, was a, was eventually evicted. Um, I would
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  say it was for a lease, lease violation or fire
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  safety or I don't know what magic they worked.
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  Yeah. Um, but it was, it was heartbreaking to
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  me. And I just don't want to see anyone go through
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  that again. Like the idea of getting social services
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  involved kind of makes me happy because then
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  at least that person is getting some level of
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  assistance. Even if they're not something. Yeah.
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  What was heartbreaking for us is they were not
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  accessible to us. And then when we finally did
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  get with them, they would be combative. So we
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  were like, and they felt isolated and alone.
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  So we're like, we need somebody to be on this
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  person's side. We're trying to be on their side.
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  to them or not. So we really felt like somebody
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  needed to go in there. And honestly, today, this
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  past week, we've had a lot of scary situations
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  where residents or IRAs, this time that we're
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  in right now, it's very tough for residents.
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  Everything, prices are going up, the job market's
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  crazy. And we have residents who are stressed
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  out. We have residents who are being evicted.
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  I'm hearing across the nation, the fold -over
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  tenants I'm hearing about. suicides. We're walking
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  into evictions and finding suicides. We're hearing
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  about murder, suicide. So that was a huge conversation
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  this week was safety for our team, safety for
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  our vendors that were sending out the properties
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  and, um, respect of everybody. Honestly, we were
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  in a really tough time just navigating everything.
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  Wow. Well, I'm just thinking of all these pieces
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  as you just keep getting bigger and bigger and
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  it's, it's more. more chances that you're going
• 15:56
  to have those hot situations because of the,
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  I mean, it sounds to me like you're like exponentially
• 16:01
  expanding. And so you are also exponentially
• 16:04
  picking up those possibilities of those hard
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  or those hot danger situations. Yeah. It's interesting.
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  We had a gun issue recently and yeah, they pulled
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  a gun on a vendor and that was really hard to
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  navigate and figure out. Because what do you
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  do? It's not our property. Um, you send them
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  a correction, a 14 day correction, but yeah,
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  it's, it's documentation, but what do you, there's
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  really nothing you can do to protect anybody.
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  Yeah. Now that would be, that'd be rough. Yeah,
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  it is. It's, it's really heavy. Wow. Yeah. Now
• 16:45
  there's, there's a lot of pieces at play. That's
• 16:47
  just one more reason why I don't want to be your
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  property manager. But that's your, I mean, that's
• 16:55
  your strength. Yeah, I enjoy the messes. I enjoy
• 16:59
  fixing things and making things better for everybody.
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  I enjoy creating a customer experience, but I'm
• 17:04
  not going to lie right now. It's been really,
• 17:07
  there's been a lot of new interesting things
• 17:09
  to navigate more often. Yeah, but you're still
• 17:12
  doing it. I mean, oh yeah, I'm not selling this
• 17:15
  cow. Well, I think, you know, I was talking to
• 17:19
  somebody else the other day and It was this we
• 17:22
  kept coming back to the same thing. It's grit.
• 17:24
  It's persistence. It's if you want to be successful
• 17:26
  in this space, you got to stick it out. If you,
• 17:30
  you know, if you want to be an amazing property
• 17:31
  manager, you just have to stick it out. And when
• 17:34
  those crazy things happen, back up, right, that
• 17:38
  SOP to deal with that situation. I'm going to
• 17:40
  have to keep saying that one up here. Yeah. Added
• 17:43
  to the knowledge bank. Yeah. Just create those
• 17:46
  methods, create those systems so that as you
• 17:49
  continue to scale, everybody has the same book
• 17:53
  to reach back to, which tells you how to handle
• 17:56
  it. And if it's something not in the book, well,
• 17:58
  guess what? A new page gets added. One of the
• 18:01
  podcasts that I was listening to for a while
• 18:03
  that I broke off of it was 500 to 5 ,000. I don't
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  remember what property manager is using that
• 18:10
  or is creating that podcast. I wish I did, but
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  they talked about education. I was like, oh my
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  gosh, education. I love that. That's one of the
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  things I want to do is we've talked about educating.
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  agents on how to work with presidents as they're
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  selling the property. And I was like, well, what
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  about educating my own team? What about educating
• 18:28
  my team to be better property managers? What
• 18:30
  about educating my team in leadership? What about
• 18:32
  educating my team and mentorship for when we
• 18:34
  have new people come on? What about educating
• 18:36
  them in business? What about leadership? What
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  if I just want them to be successful and happy,
• 18:41
  even if they're only happy here for two to five
• 18:43
  years and they go somewhere else and start their
• 18:45
  own business? Should I be threatened by that
• 18:46
  or should I be like, oh my gosh, they used me
• 18:48
  as a launching pad. That's amazing. So building
• 18:52
  up others is kind of where I'm trying to draw
• 18:54
  my strengths right now when all this chaos is
• 18:56
  going on. Yeah, I was like trying to find the
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  podcast. I'm like, maybe I can find it while
• 19:00
  she's talking. Yeah, no idea. It's a huge property
• 19:05
  manager, the property manager field, but I'm
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  the main living man right now. Yeah, well, but
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  it's, you know, it's so true that the education
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  piece is so important. As well as the experience
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  piece. Yeah, and so I just. You know, I applaud
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  you for just creating, creating your own piece
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  in this space and growing it the way you have.
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  And that's just amazing. And thank you for sharing
• 19:30
  some of your methods and ideas for getting it
• 19:33
  nailed down. So you're able to scale effectively
• 19:35
  because I think, well, again, I always bring
• 19:39
  it back to me because I understand me, but I
• 19:42
  know I am not. So unique that there's only one
• 19:45
  of me out there. Okay. There are absolutely other
• 19:47
  people just like me that need these things just
• 19:51
  like I do. So thank you for being here and for
• 19:54
  sharing those. And I look forward to sharing
• 19:56
  it with everybody. And so guys, for those of
• 19:58
  you out there, tell your friends to come listen
• 20:01
  to this stuff because it's amazing and it's going
• 20:03
  to help them grow. So again, Janet, thank you
• 20:06
  for being here and for sharing your. I appreciate
• 20:09
  it. Oh, thank you so much.