I love offering listeners fantastic benefits, such as some great discounts for products. These include the PM Grow Summit, website production through Property Managed Website, showing services through Tenant Turner, and more, with new offers coming all the time! You can see a complete list of the current offers at propertymanagementmastermind.com. For all of these offers, use the discount code “Brad” to secure your discount.
Today’s episode is going to be a different style! It’s always an honor to share my guests’ wisdom with you, but today I want to share some tips and insights of my own, so I’ll be doing a monologue. You’ll hear about some great things going on in the property management industry, best practices and techniques, and some of the questions I hear a lot.
You’ll hear about my property management company, RentWerx, that has experienced a 35% year-over-year growth and currently manages 840 single-family homes. I’ll talk about why we count homes versus properties, and what the magic number is (profit per month per door that you manage). I’ll also talk about the reason I started this podcast, and why it’s so important to me to see the property management industry get better as a whole. I’ll also touch on my future goals, including the book I plan to write!
Podcasting is going to be the new radio. Since you’re here listening to this, you’re probably already aware of that and ahead of the curve! Right now, it’s still a relatively young industry that’s fairly easy to break into, but that’s already changing. If you want to get into podcasting, now is the time to do it… and if you want to learn how to get into it, you’ll want to listen to my talk at the upcoming NARPM Broker Owner Conference.
I’ll talk about plenty of other hot topics including our eight fantastic team members (not just virtual assistants!) in Mexico, the value of Facebook marketing and how we use it, the importance of search engine optimization, some great projects we have going on, and finally an exciting announcement about our upcoming expansion!
Show Notes
[02:28] - Brad’s first point of discussion is RentWerx, his property management company in San Antonio, TX.
[05:05] - We switch over to the topic of maintenance, with Brad discussing the choice to break out his maintenance company.
[07:09] - Why is Brad doing this? He wants to see the property management industry improve, he explains.
[09:49] - At the NARPM Broker Owner Conference, Brad will be doing a presentation on podcasting. If you’re interested in the topic, it will be a productive event!
[11:09] - Brad discusses his thoughts on competitors, and why he isn’t worried about giving things away to them.
[12:39] - We learn that Brad has eight full-time team members in Mexico. These people are far more than virtual assistants, he explains, and talks about what’s so impressive about them.
[15:10] - Brad moves onto another hot topic: Facebook marketing.
[19:30] - At first, Brad thought the Matterport 3D tour technology was very expensive, but it has turned out to be valuable.
[21:20] - Brad talks about hiring business development managers and employees.
[23:48] - We touch on what has really worked for Brad in the business development side, which is a five-tiered system.
[27:58] - Another thing Brad wants to talk about is their investor pocket listing concept, which reduces the losses from sales.
[30:25] - Brad circles back to how he’s using the Matterport 3D tour videos.
[32:43] - Let’s talk about hiring! Brad discusses the way they’ve typically found applicants and made hiring decisions.
[37:37] - Brad moves onto talking about leasing, saying that he rents to the best-qualified applicant.
[40:04] - Brad is a huge fan of doing leasing where the tenant never needs to go to the office.
[42:31] - We learn about structuring your business, with Brad offering his experience and insight.
[45:36] - Brad discusses something he heard recently about the dynamics of phone calls.
[46:30] - Another good topic for discussion is software providers.
[48:48] - One of Brad’s campaigns with NARPM is to create a NARPM accounting standard. He explains what this means, and what the intentions are.
[52:48] - Brad returns to the topic of his management company, RentWerx, and explains he’s recently teamed up with eXp Realty for Salewerx.
[55:11] - We hear about a potentially industry-changing landlord insurance property. Another thing that will become increasingly prevalent are syndications.
[57:25] - Brad moves into the final point of the episode with an exciting announcement: their company will be moving into Austin!
Links and Resources:
(619) 988-6708 (Allison DiSarro from Seacoast Commerce Bank)
I love offering listeners fantastic benefits, such as some great discounts for products. These include the PM Grow Summit, website production through Property Managed Website, showing services through Tenant Turner, and more, with new offers coming all the time! You can see a complete list of the current offers at propertymanagementmastermind.com. For all of these offers, use the discount code “Brad” to secure your discount.
Today’s guest is Ray Hespen, who’s here to discuss his relatively new product Property Meld. This amazing product, which we recently started using, basically links tenants, owners, and vendors together into one platform to help them coordinate maintenance.
Ray and his cofounder were both climbing corporate ladders, which involved moving around a lot, so they were renting in each new location. His cofounder pointed out how much of a pain it is to be a renter and get maintenance done. From that observation of the renter experience, they realized the need for a product like Property Meld. They then talked to a couple dozen property management firms to learn more, and then decided they had to make maintenance more automated, simpler, and more self-service oriented.
The main reason people rent these days is because they don’t want the hassle of being a homeowner, not because they don’t have the option of buying. This means that not offering a strong maintenance service is the second most common reason that renters don’t renew their leases. In fact, a whopping 31% of non-renewals are because of maintenance.
Property Meld automates a system that allows streamlined coordination and schedules the repairs, verifies completion, and follows up with the resident for you. It can do this without requiring phone calls, which tenants are notorious for hating and avoiding whenever possible. It also keeps a record of contact attempts to ensure that there’s evidence when tenants claim that they were never called. It also ensures quick scheduling; 85% of repairs are scheduled in under four minutes.
Tune in to hear all of this plus much more! We’ll also discuss how Property Meld helps managers favor good service providers (and weed out the bad ones), exactly how important it is to use text messaging instead of phone calls, how much Property Meld costs, and how quickly they can get you up and running with the system!
Here’s where you can find Ray:
Show Notes
[02:40] - Property Meld has been showing up at lots of conferences and intriguing people, Brad points out.
[02:54] - Ray talks about his background and how Property Meld started.
[03:54] - Maintenance is one of the first things that will get you fired as a property management, and it’s often forgotten about. Brad talks about the lessons he’s learned on the maintenance front.
[05:05] - Ray shares his thoughts on the costs of maintenance and the impact it can have. He and Brad talk about the stats of renting.
[07:54] - We learn that Property Meld takes a different approach to coordinating maintenance than in most conventional maintenance management systems.
[09:06] - Brad offers a hypothetical scenario to illustrate how Property Meld works.
[11:41] - Is there a specific stat for how much more quickly repairs are scheduled when using Property Meld?
[12:33] - On average, people open emails 15% to 20% of the time. Text messages, on the other hand, are read within the first 15 minutes of receipt 80% of the time.
[14:35] - Ray explains that their communication, not just scheduling is text messaging and email-based. He then reveals that you can even send YouTube videos through messages.
[16:41] - Brad steps in for a moment to share a story about a tenant whose air conditioning went out.
[17:30] - Brad has just recently implemented Property Meld. He shares some of his early experiences.
[19:12] - There’s a learning curve with everything, Ray points out. He then explains why good vendors love the system, and how it helps to weed out the bad vendors.
[22:02] - Ray talks listeners through the cost for the system and the savings that it can potentially provide.
[23:56] - Your vendors are an extension of your company as far as tenants are concerned, Ray explains.
[25:22] - Ray talks us through the steps of getting his system set up for a property management company.
[27:31] - Ray discusses the automated process of their onboarding. He then talks about the discount he’s offering to listeners!
[28:51] - Where will Ray’s next public appearance be?
[30:13] - Brad offers Ray the opportunity to name-drop some happy customers.
Links and Resources:
(619) 988-6708 (Allison DiSarro from Seacoast Commerce Bank)