Why Hire A Property Management Company & More On IPM | REIal Talk | Ep. 19

Hey everybody, it's Danny and Chris here. Usually it's a Flip and Danny combo, but I'm the co founder of the Freedom Real Estate Group family of companies and I've got Chris here with me today. This is our podcast Real Talk, which is real talk for real estate investors. And today we're actually going to be talking about a podcast that we did maybe three months ago now about IPM and our property management company and everything that was going on. The fact that we hired a operations consultant just to give us a bird's eye view. Right. Because you and I are in the weeds, right, all the time. It's very hard to see what's going on from that 30,000 foot view when you're in the weeds all the time. So we hired that person. We talked about it on a previous podcast and we said we were going to do another podcast in two to three months, two to be able to talk about the changes. And that's why I have Chris here today. So this is Chris Sonnino, our senior property manager. He's fantastic, amazing. I can't say enough good things about him. We truly love him. He's a great asset to us here and I wanted him to be able to talk about IPM in his own words. So do you want to start by kind of talking about you a little bit for anybody that might not know you?

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate the intro. I am. Well, as you said, I'm Chris Sonnino. I work here in the Freedom Real Estate Group as the head out of ipm, do everything, everything that comes with property management. I am an investor myself, which we were actually just talking about a little bit before the podcast. Again, I like property management, which makes me weird in some, some circles. Yeah, just a little bit. I'm a cat dad and I was a little bit unconventional. Do I like dogs? Cats are the thing for me. So in the free time, like golf and reading and learning and nature, when it's not so hot outside.

Nice. I love it. Well, we just did a golf tournament, right? And I don't know if it was a tournament, but it was kind of like a celebration thing. But how many people you were in? There was two groups. Right? So talk to us about that. Talk about the golf game and everything that happened. Just because it was a fun story.

Not supposed to be a tournament, it was supposed to be just a little fun casual golf outing turned into a tournament very quickly. If anybody you guys know, Mark, our ac, was investor director, very competitive person as well as our head of Bulldog. So it was a very interesting experience to say the least. I was actually in the group with Flip, Flip and Jeff actually. So it was definitely fun. I was, I played okay that day. I played well. But no, I was not in the top three.

That's okay. Fun was really all that matters, right? Yes. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, sorry, I went off on a tangent. I told you I would. Okay, so talk to us about ipm. Just what is it? What did I write down here? How do they. Oh, this is what I wanted to talk about. How do they interact with all the other companies? So who is IPM and how do they, you know, fit in this family?

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's kind of. There's been a lot of, I would say clarity. I feel we're going to say clarity a lot. Yeah, but a lot of clarity and defining what the vision was for IPM in the last six months. And I think that it's finally kind of blossomed. Right. It's gotten to a position where it's like very, very clear that IBM is not just a PM company off doing its own little thing out here. And we just kind of get clients as they come. Like we're now, I think you use the term vertically. Vertically integrated, yes. Where we're, we're the in house property management company for Freedom Real Estate Group. And then we also do referrals and contracts for Bulldog Renovations and send them work and then we help with some of the acquisition things with setting rents and whether our properties are going to be performing and just a full circle like property management company and service. And we do that within Freedom Real Estate. We do that in our market for our clients that are not a part of Freedom Real Estate Group. And then it's generally. And all of the Facebook groups that exist wherever we can get our hands in to just give some knowledge and make sure all investors that are in our markets are clear about what is possible with their asset. We're starting to do that. Part of that is inside of this company, in this building that people knock on my door, right? People knock and they ask, hey, this is probably going to rent. Like are we going to be able manage this?

Yes.

Can you get on the phone with this investor? He's kind of on the fence because the rent isn't where we need to be. But can you explain why? And we start having to like I started having discussions about investment strategies about hey, the rent's not there where it is now, but the market's shifting and so this is what you can maybe expect. And I think it's making. Providing a clear vision for the client as to what's possible. And IBM's starting to actually be able to do that and do that with some, some power and finesse, right?

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I love that we were able to find such a large office that all six companies could like be here. Right. Because I love. The Acquis is right down the hall from you and they can go, knock, knock, knock. Hey, Chris, can you help us with this? You know, rent, projection? What. What's reality for this neighborhood? Cause we're not sure. I love that Mark is, you know, close to you and he can say, hey, I'm getting ready to do this, or you can go to him, hey, this, you know, client wants to sell their property, can you help them?

Right.

There's so many things that we can do easier and faster because we're all, you know, here together. So I think that's super, super powerful. There's probably a million examples of how many people knock on your door.

Yeah. Oh, and then we have like other communication methods too that are just constantly going. And it's good. I mean, it's good. Having that open communication forum is. I think it's made this company so much better than others that do some similar things, PM included. You know, that's one thing that we've been working on a lot is being open in communication, trying to communicate with our clients before they even think to communicate with us. And that also works internally with all.

Of our companies, for sure. I was just going to hit on something. When you talked about the communication piece, it'll probably come back to me. In fact, it's about the vertical integration. Oh, wait, what was it? Okay, we're having coffee right now. Help me out. I can't remember. It's going to, it's going to come back. So let's go to the accomplishments part. So two or three months ago, we hired Aaron to come in and help us out. So since that point in time where we actually had somebody looking from the very, very top down, talk about what that's meant to IPM and maybe even just all of us, because he really is kind of digging into different things, not just ipm, because we work so closely together, what does that meant to IPM and what have you seen in terms of the growth over the last two to three months?

Well, it has been absolutely amazing, let's put it that way. At first it was peeling back the layers, trying to get to the core. I think sometimes when we're making decisions, we ask surface level questions and we don't get to the root. Right. What is actually like, one of the things that Aaron did is like, what do we do? Like, what do you, what does IBM do? And we're like, oh, we, we rent properties. He's like, no, what do we do? And he's like, oh, we do this. He's like, no, what is the one thing that IPM is supposed to be doing above anything else? And he's like, making owners happy. So now we, I have on my board, in my office just an owner joy number that just simply says, hey, is my owner happy? Right. And we measure that on a weekly monthly basis to say, okay, are we doing what we're supposed to be doing effectively? Right. And so that was just one example. I mean, he's peeled back several different things and we got people in the right seat playing to their superpowers a little bit.

Yeah.

And then also made sure that everybody was of only clear and they're responsible for one to two numbers, that those one to two numbers impact everything else in the company. Essentially. If you do these two things well, everything else will fall into place.

Yeah.

And if everybody's responsible for that one task, everything will work out. Instead of having my leasing agent responsible for leasing metric and then also, you know, making sure the turnover metrics good and all these other things, she's responsible for one thing.

Yes.

And then if she does that one thing better than anybody else, then we're golden.

Yes. Total simplification. Right. Which helped not just the company, but the people right now. They're not scattered or brained. Right. And trying to do ten things at once. They're just focused on this is my one thing. And there was somebody, Jason, I think, said it on a recent video. What I love most about the simplification and having, you know, these numbers is that we've been told we're not going to be hung by them.

Right.

You know, so talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, that's. That's really important. And when you make big changes. Right. In an organization, it's always hard to. Well, it's not always hard. It's not always easy to express that, like, hey, this change isn't your fault. Like, we're not making this change because you aren't doing a good job. We're doing this change because in the grand scheme of things is the best for our clients. Right. That's the best for our organization and our residents and all the moving pieces and then coaching and training through that process. And one of that. One of those things is we're changing this number, right?

Yeah.

And we may not even know what the number needs to be. Like, for example, one number was a number of invoices paid in a week, which is. You think that would not mean anything, but actually, it's very important. You know, when Mitch, who's responsible. Responsible for paying bills, she comes back, she's like, well, what if I can't hit that number? It's like, well, if you have 10 invoices and you pay eight of them, you've hit the number. Like, if you. If there's two, like, the reason why it's not 100% is, like, there might be some room where there's a couple things that were needed for invoice payment. And the next week, if you only make 50% of the invoices, you're not gonna be hung by it like we did. That's a chance for us to learn, right. If something falls short, it's an opportunity for us to analyze how can we be better, how can we get that number where it needs to be and then make the baby steps. So we track those numbers weekly so that we can make micro adjustments to processes and figure out in the long term, we don't get to end of a quarter. And we're like, oh, man. All of this stuff, we're able to do it on a weekly basis. And then. And I think it's. It's being received well. The team's excited, right? I mean, our leasing. I'm not gonna. Our leasing department's kicking a right. I mean, we're talking about, like, one week turnaround on a lot of our properties. I think we only have three units on the market right now, except for, you know, your property in Milltown, which is great, because normally we have, like, 20 properties on the market because we're not able to get them rented. Like, they're moving fast. And part of that's market demand. Part of that's just efficiency and process. Right. So as soon as you put the number in there, it's in somebody's face. Then all of a sudden, everything just seems to magically get at least a little bit better. And then we're able to work with it through the process. So Aaron's brought a lot of that clarity. A lot of those things we were kind of already working on. We just didn't know how to deliver it. Right. And so he was like, just, here, just sweep all this stuff out. And just, here you go. And so now we have just one page. We call it our IPM Health tab. It's a cell spreadsheet, but it just clearly defines. Hey, these are. This is where we're at. Let's talk about it. Let's have a real conversation. It's going quite well.

Yeah. That is awesome. See some of this stuff and why I love doing these, you know, podcasts, is because I don't even get to hear everything going on with everybody because it's just too much. Right. But then I can sit here with you now with our imaginary coff coffee, and, like, I get to hear. And I go, whoa, whoa. You know, that's super, super cool.

Yeah, it's. It's all. And, like, it was an avalanche of decisions. Like, all of it just came kind of at once. And we're like, okay, this needs to go here, and we need to. Oh, here's a problem. Let's figure out. It was just a lot. Yeah, it's kind of like uncorking a bathtub. Like, all the water just flooded into one area, and you got to figure out where it goes. Right. And that's kind of what we've done. And there's still a little bit. There's some trickling things that we're. We're ironing out, but for the most part, like, I'm ecstatic about what's going on right now.

That's awesome. Okay. Talk about goals and your mission.

Right? So goals. That's another thing that's kind of changed recently. I think any company, if I'm talking as a business owner, right now, goals are just, I want to grow. I want to be the biggest ever. Right. Reality check is, in order to obtain that, we have to do XYZ very well. Right. So we're focusing on xyz. I will say, like, right now, talk about growth and number of doors and all that good stuff. Like, already this month, we're the 12th of the month right now, and we're sitting at, like, 17 new doors coming in our pipeline. So we're averaging more than one a day. But the goal is stellar customer service. Right. So as long as we're doing those things, growth comes naturally. So because of the organic. Organically. Yeah. Yeah, 100. A lot of clients, I didn't even realize, like, have doors with other pm. Companies are calling and saying, hey, let's just bring them on over here. And I'm just like, yeah, Actually, right before I came in here, I got a text message from a client. He's like, hey, I've got, like, four Doors over here. Can I bring them over? I was like, sure, let's talk what I get out of this. So when we talk about goals, we change how we approach the goal. Of course there's always have smart goals, something that's measurable, but for us it's like we want to be to like a thousand. I won't put a number out there. A thousand doors, Right. What does that look like? Right. Yeah, we can add X number of doors per month or we can increase efficiency on this number of doors. Right. So kind of tagging in both ways. We're in increase efficiency on what we can reduce, you know, timelines that for turnovers and make sure that we're within a certain area and there's multiple different people on our staff that have their hands in that. So again, that goes back to their 1 number. If they, if my turn coordinator, you know, inspects the property in a certain amount of time and that's going to shave days off of the term period that we're going to be able then to lease it faster, reduce the number of days that it's vacant. Right. So working on all of those things individually for goals specifically. And we want to double our doors. Right. At least. Right. I want to be a thousand, but in the next year. Well, I think we said by July of next year if we're going to put a number on it. But you know, it all comes down to are we able to take it on and manage it efficiently. Obviously don't want to make any hasty decisions. I know we have a few larger acquisitions in the pipes that like Bulldog's working on a couple pretty big rehabs right now for us, but I don't see us pulling in 200 doors and one acquisitions anytime soon. But I'll leave that up to you. Right, right. Yeah. So I mean we're really close to just, you know, opening those doors up and just being able to set people in. So I mean, not going to put out hard, fast goals on the podcast. But yeah, I mean, go. I think that what we're looking for here is goals are being changed based on what's best for us and also best for our clients. We grew very, very fast and that was part one of our problems. And we grew from zero to 100 doors in less than six months, which doesn't sound like a lot unless you're actually in it, but it's a lot. And I think in that we had like two full transitions in that six month period where we're taking on like massive amounts of properties. All at once, and then turned around four months later and did it again with almost 200 doors. So there was a lot of growth very quickly. So putting the brakes on that and just being smart and strategic about that. And the second piece of that is building the systems in a way that allows us to scale. So we're like, we have quite a few staff members, but the staff members are in place, fully trained, fully operational. We should be able to take this and grow. And then I know we have a lot of clients that are like, hey, yeah, I've all this stuff going on. Let's add more, add more, add more. And we're just like, oh, let's. Let's baby step this.

Do it at a pace that we can manage. Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. So talking about staffing, this has come up because you and I have had hard conversations about, hey, you know, this is the metric out there for property management. This is how many people that you should have. I think what I've realized, as you guys have done all of this, is when you're in that growing phase, you need more people because you haven't figured out, you know, or you're building the systems, you're building the processes, you're. And we're bringing on two large portfolios, and they're coming in massive ways. And ultimately, I think what that did is it put us into a more powerful position because now there is a lot of people in there, but they're, as you just said, trained. And they're learning, you know, what their number is, how they impact the company, how they help the client. Which means when we do, when I go, Chris, I got $130 to send you, you can go, yes. And know that you have a team that can handle it, as opposed to, we need to hire or we need to prep for it. We've proactively just been there because of the road that we've been on. Would you say that's correct?

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. And I feel like honestly being in it, being in the weeds. Right. And finally be able to step out and be able to see everything that we're working on. Yeah, that's the goal. No transition or acquisition should be too big. Right. It should be a matter of how do we handle that. And I think with larger acquisitions, with larger transfers, purchasing a PM company or something large, there's always going to be some sort of staff change or adjustment or thing, and I think that's natural and that's fine. But being staff heavy for the sake of inefficiencies and process is a whole different conversation. Right. So stripping it down what is needed, building it from the bottom up instead of building it from the workload down, that's where we kind of flip the table a little bit.

That was a powerful gold nugget, by the way. So anybody like listening? I'd rewind and listen to that one again. So.

Good.

Didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just wanted to go bomb.

Well, maybe put like a little character in there bomb as well. So I mean. Yes. So to answer your question, yeah, no, it's very realistic. And when you're ready to say, hey, Chris, on 30 doors, we're gonna figure out a way to make that happen.

So publicly, I'm going to apologize to you for always going. You need to only have six people this many doors. I'm horrible and I'm sorry.

You know what? And I appreciate it. But at the same time, you're not wrong. So it's like you just have to approach it from if, if the industry says six. Right. Thank you industry for setting my standard for me. If the industry says 6 and we're at 9, why are we at 9 identifying that. Right.

Knowing to ask the question.

Right.

Yeah.

And. And if the, if the answer comes down to, oh, people are doing so much and there's so much work, okay, well then there's something wrong. Right. There's something wrong with the process. There's nothing wrong with is there really too much work? Or we just maybe approach and we're not prioritizing the right things. Are we not doing the right actions? And so like I said, we just strip it down and we say, okay, all these people and these are all the skill sets, where can we plug them into the work that needs to be done? And then all this extra stuff, like all the extra communications and all the extra nonsense work orders that don't actually need to go anywhere. Like are we spending extra time and energy on those? Can we just have a quick conversation and move on? Right. Randy talks about, you know, the low hanging fruit.

Yeah.

You have a task list. Do the hardest thing, just get it done. Right. And so having those types of high level discussion about prioritization of work has been instrumental. And Aaron's been a pivotal part of just saying, hey, this is great, don't get me wrong, let's do this, but let's do this first. Right. And then so we just keep pushing those along. So the addition of the assistant manager, that's one thing we've done. Hiring assistant manager who's Just going to head up. She's going to do kind of what I do, but only for, like, leasing and maintenance. So kind of overseeing, make sure those things are moving along, being there as an ear for the team. She has experience in the field, years experience in the field in leasing and maintenance oversight. So having her on the team is. She's still in training, so bear with me. I'm sure she'll be one of these podcasts eventually, but, you know, she. When she's fully in her role, like, she's going to be able to take over that responsibility, and then I'll have one person I can just go to and say, hey, what's going on with maintenance or with leasing or, hey, this resident. I saw this email come across from this resident. Like, how is this taken care of? Is all good. And then we just keep moving. Right. That. That type of thing will just be kind of a second thought for me versus having to be actively involved and making sure that things are moving.

I want. I just want to jump in and just say, I'm really, really happy that you finally have a number two. Right. So I think you've always needed that person, and I never realized how much you needed that person. Again, I think that's part of this whole growth thing of when Aaron came on board and us starting to have more conversations and having somebody with some knowledge that could go, I see this, I see this, I see this. And then help us all communicate a little bit better and realize that this is too much, you know? Right. So talk about that a little bit about the. The stress of you having to be the head, the only head. You don't have a number two, and you're in charge of all these people, and we're bringing on so many doors from one company and then we do a merger with another company. So, like, we probably need all. Needed all of these staff at the very beginning, but you took on the load and the shoulders, and it was tough. So talk about that.

Yeah, so when you were saying that, the image that popped in my head was like, you know, sometimes you hear about people learning to swim by just being thrown in the deep end and saying, hey, do the breaststroke. Right? Yeah. This analogy which she's mentioning is more of tossing somebody into a tide pool in the middle of the big wave and saying, hey, figure out how to swim in. So. And we. So it was always, always our intention to have an assistant manager. I mean, it's like it wasn't thought of. Right. So we've hired people and we're Going to groom you and bring you through this process, and then you'll be able to take that seat eventually. Just nobody's really filled that role. Right. So now we were a little bit more intentional. We actually was like, no, we want to hire somebody at the seats at this level, not bring them in as a leasing agent or not bring them in as a coordinator of some kind and then move them, but intentionally hire somebody in that role and then also kind of train up and down. So not only train them up the line to be a leader, but train them down to be a supervisor and a manager and be able to wear the hat while having the experience. So they may not do it IPM's way, but they say, hey, look at my experience. You know, I mean, the same thing. When you hired me into this role in the beginning, I'm like, look, I've never run a property management company. I'll be very honest with you. But what I have is years experience doing X, Y and Z, and I think that's useful. And same with the assistant manager. Hey, used to work in apartments, right. It's a different game than managing a 475 unit, you know, portfolio across five different counties in Ohio. So it's definitely using that experience and plugging it in where it's needed. And she's already been instrumental in that. As far as me needing a number two, I mean. Yeah, great. Yeah. I mean, I think we were telling you for years, hey, you need number two. And then you finally got Jeff right. So it's the same type of thing. Just finding the right person was key. And I think Mariah, I'm a name drop Mariah, She's. She's that person. And like I said, she's still growing to the role. She's. I think she's only like 30, 30, 45 days in, so she's still new, but she's doing phenomenally. And one of the key things. I know it's on the list, so I'm going to bring it up now. But, like, one of the things that we added on was a maintenance department. Like, a lot of. I don't know if anybody knows any of our clients are watching, like, for the longest time. Like, we, we have. We have vendors that work with us. They give us better rates because they work with us kind of exclusively do work with us, but they're not employees. Right. We have no control over schedules. We kind of, hey, I kind of want this done on Monday. The resident kind of wants the afternoon. If they don't schedule to Wednesday. We don't have a lot of control over that. Right. So that was a lot of the problem with like backed up work orders and weird billing issues that we were having. So we're talking about efficiencies. Let's just hire some maintenance guys. Let me, let me figure out how to cover their salary. Right, but, but let's just hire some maintenance guys, pull the plug. Let's do it. And the question immediately became of, nobody other than me has ever ran a maintenance department. Chris doesn't have the bandwidth to run a maintenance department. So how are we going to do that? So, you know, we brought in Emma, who used to work. She kind of floats around the company. She does, she does everything. Literally got to love Emma. So we brought her in because she has some experience with Bulldog. She, she was running Bulldog for a while there. So she has the kind of foreknowledge of what we expect with maintenance and repairs and how some of those weird warranty quirks work and then also the vertical integration into freedom. Right. So that's very important. This transition brought her in with the help of Tina. Tina was kind of already helping and started kind of restructuring how maintenance was looking. And then we brought in the maintenance guys. So we have three. So we have two in house and one that's an exclusive vendor. He has a full time job. He does work for us three days a week that we get him three days a week at our rate. So we set the rates, we set the workload, we set schedules, and then we're able to just strategically handle maintenance. And then Mariah plugged in in the middle of that and she was like, oh, I can run maintenance crews here, I'll do this. She printed all our work. Like, true story. We said, hey, we're thinking about maybe next week, you taking over some maintenance, right? Just kind of schedule the maintenance techs so that our coordinator can focus on vendors, the people that we have to outsource work orders. She's like, you think of Monday? I was like, yeah. She's like, okay. She came in Monday with the entire work order list printed, highlighted, color coded, and scheduled for the whole week. And I was like, keeper 100%. So she had all of the maintenance guys scheduled for the next week. And I was just like, okay, yeah, you're definitely, you're it. Right? So she, she did that and she started working with Emma and with our coordinator. And we're starting to see all of that volume. The work that was backed up cleared out and we're moving the right way. On that. And then now we're into a sustainable model where we can handle the work orders that they come in and we're not having to send them to a vendor that's going to charge the owner three times as much. Right. Ultimately, out of all. Everything. Out of everything, that's the biggest win is that our clients aren't being charged three times as much. We're able to get it done within 24, 48 hours, and they're not being charged $1,000 for $150 repair.

Yeah. And let's roll into what you were talking about earlier about the dichotomy of. Because I think what you just said said to me, because I'm one of your clients, right. So it said to me, you just solved a problem that helped me. It also helped my tenant. Right, Right. So do you want to jump in there?

Yeah. So, yeah, there's definitely. One of the things I think is sometimes overlooked when it comes to PM is, yes, I serve my clients, right. I have a contract to make the best possible decision for the asset and operate a certain standard. Okay. Part of that is I have to make another person happy, right? I have to make the resident happy. Because if the resident's not happy, they're going to figure out a way not to pay rent. They're going to figure out a way to not take care of the property, which is going to cause not only me more headache, but the client. Okay? I think we all can agree that none of us are in investing to manage tenants, right? So the PM is very, very important. And that being said, the resident satisfaction resident, we call it resident joy, is very important. Kind of the oil to this whole machine, Right. We have to have that thing, have it working in order for the rent to come in, whether for maintenance to be coordinated. So that way we can get the, you know, we can raise the rents, which isn't a whole other discussion and all those good things that happen. So there's a dichotomy. That's what you mentioned. There's a balance, a yin and yang to everything that we have to do. Resident has a work order come in saying, hey, I got to have this problem, this sinks leaking. We have to be able to address that as cost effectively for the client, but as quickly as possible for the resident and make sure it's done right. Now imagine that just exponentially make that bigger because we have have, you know, 450 occupied units. So that's 450 potential problems each and every day. Right? So figuring out how to do that efficiently, ultimately, is what the goal is. And the balance there can be a little bit hard, it can be difficult because sometimes a resident doesn't care that, hey, it's going to be a thousand dollar repair. I have to go talk to the. I have to talk to the person who's gonna be paying this, right?

Yes.

They're in California. It's a four hour, three hour time difference. Like they're not even awake at 10 o' clock in the morning our time. Like, I have to wait at least a couple hours. I can make a call. Like I'm gonna just. Let's get it done. It's a thousand bucks.

Yeah.

And then, you know, I still have to deal with the client and we have to. There's a lot of unilateral decision making that happens there. And there's definitely. It's a juggling, it's a balancing act. And that's where our clients having a relationship with me and with the rest of my team and having that confidence to make the right decision, then that eases kind of some of that. Yeah. But again, you know, it goes back to the team being able to make a decision and not feeling their head's going to be in the news for it. Right. Because it all kind of feeds back into each other, into itself. And we're like, that's an ongoing training, coaching. Hey, this is how we handle these decisions.

Yeah. And feeling okay that they can make a mistake. Right?

Yeah. And it's okay to make a mistake. I'm pretty sure I made a mistake this morning somewhere. Right. It's okay. It's just what do you do with it? Right. And there's always. And then, and then. And that's just where we're at. Okay. You made this decision now what? Right. And then also making sure, like the client understands that, you know, we're making the best decisions possible. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Tell, tell me. We've talked about this many, many times. I don't even personally know what we've done or implemented. Some of the things we always like to. We probably have a list that's this long of ideas that we have for residents is where I'm going with this. And with that list, we know that this one might be implemented in two years or six months or whatever. But we were trying to set ourselves apart in a way that it kind of became a five star. And we call our tenants, we call them residents on purpose to have a different mindset, not just for us, but for them to, hey, you are one of Our residents, you're not a tenant, you know, and we want to treat them as such. So have we implemented anything in those list of ideas? Are we going to. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the whole tenant versus resident thing is very important. We call this portfolio or community. Even if it's North Dayton, all the way Cincinnati, there's an hour and a half difference in commuting time. It's still a community. Like, we're all. We're all connected together. And so a couple of things that we have already implemented is there's a resident referral program. So if there's a resident that loves living in one of our properties, they have a friend who wants to move in or a family member. If they refer them, they get a referral fee. Essentially, we just give them a gift card for. I think it's. I want to say it's $50, unless we're running a promotion and then it's more. I think we're always open to raising that or making it. I think we have monthly competitions as well that our marketing team runs. I think we just had a. A Father's Day competition or somebody got $100 gift card. Guy was in a really fly white suit, by the way. Just want to say we do a Mother's Day competition where they can submit, like, you know, like, not just photos of their mom, but like, hey, what are you doing for your mom this year? And kind of goes through into the selection committee process and all that good stuff. We're starting to give the resident engagement. That's what we're looking for. Like, we want them to know, like, hey, we're not just, just, we're not landlords. Like, 100 clear. I'm not a landlord. We're providing an essential service and we want you to feel part of our, you know, community. Another thing is we do movement specials. Movie special is not the traditional sense of, hey, we're going to incentivize you to move into our property. But like, once you move in. I guess moving gift is a better word once you move in. Like, here's. Here's a gift from us. I think this last batch was like, brownies, okay? Like, we. We went on, bought a bunch of like, like the good, like Betty Crocker, like, make your brownie self type thing. And like, if you like household items, I think there's a marketed magnet that has like our contact information stuff on it. And I think. I think they all. They stuffed it into an oven mitt, like, and like we presented it to them when they moved in. So it just like. Plus it gives Mariah a chance to actually go out and meet them. They know there's a face. We're not just numbers on a phone, that we're actually real people. Because I think that kind of makes the communication a little bit more transcendent. Like they understand, like, okay, I'm not just somebody somewhere. I'm local, I'm here. This is this. One of the things that's really nerve wracking for some tenants is like we have a very. Our leasing process is kind of hands off. It works. Very efficient. It works, but it's very hands off. And so having that face person. Okay, you, you, I can talk to you, right? There are a few other things that we're working on. Like we kind of played around with the resident newsletter. I think we're gonna go big with it, which is why we haven't done a whole lot with it yet. I think we're gonna like brand it and make it like a, like a borderline newspaper type thing where it's like, has its own little name and it gets sent out on a regular basis. So there's other things in the work. I don't know the strict timeline on that. A lot has to do with a timeline for marketing and things, but. And then the couple things that just need to happen for our business anyway that have helped the residents out is like we rebuilt our website so it's a little bit more access, a little more user friendly. They have access to their resident portal on their own. Our clients have access to their owner portals on there, which is new. Before it's like, hey, let me send you a link. And they have to go to some obscure website to find. Now it's just, you have one spot you can go to, you can find all the information. Plus our properties are on there too, the ones that are available for rent. So it's all in one place.

I think that that's powerful. So I'll say a couple things. One, our camera stopped working, but I'm not going to bother Flip. For Those watching on YouTube, you're just going to have to listen to us at this point. But. But it's powerful for me as an owner to hear you say all of those things. And that's part of why I asked. Because sometimes I just don't know everything. And this is my opportunity to ask you questions that I'm sure other people want to know too. But I love it because you are now creating an atmosphere in which My resident is going to stay there longer. They're going to want to be here, they're going to want to find another even IPM type property because they like the management and they like the experience, things like that. And they're getting fast maintenance, fast response time. They do have that physical touch, because how often does that happen, you know, in property management anymore?

Yeah, I'm not even sure, like, to be honest. Like, I think back to the days when I rented. Like, I think I only met the landlord when they signed the lease and when then I moved out. Like, I'm not sure that I actually saw them during my two years that I was there, not that they had to necessarily be there, which is one of those things. Like, you know, thinking back is like, how. How involved are people? Right. When it comes to that. Yeah. So we definitely want to give the impression. It's not just an impression. Like, it's a reality. They're more than a rent check. Right. There are people that have feelings, and their feeling matters, and I want them to feel welcome and safe in their environment, in their home. And that takes on many different faces and takes on different tasks that happen. I mean, the asset has to function, the product has to work.

Yeah.

They also have to feel like they can reach out and talk to me when they need to. And, you know, my team having smiling faces, you know, all the. All of those things come into play to make PM work.

I think that's a key differentiator, you know, because I know. I just don't see a lot of companies going after that, you know, they're just trying to do their job, get, you know, paid, you know, and the interests aren't always aligned, you know, with the residents and the owners, and that's tough to juggle. But I think that you guys are doing a really good job. So I want to ask you this. So I asked you before the podcast, you know, what. What are things that people should know? What do they want to know? What can we talk about in a forum like this that kind of spreads it out there, and you hit one really good about COVID in the environment, how it impacted, you know, your world.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. So it's getting real serious for a second. I'm gonna try to layer in some funny and some sarcasm. All right? So bear with me. No, so on a real note, the game's changed.

Yeah.

I mean, as an investor, like, I have to make decisions differently. I mean, I think you can assess that you have to make decisions differently just based on our economy and I, I don't think on the macro level, I don't think like looking at Wall street is a good indicator of how things really are for the people that are in the lower and the middle class. Right. And that's what most of our tenants are in the, in the middle class. So the reality is things are forever changed. Okay? The new normal will be that, it will be a new normal. The market is doing insane things right now. Like I talked to a client out in California yesterday and he was saying that the rents are changing daily. Like they're going up and down hundreds of dollars in a 24 hour period. It's not as drastic in Dayton, in our market right now in Ohio, but they're definitely inflated. I'm running properties for $1300 like it's nobody's business. And it's crazy and I love it and my clients love it and my residents aren't complaining about it. But when it comes to Covid in this post pandemic future, it's a real thing. Like we just have to be mindful that people's, their lives have changed forever. Right? So they're not going to be in the same jobs, they're not going to be making the same income, everything's going to look different. So when we're making decisions in PM about rents, for example, like we're making that decision based on not just what the market's able to bear, but, but also what our residents can afford. Right. And what's sustainable. Luckily your PM is also an investor, so I'm looking at trends, I'm looking at, okay, hey, this property's doing this, this area is performing well right now, but where do I see it going in the next year? Is this an area I would buy in? Right. And if I make, if I make assessments based on that, then I'm very forward and very honest, like, hey, I can rent this property for 900 bucks. Now if you tell me to run it next year, I might only get 850. I'm going to be honest with you. And having, I think that kind of goes back into setting the expectation, right? That's one thing that we're working on. Actually have a meeting right after this just to discuss setting expectations for the life of the client. And this is one of those things is like, hey, yeah, this property is going to rent well above what we said initially was going to rent for two months ago because the market's grown. But, but when I go to re rent it, it may not be, that might not be the reality. Right. And that's the same with the residences. You know, right now they can afford the rent, but in three months, their whole lives can change with a flip of a coin, and there's not a whole lot they can do about it. So IPM itself, we've been very fortunate. We only have had a handful of clients that have been affected by Covid in this regard. You know, our eviction timelines have doubled, which we're going to do everything in our power to influence the outcome there. But reality is, things change. And right now things have been extended at the federal level. So, like, we're still an evolving economy and evolving process when it comes to this. There's a second wave supposedly of COVID in the works. Numbers higher than ever, I guess, based on what the news says, which I'm not going to go there. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know how actually accurate that is or not, but what I know is that the standard conversation from the hundreds of communications we have daily with clients and leads and all these different sources is that things are still changing. We're not. We're not done yet. Right. And so because of that, like, just make sure you talk to your pm if it's me or somebody else, like, they should be the expert in their market. And I'm not saying that I am. I just want to be clear. I'm trying. Right. But. Yeah, just give me a call.

Yeah.

I mean, if you call Mark, he's going to say, call Chris.

Yes. And I loved that you pointed out in there that you're an investor. I think that that's so, so powerful because you understand the conversation, you understand what we're thinking, you know, as your clients, because you're thinking the exact same thing for your portfolio of properties. So that is. I don't know how rare it is, but I think it's super powerful that we have that here, especially since all of our clients are. I mean.

Well, yeah, most of them are not even in Ohio.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so they've got somebody that understands, even sometimes maybe you understand more because they're a new investor. And so you get to teach them and coach them and say, hey, this is what I would do. And this is why I'm an investor myself. I get your mindset. And so that's powerful to have that I would hire. I would never hire again. Another property management company that was not run by an investor.

Yeah, yeah. I think that from the get go, like what the original idea for IPM was to be in a company by investors for investors. I mean, you and Flipper investors. A couple of the other key players in the the building, including Tina is an investor. So I think that's important just in the organization, across the board, even in Freedom Real Estate and all the companies, like, look at just the department heads. All of them invest in some form or fashion. Right. So I think that's important. We're making decisions not because we're a business, not just because we're a business, but because we understand and we have the same vision and goals as most of our clients do. Yeah. So setting expectations and delivering on the expectations the best we can is what we're trying to do. Yeah. It comes with the balance of the residents and all the good things we talked about. But yeah, no, it's. It's all good. It's good stuff.

I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on here. Is there anything that you think that we should cover that we did not cover?

No, I mean, it's. I'm really excited about what's coming for IPM and the market. I think we're. We're doing a couple emerging markets things too, where we're buying more in Cincinnati, which is new territory. It's not new territory for me. It's just new territory for ipm.

Yeah.

And then. Yeah, I mean, that's it. I mean, I think we had our first client in Springfield this week that we onboarded some in Springfield. So we're kind of. We're growing, we're getting out there a little bit.

Yeah.

Spreading wings. So it's all good. Yeah. No, there's no, there's really nothing else. I mean, it's all good stuff.

Yeah. I'm super, super proud of you. You've come a long way. It's hard to build a company. And you are at the there at the very beginning. You were there before the beginning. Right. You started starting writing processes before we. Even while we're talking to the brokers, getting the LLC set up and everything like that, like from the very, very beginning. So there's not a lot of people. We've grown so big that can. That we can say that about that. You are here from the very, very start.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I remember those days. I remember. I also remember taking a vacation like was pre planned like two months into this and I'm sitting on a beach with a computer typing up like Elise getting everything started. Yeah, I remember that. Those are good days. But man, it's been a ride. We've been since like somebody told me it's only been two years, and I was like, there's no way. There's no way it's only been two years.

Yeah, it feels. It feels so much longer. And. But we've done so much so fast. Like, and now you have a number two. And so, like, Flip and I just got to take a DND and, like, our desire for everybody else, especially in the key leader position, where the weight's fully on your shoulders and you get hung by the noose all the time. You get to, you know, hopefully now Mariah steps up and you can go on a DND vacation and be able to actually, you know, love on your wifey fiance. You know, I don't know what stage you're at and actually take, you know, a break because, you know, it's important and it's needed and you deserve it. So I love that we're finally getting to that stage where the key leaders get to go. I'm proud of where we've come, and I'm actually going to get a break.

Yeah, it's all good. I'm really excited about all the things that are going on, not just for ipm, for all the companies in general. Definitely, definitely excited to be here. Be here for a long time.

Well, thank you again. I know that you're not always thrilled about being on video or talking for an hour about anything, but I appreciate it because you're. You're. You have a lot of wisdom. You have a lot of golden nuggets. You're very, very experienced in the property management world, and I think you bring a lot of value to things like this. So thank you for being here.

Yeah, Totally appreciate it. And actually, yeah, I don't mind being on video. Not anymore. Yeah, yeah. Overcome that fear. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't do it. And then, you know, and then we have Caitlin now she's just like, hey, by the way, tomorrow, bring a nice shirt. And I'm just like, why? Just like, just bring a nice shirt. And then I just show up and just like, oh, yeah, you got to go to the. The video room. And I was like, oh, okay, let's just do this. Yeah, it's all good. Yeah, it's all good.

That's funny. Well, great. So we always. And I didn't prep you for this, so hopefully you know how to help me out.

Oh, yeah.

At the very end of the podcast or vlogs, it doesn't matter.

We always end with invest smart and live happy. Yeah.

All right, thanks, everybody.

Bye. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions and information on this show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.