265: Kidnapped by Russian Mobsters and How to Manage 13,000 Rental Units with Andrew Propst

This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 265.

We took over this property. Our average rent was.

$465. Today our average rent is $715.

Wow.

Only thing that changed that we, you know, we didn't do anything crazy to the. We added some baseboard and we repainted the interiors when people moved out.

Yeah.

And we added dishwashers. And that's it. That's all we did. And we've got the rents up to $715.

You're listening to Biggerpockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com your home for real estate investing online. What is going on, everyone? This is Brandon, the host of today's BiggerPockets podcast, here with my wonderful co host, Mindy Jensen. How you doing, Mindy?

Brandon, I am doing awesome. Today's a great day. How are you doing today? I'm doing good.

I'm doing good. You know, you and I bought a mobile home park along with Ryan Murdoch and that's going well. I actually just got an email from him. I don't know if you saw it came in when we were recording the podcast.

No, I was paying attention to the recording, Brandon.

As soon as we hung up from the recording, I checked it and he says, right, Ryan, who's our boots on the ground guy, said, this is great. I got to read this. So he said, where is it? One other weather related nuisance, we had a ton of snow between Christmas and the first week of January to the point where the plow guys had nowhere left to push the snow. That's a pretty common thing here in Maine. So they end up bringing up giant bucket loader to come and move snow. Anyway. That's fun. I never knew I'd get that email.

That happened to me in Wisconsin. The first year I lived in Wisconsin, they got 101 inches of snow. And at the end of the day, like the 101 inches, I'm like, I can't even throw it high enough over the snowbank on the driveway to get it off the driveway. I don't know where to put this anymore.

Wow.

Well, yeah, I ended up throwing it in the street. Let those plows take care of it.

Anyway, anyway, so, anyway, so that's fun. I'm excited. We can kind of like, over the next few years, give people updates on how it's going. But so far, so good. No exploding pipes, and that's a good thing. So.

And they've had bitter cold. I sent a note this morning, like, hey, I just want to double check. Like, I'm the silent partner in this, but I don't really want to be silent. I want to learn all I can about mobile home parks. So together we can take over the mobile home park industry.

We are taking it over. So anyway, it's fun being in this deal with you. And yeah, you guys, I want to. I want to speak to everybody here on the podcast right now. And we'll get to the interview in just a second. But I want to say, like, BiggerPockets is such a cool place to find people to work with. Like, me and Mindy are working together. I work with a lot of people from BiggerPockets because, like, everybody has something that they can bring to the table and then something that they need. Right? And so just like, start networking, talking with people. That's how you do business, is by networking. And BiggerPockets is the largest real estate site in the world for networking, so. And guess how much it costs. It's free for a membership unless you become a pro member, which is even more cool. But anyway, do it. Hang out in the forums. Mindy is a sheriff over there in the forums. You'll see her a lot there.

Yes, you will.

Yeah, you're the, you're the one that, like, cracks down people when they start, you know, self promoting themselves.

Like I crack the whip. Yes, I do want to say that if you have something to offer somebody, if you want to be in a partnership with somebody or you want to even just do some sort of business with somebody, tell them what you can bring to them before you ask them for things.

Very, very good tip right there. That could be today's quick tip, but. But it's not the quick tip. It could be though.

That's just the regular old tip.

That's the old tip.

Today's quick tip is quick.

Is, do you know that we offer landlord forms on our website?

State specific landlord forms.

State specific landlord forms. Yes. We worked with attorneys in individual states to take a lease and make sure that it conforms to that state's landlord tenant laws. Today you will hear our guest, Andy Propst, talk about knowing your landlord tenant laws and even using them as a way to gauge where you want to invest. And your lease must follow your landlord tenant laws of your state. So we did the hard work for you we currently have. When this show goes live on February 8th, we will have 15 states available at biggerpockets.com forward/ll forms. That's L, L, F as in Frank O RMS for landlord forms.

There you go. We got states like California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, Indiana and a few more. New York, Illinois and a bunch more coming. And new ones being added all the time. Every month we add new ones. So I check back often. BiggerPockets.com ll forms ll stands for what?

Landlord.

Landlord. The Lord of the land.

Ladies Love. Like LL Cool J. Oh, is that.

What that stands for?

Ladies love Cool James. Really?

Brandon?

Really?

I thought it was Landlord Cool James. I don't know.

Weird. Oh, wow.

Okay. So anyway, nobody wants to hear us?

No. Okay, moving on. Let's bring in our our guest here in a minute.

Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of the smartest ways to protect and even improve your property's cash flow. And as the months get colder, frozen pipes, icy walkways, and seasonal wear and tear can increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning to steadily. They focus exclusively on landlords. Whether it's a single family rental, a Brrr Builders risk policy, or midterm holiday guests, you get fast quotes, flexible coverage and protection for property damage, liability and even loss of rental income. Now is the perfect time to review your rates and coverage. Get a quote in minutes@biggerpockets.com landlordinsurance steadily landlord insurance designed for the modern investor.

My assistant's great. He's also terrible because he's me. Turns out multitasking isn't a great business model. Belay knows real estate investors grow faster when they spend time closing deals not buried in admin work. That's why they built the Executive Assistant Task Calculator, a free tool that reveals how much valuable time and money you're losing every week. Once you know your number, Belay can match you with a US based executive assistant to take take those tasks off your plate so you can get back to building wealth. You're just one assistant away from doubling your deal flow. Text biggerpockets to 55123 to download the free calculator today. You know, a lot of us work hard to build savings and start investing. But let's be honest, trading can feel like a full time job. The charts, the timing the constant second guessing, it's stressful, right? You're always wondering, am I making the right move? Now you can eliminate all of that with QuickFund AI. QuickFund AI takes the emotion out of trading with an automated system that the work for you. No staring at screens all day, no overthinking every move. Just smart automated trading strategies that can run while you sleep. And here's what sets QuickFund AI apart. With their Quick Fund guarantee, qualified clients receive up to $300,000 trading capital, 12 months of waived service fees, and a money back guarantee on the software itself, giving you the power to trade smarter without tying up personal assets. So if you're ready to trade smarter, not harder, visit QuickFund AI to get started. That's Q U I C K F U N d a I QuickFun AI where technology earns for you.

So today's guest is actually a guy. So my buddy Nathan Brooks, who's a awesome dude out of. Where's he at? Kansas City. I think he's going to yell at me if I got that wrong.

But anyway, Memphis?

No, he's not in Memphis. But he's like, he's got a, he's got a turnkey company out there in the Midwest somewhere. Man, he's going to yell at me for not knowing that. Anyway, he actually connected me here with Andrew Probst. Andrew is a property manager who has 13,000 units under management in a bunch of different states. I can't remember how many, but like a dozen states or something like that.

11, I think.

11? Yeah, I mean, like. And he also has his own investment as well. He's recently bought a 42 unit apartment building, is making like $1 million on it. It's crazy. You guys got to hear the story. We go through a lot of landlord stuff today, talking about how to become a better landlord and property manager, but also how to find deals. He's got some amazing tips on finding deals, stuff that we don't really, I don't even think we've ever talked about here on the show.

So I was going to say I've never heard either of those two main tips that he shares on any of these 264 other shows that we've had.

Yeah, he's, he's legit. So you guys make sure you listen to that. If you're enjoying this show, as always, please leave us a rating and review and subscribe to our channel over on itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And also Mindy's got a show called The BP Money show. Make sure you guys listen to that and subscribe to that as well. So, without further ado, did you like that quick plug for your show, Mindy?

I do. I appreciate that. Thank you. I want to say this is the best first five minutes of any podcast we've ever done.

Yeah, don't tell Josh that.

Yeah. Well, Josh, this is the most interesting first five minutes of the actual show. We've been yammering around for five minutes already, but the actual show, when Andy comes in.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

The first five minutes ever.

Yeah.

Okay. So without further ado, let's bring him in.

Andy, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man. It's good to have you here.

Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Yeah, this should be a lot of fun today. So before we get into any talk about real estate, I want to address the. I don't know what I call it. Elephant in the room. Because nobody knows there is an elephant in the room. But something I just. I saw in, like, your bio, and I was like, no way. So I looked it up, and sure enough, like, you have an incredible story, like, not even related to real estate having to do with being kidnapped. I want to hear. Can you tell us the story and everybody else. We're going to get to real estate in a minute. I got to hear this from you?

Yeah. I'll make it a quick version. The good news about the story is they made a movie about me being kidnapped. So that helps me shorten the story because I'll just send you to the movie. You can stream it live on prime now. It's free. So, yeah, I was an LDS missionary. I was 20 years old. My dear companion and myself, we were approached by some Russian mobsters we didn't know at the time. They asked us to come to their apartment to talk to them about what we do. Selling religion, basically. So we went to the apartment, we walked in, and immediately we just started getting beat by bats, just knocked over the head. We didn't know what was happening. Oh, my God. It was crazy traumatic. They bound us, they tied us up. They took us out in the middle of nowhere in this little town in Surat of Russia. And we were held captive there for a week. And there was a $300,000 ransom demand on the church or the American government, my family, anybody that would pay, obviously, a church, government, anybody, won't pay those ransoms, because if they do, then every missionary, every tourist would be a target. Five days later, the fsb, kgb, the church security, state Department, we Had help from Bill Clinton, Gordon Smith, lots of pressure. They got scared, and they took us out in the middle of nowhere and dropped us off, and we hiked back to our missionary home, and they flew us to Germany. We spent a couple days getting checked out in the hospital, and then we got reassigned to England, and then I finished my mission in 1980. Reassigned? Yeah, reassigned to England. So, yeah, I mean, that's a very short version, but again, it's a great movie. I got called by a. A director in 2011. He said, Hey, I wanted to make a movie about this story. It seemed like an awesome story. I want to know the rest of it. That was in 2011, and then we released it in November of 2013. It's got, like, four and a half stars on Amazon. It's a great movie called the Saratov Approach. S A R A T O V Approach. Believe it or not, obviously, going on a mission, you learn a lot about life, and then you get kidnapped, you learn a lot more about life. It was a very difficult experience at the time, but probably one of the biggest learning experiences I've had. It really teaches you a lot about what's important, and you typically don't get that when you're 20. Yeah.

That was really good. That was a really quick version. I'm sorry.

That's the best icebreaker story ever.

Yeah, it was pretty funny because I was meeting with a property management owner last night here in Arizona. I'm here at a conference, and they were mentioning that some Russians broke into their bank account and stole $900,000. And then the CIA called them and said, I think your husband's been kidnapped. And I said, oh, that's very interesting, because I've been kidnapped by Russians. And they're like, really? Just totally out of the blue, just blew him out of the water. I'm like, yeah, so, yeah, they didn't know that I was. So I just kind of blew them.

Wow. That's random.

Wow. Yeah.

Wow. So we're gonna make a really awkward transition here. How did your. How did this experience, being kidnapped by Russian mobsters lead you to get into real estate investing?

Well, this. This is pretty interesting. Like, I. I'm just kind of a cheap, frugal guy, right? I just, like, I. I don't, like, like throwing away money, just that weird stuff. And I always thought that, like, this is probably bad for the podcast. Like, I never wanted to pay rent. I either wanted to build equity, but just never. Just throw rent away. And so when I got off my mission, I tried Immediately, because my sister, when I was on my mission, she wrote me, she said, I'm managing properties, I'm an on site manager and I don't have to pay rent. And I was fascinated by that. You get to live there for free and basically do nothing. I said, I want to do that. I got back from my mission and nobody would hire me because they all said, hey, we're only hiring couples. We need somebody that does maintenance. And then your wife would typically do the books. And so I'm like, oh, well, this is an easy fix. I'll just get married. And so basically married the first girl I saw who's like the best woman in the world. We've been married for almost 20 years. So we got married, we walked in the first job we interviewed for, we got hired and I started my property management career in 1999 as an on site manager at the Crossroads Village in Tigard, Oregon.

Wow.

That's how I started in the property management, real estate. And then obviously you're not paying rent, you can set money aside and then build your net worth that way. So I always worked a second job, but always managed properties my whole life.

We moved to Idaho. I got really serious about property management, building the single family side along with the multifamily side. Got a bunch of certifications in property management, commercial real estate, and just grew, started to grow my own personal portfolio and most importantly, helping others because I understand the intricacies of the business and what tenants are doing and where the demands are, et cetera, helping other people grow. In Boise alone, we've helped put 3,600 new units in the ground, just new development just in Boise, which is a lot for Boise. But we're also doing it in other markets too, which is great. And then we've helped owners really take advantage of the down real estate cycle. We helped people buy in 2008-2009-2010-2011, and then that's kind of slowed in our market. So now we're pushing people to other markets where the yields are better. So it's just, it's been a long ride and.

The real estate roller coaster, but it's been fun. And.

Building my own portfolio is fun, but helping other people kind of reach their investment goals is like, that's what makes you feel good.

That's awesome.

So I kind of wonder you guys do the same thing.

Yeah, we try. We try. I, I, so I want to, you got experts in two, you know, a lot of areas, but specifically two areas I want to focus on today. Number One is that you're like your personal journey. I want to know, like, your own real estate. How did you do all that? How, like, what did you buy? And we'll go through that first. And then I want to shift over to like, how do we manage tenants? Like, what are the things you've learned now in managing properties, managing tenants, dealing with people? Because, like, honestly, a lot of people get into real estate and they think that the hard part is buying the real estate. Then it's all easy from there. But really, you could get an amazing real estate deal, the best deal ever, and still go bankrupt because you don't manage your properties. Right. It doesn't end once you get the units. So I think we'll kind of split between the two. So maybe we start with. Let's talk with you. How did you get started with your own actual investments? What did you buy first?

Yeah, I think my first investment was a duplex. And I bought this in 2008 in Nampa, Idaho. It was a duplex. It was a newer duplex. It was built in 2006 or 7. And then immediately the guy bought it, leveraged it to the hilt. Right. And then who knows what kind of tenants they put in there. I think he paid like a 1% cap rate for this thing. It was just ridiculous. And he was just going to hold it for a couple days and then sell it for $100,000 more. And that's what everybody would do. So they put 100% down, probably.

Took.

25% off the top of that, and then immediately the market crashed. And then he was in an upside down position. So we bought that in foreclosure. I think he paid 330 for it, I paid 110 for it. And then it was basically brand new and I still have it today. And then I just started in 2008, 2009, 2010, just slowly buying single family, fourplexes, duplexes. And then the largest project I own is a 42 unit apartment complex. I recently bought a bowling alley with 10,000 square feet of commercial space.

I saw that.

Yeah, it's just like, literally, I am not attached one bit to the paint color, the carpet. I strictly look at the numbers. What is the vacancy? What is the potential revenue? What are the expenses? And it's really easy. I think a property manager, for example, is a great person to talk to if you really want to understand what the real rents are going to be and what the expenses are going to be, because they're managing hundreds of these things and they can look inside of their units and make a really good budget assumption on how these things perform. And the other thing that's really important is that every time I buy an asset and I try to consult with some people when they buy assets, the folks just never look at the details. The devil's in the details on these things. People don't review the leases, they don't review the attachments to the leases, they don't look at the applications.

Who the people are in there. And that stuff is really important for you to kind of judge your performance, especially the first six months. Because if you get in there and there's a bunch of really. You're looking at these documents and they're bad and they're not updated. We've seen situations where people are looking at buying a property and they have deposits in the system that don't match the deposits in the lease. Really doesn't matter what the system says. It matters what the lease says. And then they get just killed when these tenants move out. Because these tenants are expecting a thousand dollar deposit, but the system only says 500. And so there's a delta there. And I've just seen a lot of investors just get excited about what the box looks like and not what's inside the box or what's in the paperwork. So it's really important to slow down if you're doing this for the first time. If you're not sure what to look for in leases and addenda. I think it's really important to get somebody that does know those things. Like, like, like a property manager, for example, with certifications, hopefully. And, you know, keep you out of trouble. Because I've seen a lot of investors get hurt.

Yeah.

By not get the right things.

That's so good. Like, there's so much in there I want to, I want to unpack first of all. So a lot of people feel, I don't know, there's a lot of bad property managers out there. A lot of really bad ones where, I mean, I've hired some bad property managers and like, I wouldn't even, like, I didn't even know that was a thing. I could like ask for help or consulting with them because they were just like so busy. They didn't care about anything. Like, it wasn't until, you know David Green, who recently published a book through Bigger Pockets called Long Distance Real Estate Investing. And he talks about like this core four. There's four people on your team you've got to have a good relationship with and they matter more than everyone and one of those is your property manager. And he makes this case that, like, if you have a really good property manager, they are the person you can go to to find out how much is going to rent for what to expect for vacancy. What are repairs typically in this area going to cost? Me, like, so I just think that it was a good point you made there. And it's like, you've got to get a good property manager. Like, if you need, if you need help with these things. And we all need help with these things. So I'm wondering, do you have any advice on, like, how, how can I, if I'm a newer investor, maybe even not a newer investor, how do I go and build a relationship with a property manager like yourself? I mean, can I just call you up cold, call you on the phone, be like, hey, I want to pick your brain for a half hour? Is that how it works?

Sure.

Any tips? Yeah.

And you know, and I mentioned, I mentioned this line and I, and I don't, I don't want to forget it because you told me. But you never know how important a property manager is until you hire a bad property manager. I know that line resonates with a lot of people, but if you've ever hired a bad one, you really appreciate the good ones. If you've always had a good one, you just never realize how good they are until you hire a bad one. But, yeah, back to your question. As far as talking to a property manager, to me, as an investor that buys in other areas, to me it starts online. I always try to go online and I like to see property managers that really put themselves out there. If you land on a property management website and they don't have the staff in there, like the names and who they are and specifically what they charge, and they're upfront about everything.

That'S kind of a red flag to me because if they're upfront about who they are online, they're probably going to be upfront and helpful who they are in person. That's where I would start. And then when you find that person, you, hey, look, I found somebody online. They've got their picture online, they've got a Facebook page, they've got certifications in property management. These people have a lot to lose if they don't do a good job. That's the people you want to hire. You don't want to hire people that have nothing to lose. If they have a lot to lose, then they're probably going to do what's right and try to do what's right for you, then you can start building that relationship with them. But I think a lot of it starts online and then just calling them up. If you find somebody and not just do a Google search and find the first property manager that's on the top, doesn't necessarily mean they're the best. It's probably a good chance that they're good if they're higher on the Google search. But I would look at a few to make the right decision and then just talk to them. And if you're investing long distance, obviously I would highly recommend getting in a plane, going out there and meeting them as one of the first things you do in going into a new market. Because there's nobody that's going to understand what the rents are, what the expenses are, what the areas are. If you talk to a real estate agent, I love real estate agents, I'm a broker myself. But they might tell you rents that might not jive with what's actual property manager is going to tell you what's right because they're stuck with you. At the end of the day, once the property sells, you're there, they're there, the agent's gone, they're the one that should be, in my opinion, quoting the rent. A great property manager is a huge asset to me. If you're building a portfolio in multiple.

Markets, you do due diligence on your property management team. Wow, what an amazing concept. Yes.

So I'm wondering, how do you do that? I mean, what do you, what are you looking for? Like, like when you go and meet with them, let's say in person, I mean, what kind of questions should I ask or what kind of red flags are there that I should not talk to this person? Like not hire them?

Well, I mean, I, I'm a, I'm a huge ambassador for narpa, which is the national association of Residential Property Manager. I was the national president in 2015, served on the board of directors for 10 years. So I would start there. If you're buying single family homes, I would say you've got to have a certified member of narpam, preferably a certified residential management company. A certified residential management company has audits done on their property management company on a regular basis. I mean, the worst thing that happens to investors is that you have a property manager that's managing your property and they take your deposits and rents and you never see them again. If you have a certified property management company with NARPAM on the single family side, you have your bases covered. I can Almost guarantee it if there is no certified firm in the area. Then again, going back to who is this person in the community? What do they have to lose if things go bad? Are they going to do the right things? Typically you can see that with their presence online and then meeting them in person. I like companies that are a little bit larger because they have typically better systems and better people in place. And then again, they have more to lose if things go bad. That's typically what I see out there.

Makes sense. Makes sense. So I want to go back to your personal investing again for a little bit. You mentioned a 42 unit apartment building. Where was that at? Why did you buy it?

Yeah, the other thing on the apartment side, going back to certifications, I love firms that are involved in irem, the Institute of Real Estate Management. So these are guys that are going to be very helpful in helping you underwrite the right deal for your apartment. So if you're going to buy an apartment building, they're going to be able to calculate your cash on cash, your value enhancement, what your IRR is, what your cap rate is. They're in the market and they understand that. So you can go to irem.org or narpim.org and find these people. They're little diamonds in the rough in certain markets. But.

If I was going into a market, those are the two places that I would look first. Obviously I'd look at Home River Group first, which is my company. But if we're not there.

I'm looking at those guys. But yeah, I had a really interesting situation with this 42 unit complex. I had a commercial real estate agent was contacted by a friend that had a 42 unit complex. They couldn't sell it. This was back in early 2015. So it was right before multifamily just blew up and they had this. Again, this is a situation where I feel like, honestly, some of the best real estate deals are the worst managed deals. So it's a good property. Just got a bad property manager that doesn't care and the property manager is not giving the right advice to the owner, where they're just trying to save money and not reinvest in the property. And so it was one of those deals. He brought it to me and said, hey, we, I don't do multifamily. Would you help me find a buyer? So I put it out to my group of investors. They said they weren't interested in it. And then I got a couple buddies and we put together a nice offer on this thing. I think we paid $1,700,000 for it.

It's under contract at 42 units.

Yeah, $1,700,000 under contract today at $3,250,000 or $2,050,000 or $3,050,000. That's it. $3,050,000.

$3,050,000. So you're selling the property?

We're selling the property. We've identified a property because obviously cap rates in Boise have just declined, which has obviously pushed our prices up. So we're going to 1031 that property into a fourplex community, really nice fourplex community on the Mississippi Memphis border. Because our yields out there are way better than they are in Boise right now.

Okay, so you just made $1.3 million. And when did you buy this?

June of 2015 is when we closed.

Okay, that's awesome.

Mindy's like, I quit real estate.

Yeah. I'm like, I quit. Exactly.

And just to show you, like, how important property management is, I mean, we took over this property. Our average rent was 460 or $465. Today our average rent is $715. Wow. Only thing that changed that, we, you know, we didn't do anything crazy to the. We added some baseboard, and we repainted the interiors when people moved out, and we added dishwashers, and that's it. That's all we did. And we've got the rents up to $715. And obviously that increases your noi, which makes your property worth a lot more money. That's awesome.

When you bought it, it was horribly under managed.

It was poorly managed. And hopefully that manager that's not watching this podcast.

That manager is not watching. They should because they just doubled their rents.

Literally.

Like I said, I feel like some of the best deals, and I probably shouldn't be giving this advice, but if you call the property manager, this is just me being honest, and this is how I find deals. I'll call property managers I know and say, tell me about your worst owner. Who is that? And they hate their life. Right? They hate you, they hate their life. They hate their property. Can you tell them I'm interested in potentially buying that property?

Yep. I've always loved that.

And that makes it bad owner. Is this somebody who isn't actively managing it? Is it? Well, not actively. Isn't actively involved at all. Is this somebody who's like, slumlord or what makes. What am I looking for when I call up and say, tell me about your worst owner?

Yeah, it's typically somebody that is Just like kind of in a bad position on their property. Right. Like you said, maybe they're a slumlord penny pincher. They're not reinvesting in the property. And so every time they get a maintenance bill, they flip out. They make the property manager's life miserable. Well, that property manager is going to love to sell to a guy like me. That reinvests in the property, makes the property, maximizes the ROI on the property, and then if the timing is right, I'll sell that property and try to exchange into something else that makes a higher yield. And it all just depends on the cap rates. I don't know if you guys have ever talked about. There's an awesome resource called Integra Realty Resources. Have you heard of it?

I have not awesome.

It's irr.org I believe is the website. And I go on there and just on a consistent basis, just pull down cap rates in different markets and you can get specific. You want multifamily, you want industrial, you want office, you want retail. They have all this stuff, great local knowledge in each market. Typically they have some tertiary markets, secondary markets, primary markets, obviously, and you can pull down this information. So if I find something that makes sense to sell, I'll just go to IRR and find where the highest yields, the lowest cap rates sell at the low cap rate and go buy somewhere at a higher cap rate. It's a great resource for your listening audience, especially if they want to get into commercial and multifamily. That's a CCIM tip that I learned going through my CCIM courses a long time ago. I can't live without Integral Realty resources. It's a great resource.

That's awesome.

Okay, you just threw out a ton of stuff. You threw out cap rates and you threw out ccim. Can you share what that means for people who don't know? For Brandon?

He doesn't know.

Yeah. So cap rates, basically cap rates are the capitalization rate of the particular markets you're looking at. And those rates fluctuate based on demand. Right. And so right now, if you can buy in this market at a 7 plus 7 8, 9% cap rate, that's a heck of a yield. In 2018, five or six years ago, most people were buying at a 9, 10, 11 yield because rents were pretty stable, but values were down. Now rents are still stable, but values are up. And so that shrinks your cap rate down. So when I go into different markets, I look for high yielding cap rates, I look to sell in low cap rates. So I want to sell in Boise, for example. I live in Boise, sell in Boise at a 6, and if I sell at Boise at a 6 and I go buy in Memphis at an 8 or 9, then that is a huge difference in the amount of value that I get for my money. And basically to understand the cap rates, you take what's selling in that market and dividing that into the net operating income and then you get your capitalization rate. You don't have to go first, but it's almost like, it's almost. I mean, with the technology we use and the demographic searches that we use, it's almost like a crystal ball because rents historically have been very stable where the values have been up and down all over the board. So if you can put in a 2 and a half to 3% rent increase into your performance, you can almost pinpoint exactly what your property is going to do. If you just throw out home price appreciation or price appreciation, which scares me. I never. That's like one piece of advice. I've never bought anything based on appreciation. It's always based on cash flow. Zero appreciation. You'll never get hurt if the numbers look good based on cash flow, not appreciation.

That's a good piece of advice. Okay, so there I'm going to link in the show notes to a really good article about cap rates because there's a lot of confusion about it and we could spend the whole entire show delving into that. But I've got an article already on biggerpockets.com so I will get that link and put it in the show notes. You said CCIM and then I want to go back to this 42 unit because I have way more questions.

Okay. Yeah, CCIM is certified commercial Institute member. So basically it's a national, it's a worldwide association that trains real estate professionals on how to buy and sell and basically consult on commercial real estate. So basically apartments, retail, office, et cetera. So I've gone through all the CCIM classes. I took the two day CCIM course test. It's crazy, but you just really learn how the financial side of real estate works. And it's almost kind of like cheating. You can, like I said, look into a crystal ball. It's so important what you guys do and the education that you can get online or in person at these classes, obviously tuning into bigger pockets to understand this stuff because once you really understand it, you can really start making smart investments. And I feel like obviously real estate is a great place, especially with. Because on a daily basis. Because what's happening with the stock market. I get people calling me, I got to get my money out of the market. I get people to own retail because retail is scary right now. I know people that have office because of the telecommuters. Amazon's putting retail out of business. Telecommuters are putting office people out of business. And they're all wanting to move their money into multifamily. So what's that doing to multifamily? Well, it's driving up the price and driving down the cap rate because everybody's trying to go into that market. And again, Integra Realty Resource is a great thing, a great website to look at so you can see where the cap rates are floating in each market. Office, retail, industrial, multifamily. And you'll see that multifamily is always at the lower end because everybody looks at multifamily as a long Runway in this market. They're not sure on office, they're not sure on retail, but they think multifamily looks really good for a long time because we got all these millennials. The other thing that nobody really talks about is we have all these baby boomers that are downsizing and moving into apartments. It's crazy. I feel like we get more of those applications than we do the millennials, because a lot of the millennials are now buying houses. So it's a. It's a pretty interesting market dynamic we got going on right now.

Yeah.

Okay.

So as I say, I find multifamily looks more and more interesting all the time. Like, it just seems to be such a good. Because everything. But, but like you said, the. Everybody's rushing into it. Right. I mean, it's a very hot investment. And so that's.

Right.

It's hard to find those deals. So I mean, is there any other ways that you're finding deals today other than, you know, talking to property managers? That was an awesome tip, by the way. But anything else you'd recommend, man, I.

Recommend building to rent right now, man.

Really?

That is, I think, is one of the best opportunities out there. Because what a lot of these institutions are paying for rental single family homes or rental multi family units right now, you can build them so much cheaper and then potentially lease them up and then sell it to them at a crazy cap rate. And obviously that's very market specific. I love rental development. Like I said, we've helped put 3,700 units in the ground since 2011 in just Boise, Idaho. But I think that's one of the biggest opportunities right now. If you can get the construction price right, if you get the land right, you can do a home run on multifamily. And I love fourplex communities where you have an HOA of fourplex owners and you set up that POA Property Owners association and then you have multiple owners in there. You can sell these fourplexes where you can get 30 year 4% fixed financing. Awesome, amazing financing. Get high yielding tenants in there and good locations. I love that play, just building it because right now.

The people that have multifamily realize that they need to probably sell it. But their biggest issue is what do I do with it? I can sell it at a 6 cap but I have to also buy it at 6 cap, so why would I go through it? I don't need the cash. Back in the day, 2011, 2012, cash was king today it's not that way. Cash flow is king now. So they're way more interested in their cash flow and they're way less interested in how much money they can take off the table if they sell it because they have nowhere to go with it and they're not going to move it into retail or office. So their only option is multifamily. And those deals are hard to find. But I think building it, I think talking to property managers is a great. And then I think if you're trying to look for a grand slam in the smile states, which, the coastal states, inland states or whatever, you've got to look in the Midwest and some parts of the south, you could still find some really good deals. But a lot of investors are really uncomfortable going into those markets. And that's one of the reasons why we're trying to build our property management company in those markets. Because investors know us and they're comfortable with us, but we're not there. And so when we're there, they'll happily look at moving maybe a property in Sacramento at a 3 cap and then buying it in Memphis at a 7 or 8 cap.

Can we, can we go back to the, the building to rent? Because it's something we never really talk about much here on the show because it's always been a crazy proposition to build something to rent because the numbers never seem to really work out very well now. Maybe because rents have risen so much in the past few years that that's not entirely true anymore. Do you, do you have an estimate? Like what, what are you paying or what are you seeing in terms of price per square foot to build? Like a four plex? Like that? Like where are you Seeing that, sure, sure.

And obviously these numbers are going to change based on where you're doing that. But I can give you an example. You know, from coast to coast. Typically, if you're going to build fourplexes, typically you'll get 12, maybe 16 fourplexes on an acre, depending on. Sorry, not fourplexes, 16 units or 12 units on an acre. If you're building fourplexes, which obviously isn't a high density fourplex. But tenants love them. They love them. They love the townhome style fourplex. But for example, if you can buy a piece of land that just basically a paper piece of land that's got no infrastructure, it's got water, sewer, electric going to it, but not in it, you want to be probably in our market, you probably want to be under 250 to $2 a square foot. With the entitlements and all the improvements, that's going to push you up probably closer to 10 to $15 a square foot. And then you probably want to be under $80. So $95 all in makes a great yielding property in Boise, Idaho. That's in our market. If you go to Inland Empire, you're probably because rents there are triple. So you just take that same model and just say, okay, now I've got to be buying at $6 a square foot. Construction costs are going to be a little bit higher there, not, not as much as the land. So it's really important to buy the land. Right. Believe it or not, there's still land deals out there where there was infrastructure put into these locations back in 2006 before the bubble popped. And there's still some out there. You can buy those and you can pay a little bit more for those because the infrastructure is already there. You just finish out the streets and then start going vertical.

So if you're at $100, let's say you're at $100 a square foot, all in. That includes land, you're saying where you're at.

That's right.

All right, so let's say then you got what, 1200 square foot. I don't know what typical is for, let's say one of those 4,000 square feet.

Okay, so two bath builds you a nice A minus finished thousand square foot, two bed, two bath and then 100 bucks a foot.

Okay, and then what, what is something like that rent for typically? Let's say you had a hundred thousand dollars into a single unit of a fourplex. A thousand square feet. What does that rent for in your market?

1100 bucks.

Okay, so you're better than the one. You're at like 1% or better in terms of rent. And your repairs are dramatically lower because.

It'S a new property and you got a warranty. You got a warranty, you got a long Runway on that property. And people are doing that all day long all over the country. And you know, there's some people that don't want to do it because they're not really sure. But let me tell you, it's not super hard to find good land deals out there. Construction's not cheap. That's your big challenge, I give you that. But money is really easy to find. I mean, you can find banks all over the country, lenders all over the country that would love to lend. There's a great product called HUD 221D4 loan, which is a 40 year fixed non recourse loan that you can get on new properties that you build. It's a pain in the butt to get it, but once you get it, you've got 40 years of fixed low interest rate non recourse. And you can assume that. So you want to sell this thing. 20 years into it, you can sell that thing and somebody can assume that loan. The loan, in my opinion, is worth more than the property at that point. So there's a lot of cool options out there for people that want to get into this space.

You don't even have to be a builder. You just find a good builder that's going to build something that's good at a reasonable price, identify the land and then go get your financing. And you know, you can knock this out all day long.

So how do I find a builder for something like this? I mean, like, I'm not going to call up just the local handyman to go build a, you know, $400,000 fourplex. So who does this? Recommendations?

My recommendation, if you're looking at a particular market, get your property manager. Call your property manager. Or if you're not in, if you're in that market, go and find something that's being built locally that looks nice, that you like and then go talk to the contractors. Who's the general contractor here? Hire that guy directly. That's how you do it. Because it's hard to go to the yellow pages and find multifamily builders in Boise. They're just not there. But.

If you find a local builder that does a good job, if you go to the national companies, they're great, but they might be a little bit more money, but.

They have more to lose, just like the property management guy. But there's, there's plenty of guys out there that do a good job and we'll do it. I think you could find builders in most markets to build you a 4 Plex or a multi unit, 8 Plex or 16 Plex at less than 100 bucks a square foot all in and you can get 1,000 plus rents. That's what we're seeing in Boise and Boise is.

Not that cheap. Go ahead.

Okay. So Brandon usually uses the podcast to glean information for his own benefit. I'm going to use this one, Brandon. You just sit there.

Good for you, Brandon. Good for you.

Yeah.

There are two lots by my house. They currently have these crappy old houses on them. One of them is uninhabitable, the other one is almost uninhabitable.

Sure.

How are you, when you say you're finding land deals, are you finding just bare land or you said that you could find some that had the sewer connected but not like hooked up. Where are you going to find these deals? I really want to buy this house. I don't know that they're ever going to sell it. I should probably contact them. They're probably not going to call me up and say, hey, are you looking at my house? But where are you finding these land deals?

Typically there's what we call land hounds in every market. There's just this agents that just typically deal in land opportunities. And then if you get your local CCIM on the phone and say, hey, I want you to do a demographic research profile and find out where in this particular part of this market where they need units the most, identify that and then just start emailing those landhounds and saying we need properties in this area and we need this dollars per square foot to make it work. And magically they start appearing.

Just go to the local, call any local MLS person and say who sold the most land deals in this market? And they'll tell you and then call that guy.

I know who that is in my market.

Exactly. Call that guy.

Yeah. Okay.

You tell me where you want to build this thing and I'll do a demographic market research profile on that. And man, it's easy to put together.

Thank you. Do you ever buy properties like this one property, it is literally uninhabitable. We had a flood a few years ago and it got water inside and they just use it to stored their stuff. Do you ever go in and knock those down and then rebuild? This particular property is on this sweet piece of land that's in like a really hot area. And it's this weird shape where I think I could put a fourplex on there. It's currently a single family.

Right.

Do you have any tips for zoning or is that more like really local?

Yeah, I mean, obviously when you put that property under contract, obviously you want to have the, basically the disclaimer or you know, your out clause that if we can't get the proper zoning, that the deal goes south. Right. So you just want to make sure your zoning is right before you do something like that. That's what we've seen in the past. And it's hard in certain neighborhoods. It's really easy to get your zoning right. It depends on how passionate the neighborhood is and what the city wants to do. And then in some neighborhoods, it's like impossible. You'll just get bought. People are just nasty about it. You just want to make sure. You want to make sure you get your zoning right. Because you can get stuck with a piece of property that you can't really do much with, and that's not good.

But then you can put that in your offer that it's contingent upon the zoning.

That's right. You typically can. Those land deals, you can string those out a long time to make sure everything is proper before you buy the property to be able to put on there what you want to put on there.

Perfect. Perfect.

If you own a short term rental, here's something worth knowing. Not all landlord policies are built for your type of property. And with holiday bookings, chilly weather, and higher guest turnover, having the right coverage is more important. Important than ever. Steadily offers insurance designed specifically for short term rentals, covering property damage, liability, lost rental income, and even unexpected issues like bed bugs. Steadily works exclusively with real estate investors so they understand the details that make short term rentals unique. And they build coverage to match it. A quick review of your rates and coverage every year can help you protect your property and your cash flow. Get a quote in minutes@biggerpockets.com landlord insurance steadily rental property insurance for the modern investor.

You know you're in trouble when your assistant is. Also you imagine getting hours back each week so you can focus on growing your portfolio, not managing busy work. That's the reality with Belay. They match real estate investors like you with remote staffing solutions that save time and help you scale faster. Because the truth is, you're just one assistant away from spending your time where it matters. Finding deals, funding opportunities and closing contracts. Belay even created a free tool that shows you how Much time and money you're leaving on the table by not delegating. Want to see Your number? Text BiggerPockets to 55123 to get Belay's free executive assistant task calculator. You know, a lot of us work hard to build savings and start investing. But let's be honest, trading can feel like a full time job. The charts, the timing, the constant second guessing, it's stressful, right? You're always wondering, am I making the right move? Now you can eliminate all of that with QuickFund AI. QuickFund AI takes the emotion out of trading with an automated system that does the work for you. No staring at screens all day, no overthinking every move. Just smart automated trading strategies that can run while you sleep. And here's what sets QuickFund AI apart. With their Quick fund guarantee, qualified clients receive up to $300,000 trading capital, 12 months of waived service fees, and a money back guarantee on the software itself, giving you the power to trade smarter without tying up personal assets. So if you're ready to trade smarter, not harder, visit QuickFun AI to get started. That's Q U I C K F U N D A I QuickFund AI where technology earns. For you. It's 3am on the 6th and you're wondering if you should text your tenant about rent. Here's a better idea. Don't. With Avail, rent collection runs on autopilot. Automatic reminders go out, payments land directly in your account. Late fees trigger when needed. Tenants can enable AutoPay, and with fast pay, you can get paid as soon as the next day. Sign up for free at Avail Co Biggerpockets. That's a V A I L CEO slash. Biggerpockets. Avail handles rent collection so you can actually get some sleep.

All right, so let's, let's shift a little bit and go over to some property management tips because a lot of people listen to this show have, you know, 1, 2, 5, 10 rentals that they're handling. That's right. And you're the guy. First of all, how many, how many total units do you guys have under management now?

Do you know somewhere just north of 13,000? We're in, yeah, we're in 15, I think we're in 15 markets, 11 states. Our strategy right now is that we're going into these markets and we're buying portfolios or platforms, property management companies. A platform is basically somebody that's a first class operator in that market. We're buying not only the senior management the units, the company, everybody that comes with it. And then typically once we buy that platform, typically they'll have 1000 or more units to buy a platform. And then once we buy that platform and put that platform in place, we'll go give them the autonomy to go out and buy portfolios of properties. Because there's a lot of turnkey providers, they're just quite frankly done managing properties and they're just like, just take these things off my hands. I just want to sell turnkeys. And so we'll buy those units, we'll pay them for that. Or there's a lot of mom and pop operators that are 70 years old and they're like, I want to be done. And they'll just sell us the units. So those are kind of our strategies as we go into new markets. And we're, we're trying to get in right now to Texas, Arizona, Georgia, but we're already in California, obviously, Idaho, Utah, we're all over Florida, we're in the Northeast, North Carolina, Missouri, Memphis, Mississippi, those kind of areas. And again, we're trying to get into, we'd love to get into Alabama because that's a high yielding market. There's pretty good tenants there. There's higher cap rates there. You know, we'd love to get into St. Louis. There's good opportunities there. So that's what we're trying to do.

Okay, so let's say you're not in the market that I'm in.

We're in Chicago.

I'm not in Chicago.

I thought you were.

I'm in Denver. You still live in Chicago. You live in Chicago.

We're not in Denver. Denver's a great market. Very low yielding market.

Yes, yes, I am well aware of that. Delightful tip. So, so what am I looking for in a good property manager when I can't choose? Andrew?

Go to another market.

I'm just kidding. Yeah. Again, I think it goes back to finding somebody that is well educated, certified, again, looking at their website, just to start the conversation and then have a smart conversation about investments. Because there's property managers out there that just like they fix toilets, they deal with tenants and they just solve problems all the time and that's what they do and that's needed.

Right.

There's also property managers out there that understand investments too, and get it and they invest and they're kind of in it with you. They're more of like a portfolio manager versus a property manager and kind of understand your goals. When I typically sit down with somebody that wants to buy Something in a market that I'm in. First thing I'll ask them is, what kind of interest rate are you wanting to get on your money? Which is an interesting question to ask somebody when they're wanting to buy an investment property, because they're not really thinking that way, but if I can help them think that way, hey, this is about paying you back for the money that you put in. Ultimately, that's what the investments are. But typically when we're investing in real estate, we don't think that way, but that's how we should think. We should think cash flow, dollars and cents, money in, money out. If you can find a partner, a true partner, that understands the investment side of real estate, that is an amazing asset. Not only do I look for that in my market, I look for that in every market I want to invest in, because I want somebody that's just as passionate about property management and investment returns as I do in every market I invest in.

I strongly recommend that people don't. This is a problem I see with owners all over the country. They find a market they like, and they never go anywhere else. And that's a huge problem. It's like putting all your stocks in one investment.

No certified financial planner would ever say, put all your stocks in Amazon. Probably should do that anyway. But you want to diversify because things can happen in those markets. If you're in only one market and that market tanks, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. So I think diversifying not only in what your asset class is, but in location is really important. But.

Back to your answer or question. Find a property manager that gets the investment side of property management and understands your investment goals, and they're in it with you to make it happen. I think that's important.

I love that. That's a really good tip. All right, so let's jump to some management tips. Things like, for example, actually, I want to ask this question first, because, again, I like to use a podcast as kind of a selfish thing, but I think this will help other people as well. So for the diversity, the diversification thing we just talked about. You just talked about. I decided for that reason to invest out of state. I couldn't find a lot of deals in my market, and I wanted to diversify in case, you know, the west coast gets hit with a tsunami and all my properties go away. So I bought one in Cincinnati. Then Mindy and I, together with another partner, Ryan, bought one in Maine, which is exciting, but the one in Cincinnati. So I got this property and the rents are right now like 440 average though I look around like 15 minutes away. Like mine's out kind of not in the sticks, but It's a good 15 minutes from, or 15 miles from Cincinnati, a little smaller town. Okay, so here's my question. How do I know how high I can push these rents? Like the property right now, it's in decent shape. I mean it's got, it's a brick building. But if I go in there and make this thing look like hgtv, you know, I mean, I go in there and I paint the brick this cool white color, put shutters on the windows, make it really millennial friendly, can I push it up or is it too small of a town to make that work? I've been really debating this lately is how, how do I get these rents from 450 to where they are in other parts of Cincinnati at 650, 700, how can I get them there? Or am I just stuck at a low amount?

Yeah, I mean, I would recommend what I like to do. If I'm looking at a property, I'll do a five minute drive time map of that property and then I'll see what the average median income is for that area. And then it's very easy at that point to say, can this area sustain a 6 or $700 rent in about 5 or 6 minutes? I can tell you what the top side of that is. Even if you HD HGTV that thing out, it doesn't matter because the demographic profile isn't going to justify the rents. I just had this conversation with an investor that wants to buy in Oklahoma City. He's like, man, I think we can get $800 rents here if we do this and this and this and this property. I'm like, look man, the average income profile, the household income in this area is $31,000. Now take 8,000. And typically you want somebody to make on the top side two and a half times, right? Half times your monthly debt. Do that math, go backwards. And then the top side is that is that number. Typically if you're going to put money into it, and if that number doesn't make sense, then you're probably right where it needs to be. You might not want to put any more money into it because the area just doesn't justify the rents. So it's not just how pretty you make it.

It's a simple supply and demand. Economics 101. You're not going to get people that make $50,000 a year just suddenly Move into that area because you've got this shining beacon in that area because those $50,000 people a year, they are five minutes away in another area.

Yep, that's a really good tip. I just never, I never quite thought about it in that way. But yeah, working.

I love that a lot of people can just go to their local Census, you know, census.org or whatever, pull that information out. There's a lot of really good free tools. You don't have to call CCIM to get this information, although I'd recommend that you can get you, you can look at those tools and just basically say, okay, look, our average median income here is this, you know, this how many people that are this color and this is how many people that are this age. And there's so much information. It's all about just trying to get all the information, putting it together and then making your best judgment on the information available. That's like things like demographic profile, age profile, income profile, what are the jobs like around there and what are those jobs paying? What do the leases look like, what do the addenda look like? The applications, again, you've got this. Every time you're buying a property, I don't care if it's a single family home or it's a 400 unit apartment complex, you open up this box and it's a big puzzle and you just got to put the pieces together. And at the end of the day, if you don't put all the pieces together, it's not going to look pretty. Right. But if you put it all together, it'll look gorgeous and it'll work every time if all the pieces fit. But you've got to look at all these things to make the best decision possible.

A couple more questions for you. I throw some quick ones at you. Do you rent to people who have an eviction on the record, even if it's from a long time ago?

Yes. Yes. And that is a very market specific question. So our eviction screening process in one market might be different than like Memphis compared to Idaho where nobody gets evicted in Idaho. A lot of people get evicted in Memphis. But again, you want to, whatever you do in each market, you want to obviously treat everybody the same way. But in Idaho, for example, I think if you've got eviction more than seven years ago, if you meet all the other qualifications, we can rent to you. Right. If you're in another market and you had eviction recently, that it's a high eviction market.

We might look past that eviction and look at the other criteria that matter. Income. Right. Jobs, security, all those other things.

Perfect. All right, what about, do you ever work payment plans out with tenants? If somebody calls you and said, hey, I can't make rent, I lost my job. Do you guys have a policy for working with tenants or is it, hey, figure it out. You know, talk to your family, friends.

I mean, this is, this is one of the other advantages of hiring a property. Hiring a property manager. We don't get personally involved in these things. Right. We treat it like a business. And I've always recommended to our owners that, you know, we need to treat all the tenants the same way. And we understand that there's certain circumstances that happen that cause these people to. Might have financial difficulties. But if we treat one tenant, we give one tenant a break and then don't give another tenant a break. That could be a potential for a HUD violation. So we strongly recommend not taking partial payments because if you take a partial payment in a month, you can't file the eviction that month. So again, I think the best advice if you're going to manage it yourself, which obviously I'm not a big fan of. I have all my properties professionally managed by manager and I'm a property manager. But if you're going to do it yourself, do exactly what the state of the lease all the time. It's the best advice I could give any investor. Follow the lease. If a tenant calls up, don't have a confrontation with them. I give this advice to my property managers. If the tenant calls up and they got an issue. Oh, I don't, you know, I need to move out of my house and I've got four months left on my lease. Okay, well, I'm going to send you your lease.

Yep.

Just in case you don't have it. And I'm going to point out exactly what the lease says. If you need to move out early.

Yep.

And if you have any questions, call me back.

Yeah, we do the exact same thing. Yep. Instead of, yeah. Otherwise it becomes personal. Right. It's like, no, I'm. I'm the jerk that's not letting you move out. We blame the lease for everything. And I like, yeah, absolutely.

It's the lease's fault.

The lease's fault. The lease said you can't move out. The lease said you have to pay your rent on time.

We agreed to that. And I'm just, I'm all my job as the property manager is just to enforce the terms of the lease.

Yep.

And do it the most professional way possible. So look, Mrs. Or Mrs. Smith, I understand that's so crazy that you have to move to Memphis or whatever, I get that. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to send you your lease and I'm going to tell you exactly what your lease says. If you need to break your lease early, if you have any questions about that, let me know. We'll do whatever we can to make, to help you transition the best way possible. All right, Here you go. Send. Lease's fault. Follow the lease. But I mean, some guy that's managing the property himself, they'll get a call from a tenant, they're like, oh, I can't pay my rent. And we manage 13, 14,000 doors. We don't have anybody a month behind. Some guy that manages two or three properties will come in and like, hey man, I've got these three properties. This one's six months behind, this one's eight months behind. I'm like, you manage three properties and you can't get them to pay on time? Like, what's going on? It's like, oh, I'm just a nice guy. I'm like, can I from you?

So when I, when I got, when I started building my portfolio a little bit larger, you know, I was up to like, I think 20 some units, maybe 25 units. I was, I found myself always doing that. The tenant would call me and then they would tell me a sob story. And emotionally I get involved and I'm like, all right, yeah, don't worry about it. But then what, How I solve that because I looked at my own weaknesses again. Some people work on fixing their, their weaknesses and some people just find a way around them. I always find a way around them, right? So I'm like, okay, I'm never going to get better at confrontation or at trying to be less in like emotionally involved. I'm just always going to be. So I need to get myself out of the situation. So that's when I hired my mother in law just to answer phones. That's all she did at the beginning. I was like. Because she liked, she was looking for a job. She was recently retired. I just want something part time, like just answer phones for me and then follow the lease. And if you have questions, ask me. All of a sudden I never talk to tenants anymore. I can make a rational decision versus an emotional one and then it's just a job for her. So what does she care if she tells a tenant no or yes? It's just, you know, because she has to follow my rules. Right. So like yeah, I, I found that getting myself at least one person removed. Now if there was a great property manager in my area, hands down, I would have just shifted all over to them. There's wasn't at the time. Now there's one that's I'm enjoying right now. But anyway, yeah, that's Getting yourself removed from the emotion is so important. That mobile home park actually Mindy and I just bought they when we were interviewing like going in there, talking to the resident manager, she's like, yeah, well this guy owed us. He was behind, I think was like $6,000 on a $300 a month rent. Like how do you get, how far behind do you have to be? I mean I'm sure I could do that math. Like that's insane. And there was, there was multiple people like that that they had these payment plans worked out of years of not paying rent. Like really?

Like, yeah.

Anyway, one, one last story and then we'll move on. Last week actually my wife told me I try to stay out of the management side now the business. But she told me the story of how one of the tenants that called up and said hey, I, you know, I think it was a check bounce. So we called them and said hey, you're check bounced or whatever, right? And they said well I just can't pay until the 25th. And we did the. Well, your lease says you have to do this and the lease also says that you'll get a, you know, a three day notice if you don't pay which we're going to deliver to you today. And anyway within like 24 hours they had paid it. So like they told like I cannot pay until the 25th. It's all about priorities, right? Every tenant, every tenant has enough money to pay rent. They don't have enough money to pay all their bills so everything gets prioritized. So sure, that's. I remember that.

And another tip, like I think this is really important. We've seen delinquencies go way down because of this. Definitely look for a property manager that has the ability to get all of your tenants paying online or automatic draft or has like a credit card portal where they can pay because we've been taking credit cards. We have this thing called cash pay where people can go to like a 711 and cash. It's awesome, right?

I love it.

And it just goes right into a ledger. It just takes all the screw ups out of the property management. Accounting. Property management in my opinion are two things. Communication and accounting. And if you can get the accounting automated. It really helps with the screw ups of the accounting side. But getting your tenants to pay online, have their money automatically drafted or cash pay, have a property manager has those technology capabilities because we've seen delinquencies go way, way down when it just automatically comes out. They don't have to think about it, they don't have to put it in the mail. In fact, our policy is that, hey, if you sign a new lease, you basically have to pay online at a cash pay location. Has to come automatically and then you'll see those delinquencies go down and you'll see the stress of the property manager's go out the door. They can focus more on adding value to your units instead of just like being a collection agency, which is, which is a tough burnout job.

There we go. I love it. Love it.

Okay, I have one more question before we move to the fire round. I am the community manager for BiggerPockets. I am in the forums all day, every day and I see this question come up all the time. My tenant is late, should I start the eviction? Blah, blah, blah. As a professional management company, when do you start the eviction and what are your state laws?

When the lease says.

When the lease says. So what does the lease say? Do you use all the same leases for all of your properties in one locate, like in one state or do you use.

Yes, we try to have all of our leases the same, but there's certain state laws that will prevent you from doing the same thing. Especially if you want to evict somebody in California. It's going to be a much better sell the house situation than evicting company in Idaho. And that's actually, you bring up a great point. Like it's very important when you're making an investment choice as far as location. Look at the landlord tenant laws. I mean, that's a big deal. I mean.

California is a very interesting, fun state, but you could get a tenant in there and it'll take, you know, six to 12 months to get somebody out. Where in Memphis it takes, you know, you just take their door off, you.

Know, whatever, don't take their door off. You can't do that.

Yeah, you can't do that. I'm just joking. But landlord tenant laws are very important as far as, you know, making making a choice. So. But yeah, I mean, but again, back to your. We tried the eviction. We try to, obviously we follow the state laws and follow the lease exactly how it says. Okay, so let's say do and do it and do it, don't do it.

Yes.

Yeah.

If they say, you know, oh man, I'll be out next week. Okay, well, you know, we'll send you what we call a promise to pay in writing. But just in case you fail, we're going to go ahead through the eviction process. If you pay us, great. But if you don't, we are starting the, we're starting it. That's our leverage point. Right.

Love that.

Okay, so in Colorado, I believe I don't have any Colorado rental properties. So I'm not totally up on my landlord tenant laws. And finding landlord tenant laws is really kind of difficult. You can't just, I mean, you can Google your state's name landlord tenant laws, like Colorado landlord tenant laws. And you try. The links are not as easy as they should be to find. I did some research for when Brandon was writing his book and I looked up every single state and I read them and it's really difficult to find them all. So, yeah, definitely look up your landlord tenant laws. But in Colorado, I believe we don't have any grace period. So rent is due on the 1st and it is late on the 2nd and we have a three day pay or quit. So then on the January 1st, rent is due January 2nd. I would.

Post the three day pay or quit. And then that's. So that doesn't count the second. So that's the third, fourth, fifth and then on the sixth, I can file the eviction.

Right.

In theory, if everything that I'm saying is true.

Yeah, if that's what the Colorado laws typically, your rent can be due whenever your lease says. We typically give them a five day grace period. So we say, okay, rent's due on the 1st, we'll accept it up until 5th at 5 o'. Clock. But at 501 we're going to, you know, we're going to hit you with a three day notice to pay or quit. And then three days, three days go by, we go down to the, we go down to the courthouse.

Yeah, we do file an eviction. We do the same thing because if rent is due on the 1st, we get until the 5th. Now, some landlords don't do the grace period thing. Some states require it, but some don't. I like it though, because a lot of my tenants are on some kind of program and most of those programs, money doesn't go out until the second or third or the fourth. Sometimes almost everybody in the world, almost every program is there by the 5th and not then they better just be a Month ahead. But anyway, so I always do the. Yeah, so like the fifth, on the sixth they get their three day notice. On the tenth they get eviction filed. By the end of the month they're out. Like in a perfect, in a perfect month for us. Like that's typically how we do it. That said, like, because we follow our lease. Like we, that's the irony of real estate. I'm sure you've seen this as well, Andrew. Like the, like, the more strict you are, feels like you'd have more problems and more tenants would get evicted. But no, the more strict you are, the more you follow your lease, the less evictions you have and the less problems. Because what happens is tenants like, okay, we'll make a payment plan for you. Oh, don't worry about that late fee, don't worry about that kind of stuff. And they're soft in the tenant. We then train the tenant to be irresponsible, which then eventually they're going to owe so much money, then you got to evict them and they can't ever get caught up. You're doing your tenant a disservice if you don't like, if you're not strict or if you're not firm.

So one of my favorite quotes, I tell it to my people all the time that the lazy parent that cleans his child's room.

Yep, yep.

You know.

They'Re people, man. You got it. I mean if, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. But you know, I, I've told that to a thousand people. You know, hey, I, I don't clean my kids room because they need to clean their room, you know, and if I do it, they're, they're just gonna, they're just gonna take that and I'll be cleaning the room the rest of their life. There you go.

Super good advice. Super good advice. So let's, let's, we're gonna talk a little bit more about property manager here in a second in the next segment of the show, which we call our fire round.

It's time for the fire round.

All right, this is the fire round and today we are going to talk property management questions, you know, landlording questions. These all come direct out of the BiggerPockets landlording forum, which of course you can get to by going to biggerpockets.com forums and there's specifically one there just for landlord questions. So why don't I start with this one? I just switched to a new property manager, but the old property manager did not send the security deposit to me or all the documents and all the keys. And now they're not responding to my calls or emails. What do I do?

That's a sucky situation, first of all. But I think the best recourse there is if you're trying to communicate with them and they're basically shutting you out and they're holding your rents and deposit hostage. Depending on what the state's statute is on who oversees property management, a quick call to the real estate commission or the Secretary of state typically gets a property manager to like, oh boy, here we go.

That's a great tip.

Kind of a last straw. But even saying, hey, I'm going to call these people because you're not calling me back, it's scaring me. They'll freak out and call you back.

I'm guessing now that's a good tip. I'm a real estate agent and I didn't even consider that. I was like, oh, call an attorney. Glad you answered that.

Yeah, calling an attorney. That system, watch your rents and your deposits go away in one second because they're gonna send them a letter and that's probably gonna work, but the letter is gonna probably cost more than what your deposits or rents are.

So true. And the real estate commission, at least in my state, they're pit bulls. They do not want anybody stepping outside of the letter of the law. They're really, really strict. So that's really great.

It honestly depends on which state you're in. But if you're in a state where property management is overseen by the department of Finance or the Real estate commission, those are really, those are calls that.

Are desperate last kind of Hail Mary type calls. But they'll work. You don't even necessarily need to call them. You just call, you say, hey.

I'm going to call them if you don't call me back. And that'll typically get them to call you back. That's what I've done. Yeah.

Okay, here is the service dog question. I would like to know the process.

Hey guys, it's been a great podcast, thanks.

Come back, come back.

Oh, dear. Why? Why?

Because you're a professional property manager. I would like to know the process of evicting someone who has a service age animal. Is that any different than the normal process? Yes. Service animal, late rent, not pay rent, noise disturbance from excessive barking in the building, et cetera. All the legit reasons to evict a tennis tenant with a service dog. This is a huge question. It's becoming really abused. The whole service Animal thing.

Yeah, yeah, I can help you. I can help you evict them on.

All the same normal things.

Special preferences. Any special, like extra notice or anything?

No.

Okay.

No, no. I mean, I would hate to evict anybody for anything other than non payment of rent because that's going to be a very expensive thing to do. So if you have a barking dog service animal situation, there might be other things you can do to get them out, like pay them to leave cash for keys or something like that. I would much. Because in most states, if it's for anything else besides non payment, it's a slow eviction process. Attorneys have to get involved. But if we're talking non payment, treat them like everybody else.

There you go.

If you treat them differently, then you're in violation of the Housing and Urban Development laws. So you want to treat everybody the same, but if they have a note from a provider or whatever, you have to obviously rent to them and to their pet without charging a deposit, whatever. But if they're not paying their rent, that doesn't give them an excuse. And we've been in this situation where people say it's because of my disability, because I can't pay rent. I mean, that's another. Have you had that one?

I haven't, but that's.

Yeah, but that's happened. It's like, I can't pay my rent because I have a disability and you can't evict me. Yep. What do you guys think?

Yeah, I can, but.

Yeah, you can. Exactly right. You treat them like everybody else is really what happens. I mean, the whole premise of the fair housing laws is to treat everybody the same. And so just because they can't pay their rent doesn't make them exempt, unfortunately.

Here's the other thing, like disclaimer. Consult your local.

Attorney on this stuff, because what I can do in the states I'm in is a lot different than other states. So this might not apply, but the great advice is treat everybody the same.

Perfect.

I love it. All right, next question. Semi related, but not quite. I recently discovered that our tenants are hiding their ferret in the basement of our duplex. They're otherwise really good tenants. They pay on time, responsible, friendly neighbors. They were keeping them in his mom's basement. Them so multiple ferrets. Until she moved in with her boyfriend. And then they snuck them into our basement. So the ferrets are caged. I'm just upset they tried to hide it and in doing so violated our lease. What's the best way to handle it? I mean it's a ferret, so it's not like a dog or you know.

Yeah, no shepherd, no mistake.

Do they.

Ferrets have a really bad smell. You have to wash them like every.

Day, just like minks.

So what do you do? Do you evict somebody who was a good tenant over that?

Again, I strongly recommend, at least in the states that we're in, not to evict anybody other than for non payment of rent and try to figure out either for them to remove their ferrets. And I think a lot of this is getting the lease clause right up front. So very specific, no pet policy or what pets are permitted and if they're caught with a pet, what happens. So our lease will say, hey, if we find a pet in your property, we're going to go ahead and back charge you for all the months that you've lived there a pet rent. And then we're going to start charging you a very expensive pet rent. And then they're going to be like, well, crap, I'm going to move out, I can't afford this or I'm going to get rid of the ferret. But you got to have that language in your lease that hey, if you're caught without an authorized animal on your property, there's serious consequences and hopefully those consequences are going to get you to get rid of that thing or move out, which is way better than trying to do a slow evict on an animal. And then they're going to. And then they'll pay the, you know, this is a service animal card.

They just screwed.

Yeah, yeah.

We've always found is that, I mean, it happens. Tenants moving animals all the time and they always know they're not supposed to. They always doing it secretly. They always know they're breaking a rule. And so most of them are pretty good except for the ones that then go and claim service animal. But most, most of them have been pretty good about when we, when we hit them up, like, hey, you know, this isn't, this isn't going to fly. You know, you have to get rid of the dog, period. We'll give you next Friday. They almost always do. But yeah, a couple of times it's been, well, I can't get rid of it. It's my service animal. And then it's right, all right, right.

And that's awful. And, and one thing that we, we recommend is a biannual inspection of the property to uncover those service animals because. Or not animal service animals. But that, yeah, because there's a Lot of people that sneak them in and they think they do a good job of like hiding it and it's really obvious the second you walk in there.

Yep.

Yep. All right.

Yeah.

Next question.

Okay. I showed one of my rentals last night to a person who got through my pre screening, which asks. Which includes asking if the person has had an eviction, to which he replied never. I did a quick search on his name and address and found he has had a couple of evictions and other small claims. Looks to me like a professional tenant or one in the making in practice. What is the best way to handle this? Should I allow him to apply and send him an application and then deny him or. I'm looking to avoid some falling into some sort of legal trap.

Yeah, no, I typically whatever your application. So again, you want to have your screening. If somebody applies for whatever apartment or a house, you want to have your screening policies either on your website or at the office and your application process basically in writing.

Just like your lease. Whatever your screening process says, your application process says, just follow that. It's typically not. I do a quick check to see if you're on the repository and then you do it and then you call them and say, hey, don't apply, because I already checked and I wouldn't do that. I would stick to the exact same process every time.

Okay, so what I keep hearing from you is stick to the same process. Have a process and stick to it and make no exceptions.

And yeah, because I mean, what will happen is a HUD will come in, it'll say the first question, show me your policies and your procedures on, you know, what is your screening policy and what is your process on how you, how you do that? And then they're going to check to make sure you do everything the same way.

That's it.

Yep.

I'm asking this for all the people.

Absolutely.

In the forums. You're a professional property manager and he says, find a process and stick to it.

Yep, that's right. And don't deviate from it. I think it's interesting that, hey, this is the bad thing, right. I get a vibe about this guy. So now I'm going to go to the repository and oh, yep, he's got an eviction. Call him up. Hey, don't apply, loser. You've got an eviction.

Don't call him.

Yeah. And then he goes. And then he calls the local fair housing council and you're in trouble.

Like we've had, we've had people, sorry, I lost you.

Could you go Back just.

Yeah. So, like, I mean, we. We always let anybody apply who wants to apply, period. Even if they tell us, hey, I've got no job, I've got a zero credit score, and I've got a murder on my background check, we'll be like, well, our policy is we don't run to people who have a murder. But here's an application if you want to apply.

That's right.

Because then we can. We can. They can't come back later and say, well, you didn't let me apply because you're a racist or because you're a sexist or whatever. You know, there's a million things I could say or because I'm disabled.

Perfect.

And I didn't know you were disabled. Well, I can't ask you that. Anyway, so how do I. Like, the whole thing just gets weird. So, like, just follow your process no matter what.

Yeah. And if they call up, I mean, this is why it's so awesome to have it on your website is this. They call up and say, hey, I'll shoot you a link to the process and how we do this and what our screening criteria is. And then you can decide at the bottom of that screen, you can click Apply.

Yep. We put our screening criteria right on our application as well. And it's on when they apply online. That's there as well. It's everywhere. So they know you must make three times or whatever it is, the rent. You must not have an eviction. The last thing. We have seven years. Maybe we have ever.

That's right.

We don't rent to smokers anymore. Like, we just decided to stop renting the smokers because we did a protect.

Not a protective.

Not a protective glass. Yep. I don't rent to dirty people. Also not a productive class or subjective. Yeah, I don't know if that's actually in my thing, but I. I try.

Not to get in writing.

No, I won't.

You could. Yeah, you probably want to edit that part out. So I don't rent. We're in Colorado. We have the legalized marijuana. It is illegal on the federal level, so we don't run to people who smoke pot. We don't allow them to smoke pot. I guess you can't really ask them, do you smoke pot?

And they're like, yeah, but Mindy, what if it's medical?

Yeah, exactly.

Even if it's medical, it's not a protected class.

You can't. But yeah, I mean, we definitely have an all releases there. No smoking inside. Doesn't matter what it Is no smoking.

Yep.

And no illegal substances. It's still illegal on the federal level.

And recently it is. But so is, I mean, so is all drugs. Right. But there are drugs that you can, like if you're prescribed medical marijuana that is now a drug. You cannot tell somebody they cannot take medical marijuana if it's prescribed because it's not illegal to take medical marijuana at a federal level. It's only legal to take recreational medical marijuana or marijuana. Right now. That gets weird.

You know, I thought it was all illegal on the federal level.

No federal allows for medical. I think, or maybe they just don't have a law.

We need a marijuana person on the site, on the show.

Let's get some marijuana people. So what do you know about that, Andrew?

Like, I'm not the guy.

I just live in the States.

So maybe, maybe it is may. I don't know about the medical thing federal wise, but either way, like it gets really sticky because then like it also is weird because you can't even ask a tenant if it's for like you can't ask them what their disability is that they need it for. And it's just, it's, it gets weird. So we try to just. We try to find other ways to avoid tenants that typically if somebody's like, there's always something you can find in a tenant almost that is legal to discriminate against. You know, like we don't rent to people who have not enough income or job or whatever. It's usually not just one thing. It's usually not just.

Yeah, they're usually hitting a lot of those.

Correct.

Usually.

Usually.

Usually the case. And if it's. And if, you know, we have in our policy. Right. You know, if it's a, if it's an income issue, you can get a cosigner. Right. Or you can. Or you can. If your credit's not there, you could pay additional deposit and stuff like that. So we try to, we try to work with them, you know, if they, if they shine in all the other areas. But it's one area that's not a, like a definite no. You can look at co signers or additional deposit and stuff like that to help protect you.

There you go. All right, let's move on to the last segment of the show which we call our famous for. All right, these are the same four questions we ask every guest every week and we're going to throw them at you. Number one, Andy, what is your favorite real estate related book?

Favorite real estate related book? I've. I've done read a lot of real estate books.

The.

I would say. Yeah, put it up there. Let me see. Let me see what it is.

The book on rental property.

Thank you, Mindy.

Wow. Thanks.

My book on rental property investing.

Is my favorite book, but since I haven't read that one yet, but I'm going to now.

Good. You better.

I love the. It's called the CI101. It's a commercial real estate investment book put out by the CCIM Institute. And it's everything you need to know about how to invest the numbers in real estate. It's probably not a book that. It's a great book if you're not interested in that stuff to put you right to sleep. But if you're interested in it, you'll love it. It is years of great research and smart people put that thing together.

Lucky for you, everybody here is really into that stuff.

Yes.

So is this a readily available book since it's by the CCIM Institute, or do you have to be a CCIM to get it?

I think anybody can get it, and I think if you Google Search CI101 Commercial Investments, you'll be able to pull that down.

Okay.

All that really deep, like how to. How to understand how the investments work by the numbers. It's all in there and it's pretty easy to follow.

Okay. I will put a link. I'll find it a place that people can buy it and I'll put a link in the show notes.

Yes, you should be able to buy it either way.

Thank you. What is your favorite business book? Non Real estate business book.

I'm a culture guy. I love to try to figure out what kind of motivates people. And I think the one that I've kind of gone back to a lot, obviously the one that kind of transformed my life, the one that got me out of being kidnapped, was how to win friends and influence people. But business book, specifically Drive by Daniel Pink was very helpful.

Cool. I've not read that, but I've heard it's good.

Yeah, no, we've got. In Boise alone, we have almost 100 people, 300 people nationally that work for our company. So it's like, how do you keep property management exciting every day? If you figure that out, you've got some great things going on, and that's a great culture. What really drives people to be great every day?

Perfect.

Don't screen your tenants. That'll keep it exciting.

All right, what you got, Mindy?

What are your hobbies? What do you like to do when you're not doing real estating.

I always think about a million things are going in my head all the time. Opportunities, threats. It's like a SWOT analysis happen every second in my brain. There's one thing that turns that off and it's stand up whitewater paddleboarding.

Oh really?

Oh, that's neat.

Yes.

Are there opportunities in Boise to do stand up whitewater?

I can leave my office at 5 o' clock and be on the river at 6 o' clock and then have a two hour float and be off the water by 8:30 and be home by 9:15 before it's dark in the summer. That's awesome. Yeah, we just, we float the. It's got some Class 2 and Class 3 rapids. There's Gloif and Mike's Hole. They all got names and it's awesome. But just like trying to not die when I'm doing that activity just takes 100% of my focus. And so that's why I love it. It just takes everything away.

That's what. First of all, I did not know there was a thing stand up whitewater paddleboard. I've heard of paddle boarding, but that's super cool. I want to try that sometimes.

It is. You're welcome. I will. If you come down like you'll. If you've done paddleboarding, you'll love it. And like the first couple times you like sit down on the rapids and kind of canoe through them, but you get through a big rapid, you stand up on that thing, you get through. It's the best feeling in the world.

That's awesome. So that's actually why I love. I'm addicted to surfing. I love surfing. I first went surfing with Mindy and then I went out to Hawaii last April. I'm actually going out there on Sunday. Moving out there for the whole winter just to surf. Because it's for that exact reason is my mind clears when I'm on the water.

Absolutely.

You like you're in the zone and it's the best feeling ever.

Yep. And it's danger. I mean it's dangerous. Like I said, it takes so much focus to not die. And so I'm just trying to get core.

Must be awesome.

Oh no, no it's not.

Let's see it. Let's see it.

But it is intense. It is so much fun. And like I said, it's the only thing that just takes all my focus. Because it requires your focus.

Yep. I love it. My last question of the day. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or just pure and simple. Never get started.

One word, man. Knowledge. You know, knowing. Knowing what to look for. And again, just putting the. Just putting the puzzle together. You can. I think you can get lucky on a couple deals, but if you don't know what you're doing and you're not asking the right questions or looking for the right thing, eventually they'll catch up with you. The people that have done it and continue to do it and be successful in general over a long term, really understand how the investment side of the asset works. And if you can do that, you can make real estate work in any market. In any market, you can make it work.

Cool. Fantastic.

That's a great answer. Okay, Andy, where can people find out more about you?

You know what? Our website, we have our national website that links to all of our local sites. Homeriver.com is very simple. Www.homeriver.com. you can find out more about me there. I think there's a profile on me there. Our chairman, John Hirschfeld, all the senior vice presidents we have working for us. We have. Our national MA in finance is based in New York. Our headquarters is in Florida. And then we have 11 states across the nation. So we got a pretty good footprint. But we're trying to grow. We're obviously looking for people that need a partner in property management. People are looking to sell their property management companies. We have a great private equity firm that's helping us acquire property management companies. We're trying to do something that's never been done, which is a bona fide real national property management presence. There's a lot of bigger property management companies, but they're not in every location. And we want to do that. We want to be the first ones to do it. And that's tough. A pioneer in any venture. It's a tough road, but it's super exciting. Super exciting.

Well, cool. Well cool. Last question. I actually do have. I said it was the last question, but you own a bowling alley. So I want to know, like, what.

That's right.

Yeah.

What is your average bowling score and what is your best bowling score?

So again, I did not buy this bowling alley because I love bowling. It was strictly dollars and cents purchase.

Okay.

I have learned to like it. And there's this whole world of bowling that I didn't know existed. It's awesome. It's crazy, but I say my average has gone up from about 80 to 100 and the best I've ever done is 174. And that's true.

There's an awesome article about when I bought this bowling alley because it was owned by one family for 50, 60 years and then I bought it back in October. But I believe the headline is world's worst bowler buys historic Valley Alley. So it's a great read. Idaho Statesman, front page is awesome.

We'll link to it.

Go bowling.

I actually love. I love bowling. I'm horrible at it, but you know, I like it. It's fun.

All right.

It is. It is. It's a fun thing. It's not as cool as stand up water board waterboarding.

Not as fun as waterboarding.

I love being waterboarded.

It's awesome.

All right, on that note, let's get out of here. Thank you so much, Andy. This is a lot of fun today. And you know, people have questions and they want to know more from you. Ask it in the show notes, which you can get@biggerpockets.com show265. Thanks so much, Andy.

You guys are great.

Thanks. Bye. All right, now with our show with Andy Prefs. Man, that was crazy. Starting with his kidnapping story. That was, that was awesome and very sad. Amazing that he got out of it.

Yeah, that's. I mean, yeah, he got out of it, but can you imagine being kidnapped for a whole week in a country that I'm sure he spoke the language but not like super amazingly well. And Russian mobsters, that's kind of scary.

Getting beat with baseball bats, man.

Well, that's probably not the best day of his life.

Probably not. But he's had a, he has a cool story, though. Like, I really, like, I love the way that, I don't know, I feel like when I talk to a guy like him who's a professional property manager, like in the fact that he does everything almost the same way that I do things in my business, I'm like, okay, good. I'm doing things probably right. Like, and I see people who just struggle so, so much with being a landlord. They really struggle with being a landlord. And when I look at the reasons why, it's because, like, they don't follow processes, they don't follow rules. They don't think that they have a business. They just like doing it. Like they're, I don't know, sewing a hat on their head or something, you know, like, that's like a hobby, right? Not like a business.

I don't know.

What do you call that when you like CRO. Crocheting? Is that the word that people hipsters like to do today? They crochet.

Crocheting. Is the. Yeah, that's like a hipster thing.

I don't know.

They do it.

What would you know about hipster things, Brandon?

Hey, I've got big glasses. I'm sure I could wear them.

I actually don't.

All right.

Anyways, I got a lot out of it, so.

I got so much out of it. I really enjoy the. Enjoy is not the right word. I'm so, like, reassured that everything that I have done in my rental property management career and everything that I am continuing to tell people in the forums all the time, you know, have your processes, stick to your rules, and, you know, follow your lease. It's nice to hear that somebody who does. Does this for a living as his actual job says the same thing.

That's very true. And could I insert a shameless plug here? So my wife and I actually wrote a book called the Book on Managing Rental Properties. It is a big, bright yellow book you can get at any Barnes and Noble pretty much in the country. Also, you can get it@biggerpockets.com store, but it's like 397 pages of just how to manage tenants. And like I said, almost everything Andy does, we do. So if you want to know our process and how we do it, including there's like. Like forms in there and all this kind of cool stuff, get it on Amazon, get it from Barnes and Noble, or get it with a bunch of bonuses when you get it at biggerpockets.com/landlord book. I think you can get that one. And the book on rental property investing and a bunch of other stuff. Biggerpockets.com that's not it. That's biggerpockets.com rental. Oh, man. What is that? Rental property book. I can't remember. Hold on.

Wow.

If only there was a way to look this up. Brandon.

Rental book. Rental book. Let me try that. Biggerpockets.com rentalbook. Yeah, that was it. Okay, so go to biggerpockets.com rentalbook and you'll get. You can get. You get the big yellow book and the big blue book combined together. 600 and some pages of property management stuff, plus other cool stuff. So, you know, I don't.

I don't want to diminish your.

Please don't.

I don't want to. I don't want it to sound like a shameless plug or that I'm, like, stroking your ego, but this is really well written and it's easy to understand any big words you explain in plain English. And. And that was.

That was my Wife. I don't know big words, so I don't write big words.

So my wife makes everything that Heather did was beautiful and perfect. And then you, you know, came along.

I came along and put my face on the back cover and we sold some books. So, you know.

Nice.

I'm a male model. What can I say?

Oh, no. But, yeah, these are great books.

Thank you.

No, you're too tall to be a male model.

I am too tall to be a male model. And I don't have a six pack, so I'm not gonna be a model. You know, whatever. I don't care. I'm a hand model, just like on Zoolander. Remember that?

A hand model, David.

All right, I'm leaving. I'm leaving right now. This is done. How have you never seen Zoolander? It's like, not. It's like. It's like, top five best comedies of all time. Maybe even top, like, two best comedies.

No.

The gasoline fight accident. Oh, my gosh. So funny.

I want to see a gasoline fight.

So funny. And like, the. Oh, my gosh. There's so much good stuff in that movie. You've got to watch. Now, Zoolander, like, you and I are gonna watch Zoolander. We'll bring Carl in and Heather won't care, but. But you and I and Carl will have a good time or to watch it. All right.

Okay. I will put that on my list, please. I would. Since you got to do a shameless plug. I am going to do a shameless plug.

Okay, what is it?

On Monday's episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.

That's your new show?

That's my new show. We talked to Scott and I talked to Mr. And Mrs. Waffles on Wednesday, and they have a really amazing story about how they decided they wanted to become financially independent. They share their tips for how they have their own business that helps them write off all sorts of things that you normally wouldn't be able to write off as just, like, a regular person because she works from home. It's a really great episode. They're really interesting people, and I would encourage you to check it out@biggerpockets.com Money Show 8. Money Show 08. All right, now I gotta go and see if that's actually the show number.

So while you're looking that up, you know, it's funny, like, you hear people's last names. Like, Johnson is like Son of John. Or like Thompson is usually a Son of Tom. Like, back in, like, hundreds of years ago when they came up with last names. Where did Mr. And Mrs. Waffles on Wednesdays come. Like, where did that last name come from? I'm just kidding. I know that's not real, but.

Wow. But we cover that in the show, and I was a big fat liar. It is actually show number seven.

Oh, you are a liar.

So that is biggerpockets.com moneyshow707 or just seven zero seven. Okay, seven would also work. I do a redirect.

Oh, okay, good.

So, yes, a thousand apologies for giving you the wrong information the first time, but yeah, it's a great show. Lots of fun, lots of energy in that show. So check it out.

All right, well, with that, let's get out of here. I've got stuff to do, like real estate stuff, so I'm gonna get out and go do that.

So you're gonna nap?

I might nap.

Okay. Brandon, thanks for letting me step in.

Thank you.

I always have a good time when I come to the show.

I enjoy having you here, so thank you. And who knows? Josh will be back soon. He's. He's. I think he'll be back soon. We'll see. So anyway, all right, let's get out of here.

For the BiggerPockets podcast. This is Mindy Jensen signing off.

You're listening to BiggerPockets radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small.

If you're here looking to learn about.

Real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com your home for real estate investing online.

Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of the smartest ways to protect and even improve your property's cash flow. As the months get colder, frozen pipes, icy walkways, and seasonal wear and tear can increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning to steadily. They focus exclusively on landlords. Whether it's a single family rental, a Brrr Builders risk policy, or midterm holiday guests, you get fast quotes, flexible coverage, and protection for property damage, liability, and even loss of rental income. Now is the perfect time to review your rates and coverage. Get a quote in minutes@biggerpockets.com landlordinsurance steadily landlord insurance, designed for the modern investor.