Christian Osgood tours a 25-unit property in Stephenville, Texas and finds roof debris and a damaged ridgeline invisible from the street. He spends an hour clearing gutters and documenting damage to prevent mold and water problems. His point: landlords who walk their properties regularly with basic tools can catch small issues before they become expensive cascading repairs.
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Hey YouTube, it's Christian. I'm here at the 25-unit I purchased seller finance here in Stephenville overlooking the campus. But most importantly, I noticed a lot of debris on the roof. My contractors hadn't gotten to it yet, and so I figured I'll tell you guys what to look for when you're on top of your properties. This video, I'll share exactly what I look for, what I found at my property, which is less than ideal, and how you can save a boatload of money by just having a ladder in your truck. So by the way, welcome back to the channel. If you haven't yet, you know, do the thing like subscribe, helps us grow, get out to more people.. And if you're already watching a video for free, join our free school group. Links below. Free calculators in there. Huge community. Join us there. But so hopped in, saw this debris. What I found in our latest storm, we lost part of our ridgeline for a roof. You can't see this from the street, but when I'm up here, there's a hole in the roof that's not supposed to be here. That leads to mold, that leads to all sorts of problems. It's over an awning, so it wouldn't flood into a unit. Well, we likely have water going into the roof in an area that really, uh, really wouldn't get caught for a while, so there can be a chance for a lot of damage. What I'm going to do today while I'm on the roof is clear all the debris. I'm going to clean out the gutters, document the overall damage, and we're going to leave with a better building. My biggest tip for real estate: it's a physical asset. Make it a physical asset. Enjoy the benefits of a physical asset. You can touch it, which means you can fix it. You can make it better. The common Boy Scout rule, but it's really applied well to real estate. Leave everything better than you found it. So if I'm going to visit one of my buildings, there's trash around, I'm going to pick it up. We have a roof, get a truck, shovel, got my leaf blower there. I can just hop up here and get this done. Yes, it costs a few hundred bucks to have someone else do it, but if you're already going to be at the property, just get the work done. Make yourself a few hundred bucks or save yourself a few hundred bucks. This is well worth it. I'll spend an hour, I'll save like $700. For $700 an hour, you can still get me doing some work on the property. So biggest tip, just look at your properties regularly, go to them regularly, and don't buy any deals that are so small that it doesn't make sense to visit the property. I think it's one of the most important things you can do. Get around the asset, make the asset better, know what you're working with. An average landlord would not have hopped up here, would not have found the roof damage. They would have waited till there were cascading problems, the water damage had got in, there's rot, there's more to repair. We could be saving thousands of dollars by getting up on all these roofs and checking it out, figuring out what's wrong with the property. By the way, I'm also coordinating contract crews here, so I'm going through our unit interiors and making sure the renovation's turned right, and checking our concrete work as we just patched a lot of our sidewalk for areas that have settled since we originally purchased the property. This is what it means to be a hands-on owner. Thing to remember, and my point of this video here, guys, it's management by walking around. If you're not doing this to your portfolio, you're doing a disservice, especially if you raise capital for your deals. My investors know that I'm actually here, actually care about the property. Regardless of how successful we are, no one's above getting on the roof and cleaning some leaves. Hope this short video helped. See you guys soon.
