All Forum Posts by: Brad Larsen

Recommend you getting a second opinion on your management needs.  I suggest SGI Property Management in Phoenix.  

Good luck!

My advice is to disregard any advice you find on this forum and seek out a local and competent business attorney in your immediate area.  

Then join NARPM!

Good luck.

I would recommend SGI Property Management in Las Vegas, NV.

Good luck!

Exactly - wait for success to find you.  Do not take any risks or do anything bold in the efforts for you to find success.  Sit back, be safe, wait, save your money, act like all the other 19 year olds.  

BS.  All of it.  

Seize the day and go get what you want.  Read / listen to EVERYTHING from Robert Kiyosaki and Tony Robbins.  Go from there.  

Good luck!

@Pete Velasquez HOUSE HACK! You are in military city, USA. Use your VA loan and buy a 1-4 unit home. The issue is that you do not have the income to possibly support that purchase. Find out what you do qualify for and buy a VA home. Come PCS time, you rent it out and do this again at your next duty station. You may be short $100 a month - but the appreciation and depreciation far outweigh that.

Saving makes no sense.  Literally.  Listen to the Kiyosaki teachings and do not become Dave Ramsey.  Do you want to wait 10 years to save the "right" amount of money?  

This is like taking golf lessons but never playing until after your 100th lesson.  You just have to get on the course to fully learn the game.  

Good luck!

@Kenneth McKeown  Before even giving an answer to which market, I would agree with others above as to go with what you know first.  The interviews you make mention of above - are these for Real Estate Brokers....to work for?  To hang your license with?

First - remove them off of the pedestal you just placed them on by making them sound more important than they are.  Brokers and real estate companies are a dime a dozen.  You are not interviewing for NASA.  

Second - it makes ZERO difference where you are as an agent.  Y O U have to make you a success.  If that sounds corny, oh well.  I've been around the block a bit and I particularly do not like agents - even though I am one.  I really don't like residential sales brokers that run big companies like KW, Kuper, Re-Max, Etc....  Their commodity is YOU!  You are the only thing they buy / sell.  Sad really.

My advice - find a good mentor no matter the company they own.  Plus, be prepared as it's a cut throat business that you will starve in your first year.  After that and once you figure it out a bit, you can make a living.  But, keep investing as the Realtor path is nothing but riding a bike.  When you stop pedaling, you will fall over and crash.  

Good luck out there! 

We would recommend @Jonatan Barbera Jonatan Barbera here in San Antonio.  He'll catch this and most likely reach out to you.  

Enjoy your visit and I would recommend El Mirasol for any of your awesome Tex Mex fixes needing to be scratched.  Love their food and margaritas.  

@Robin Hunter  Here's a stab in the dark from putting my "Client Hat" on for a minute:

1) Pay Me Sooner (Me being the actual home owner).  Sadly, part of the service is to collect and then distribute rents and the electronic money world still affords people the opportunity to bounce a check....via ACH.  When this stops, we can pay people sooner.  

I have even seen programs where you get "Rapid Paid".  Meaning, the PM company fronts the Landlord the rent payment for the month on the 1st and then gets the funds from the tenant a day or two later. 

2) Pay My Mortgage and HOA Dues. Again, this is a nightmare of reconciliation to put onto a Property Manager. We COULD do this, however, we would have to charge like a book keeper / CPA to do this as missing a mortgage payment would be very very bad. HOA's are not much better as they have the power of foreclosure.

3) Pay all of my maintenance bills.  Homeowners naturally hate maintenance.  They hate the expense, and they hate the burden.  When we have to call them for a maintenance issue, you can physically hear them cringe on the phone.  Hearing from us at this point is never good.  To accomplish this, we would have to consider a Master Lease.  Example:  Your home would / could rent for $1,500 per month - we will guarantee you $1,000 per month and handle all maintenance concerns, rents, tenant issues, etc...  But, not many want to go this route.  

4) Provide me One Point of Contact!  We hear a lot of PM Companies manage by committee in most regards to leasing, maintenance, finances, etc...  The single owner point of contact for an owner makes a lot of sense.  

5) Keep me Up to Date! A lot of owners want to know what is going on with their home during a tenant roll over situation.  Constantly being updated during a vacancy is a good way to ease some of that burden.  Knowing bad news is better than having NO news.  Atleast with the bad news being shared, adjustments can be made.  "Sorry Mr. / Mrs. Owner - your home did not rent this week....you should consider an asking price adjustment." 

I'm sure there are many more to come up and I would like to see what we could put into our systems that may offer better service to our clients.  

@Kimberly Daughtrey 

1) JOIN NARPM!  (NARPM.org)

2) Find other successful property management companies and copy what they do. 

3) Set up systems to remove you from having to personally touch everything going on.  One poster said "on demand" statements which is a system of getting financial info to your clients.  

4) Seek out education online, via podcasts, via CD's, via conferences.  

5) Lastly - IMPLEMENT what you learn.  I can not say this enough.  If you do not put the good ideas into action, you are wasting your time and losing money.  

Good luck out there!

To add to this discussion - we do in house sales and the transition to either put them into the system, or sell their home out of the system comes at a turnover time that is critical.

Buying and on-boarding:  If you were to turn to a PM company and ask them to help you BUY a home - you would without a doubt want them to manage the home.  Knowing this will lead them to find you a winner of a deal that they will rent quickly and look like all stars.  

On the alternative side - if you go to another outside agency that does not manage your home - they will tell you whatever it takes to get the sale as they know they are done at that point.  My company would not sell you a dog because we have to turn around and manage it!!!

Selling and transition:  When you say it's time to sell - you again want that PM company who has been handling the management to do the sale.  Handoffs are very costly to an investor and why would you not want the manager who is familiar with that home to sell it for you?  

If that's not enough incentive, we offer a discount to management customers (up-front in the management agreement) to allow us to sell their homes.  

Should they NOT want to sell the home with us - we have to cut ties or wait until the tenant vacates before turning it over to another outside agency.  We contractually are not allowed to have two brokers touch the same home at the end of a lease (with a tenant involved).  

Hope this helps!