All Forum Posts by: Steve Rozenberg

With the price of oil dropping, who thinks  it is a good or bad idea to invest in Houston? I have my opinion living here in Houston but am curious what others think that are not here.

Next time you go to hire a PM company here are some questions you may want to ask.

Questions to Ask prospective management companies

• What are your average days on market for vacant homes?
• What is your average rent amount for all properties managed?
• What is your average work order cost for the owner?
• What is your average make ready cost for the owner?
• Are all my invoices uploaded to my owner portal?
• How do you advertise your vacant units?
• Do I receive video of my pre and post make ready?
• Do you have a setup fee?
• Do you upcharge on maintenance?
• When do you make owner payments? How often?
• Are you a Certified Property Manager?
• Are you a member of NARPM?
• What is your Guarantee?

@jay 

@Jay Hinrichs I agree with Jay. As long as you have a scalable business model in place you can grow tremendously. Make sure you have policies and procedures in place, I have learned from experience that anyone can find a good deal when aquiring them. The true test is to make sure that asset gives you a return monthly. The only way you can do that on a large scale is by having procedures in place.

We grew our portfolio to a very large management company of over 400 homes. I can tell you what we did for 100 homes did not work for 300 and definitely will not work for 600 which is where we are projected to be by end of 2015.

Just remember the IRS, fair housing and many other governing agencies say you are a business. You have to comply with all laws and regulations and have A PLAN!!

the best advice I can give you in this is to make your qualifications very clear and post them online and give them a copy in person. If any of the above criteria are things you will not accept then state that. 

We make it a practice that we take the first qualified applicant that has turned in a complete packet to us. In my opinion if you deviate from this rule you can be putting yourself in a fair housing violation or discrimition suit. It is a very fine line and landlords are sued and fined all the time for not following the law and violating rights. 

Also just as important, you MUST send anyone you turn down a denial letter. These are the people that may be upset and will turn you in. Make this a standard practice in your business and it could save you a HUGE headache in the future

If your interested in our process I would be happy to share it with you if you PM me. We manage over 400 homes and have a 2% eviction rate.

I guess everyone has a different way they look at their business and their clients. I'm not saying that you have to go and rescue people but I do feel that if you had some standard procedures in place you could maybe protect your investment a lot better by let's say a named storm coming into your area and you advise them how to protect the property in the end that actually would protect your investment. I understand you will get insurance money back but you could also lose a lot of rent. Here in Houston I have a friend that owns an apartment complex and he almost went bankrupt because the apartment complex got completely totaled in the storm and he did eventually get his money but not for two years and during those two years he had to carry the note of the apartment complex without any fines because the apartment was empty.

I think it's just a matter of being prepared and having some form of system in place that should something happen you have an action plan

Yes, we do have a preparedness plan / manual. Meaning if it gets below freezing we have canned template emails. If there is a named storm headed to the city we have a template email. So we do have a lot but always try to become better for the things we never plan for. 

With managing over 400 Homes there would be no way to call every tenant or go to each property so whatever you do has to be scalable in my opinion 

Do most people keep a disaster plan ready to go for any type of natural disasters? Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tornados... ETC?? How to notify your residents and plan of actions of what to do?

we used to split the late fees with our clients. However we changed our management agreements to have us retain all fees. If the company is doing their job this should not be a major issue, meaning tenants are selected correctly and they pay on time. If this is not the case then maybe they are selecting the wrong tenants.

We keep the fees because we send out certifed Mail notices, time spent contacting the resident etc.. There is employee time spent doing this to try and get the owners money. At the end of the day it is a business and there is staff time spent if they are going to track down the owners money.

But I would agree with the earlier post, make sure it is stipulated in the agreement before you sign, anything.

hi Steve, the only problem with buying a condominium is you have no control of the HOA they can restrict a lot of things that you can and cannot do.So if you're looking to buy it as a rental you may have a problem with that. Number two to market a rental in a condominium complex, if it's hard to get inside the complex a lot of times gives the person that is looking for the property a hard time to find it.

We've had a lot of problems with condos because agents and other people cannot find the unit and cannot get inside the unit and some of these HOA's do not allow you to put for rent signs outside of the complex which reduces your ability greatly

Also you have no control on the HOA fees. I had a condo one time that in the course of 4 years the monthly HOA fee doubled and made my cash flow go negative