All Forum Posts by: Yishi Garrard

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I will share these with my partners and we will see what works best for us. @Chris Kennedy , that software that you use, is that $99 per year for unlimited users, or is it $99 per user per year? 

Tucson, AZ has gotten pricier, but there are still some deals out there. Let me know if you're interested and I may have a few clients that would be interested in selling some multi-units.

Hi all,

Does anyone have any good recommendations on CRM software to use to track the wholesale process? Specifically, my team is hoping to find a good system that we can use to track everything from when we first drive by a run down home, we can make a note of that and enter it into the system, and from there we can track when we make the phone calls, the direct mail intervals, face to face meeting, all the way to closing. It would also be nice to track conversion rates, etc.  

So far we have looked at Insightly and Reesio, and both seem like decent solutions, with Reesio being targeted specifically toward real estate brokerages to track transactions and clients, but neither of them seem to be quite a good enough fit for wholesaling. 

Does anyone have any other strong recommendations that would be a good fit for wholesale deal tracking? Our team is pretty tech savvy, so our top priority is functionality, followed by user friendliness.

Thanks very much!

My mgmt company uses our standard lease, and we include an addendum that lists out even more rules and stipulations. Key things to note are noise violations and "red tags" (if police respond to a party complaint and have to shut it down). We charge a $250 fee for that, and the tenants also have to pay a fine to the city. Also, we make each student have a parent co signer, and we send that as a separate document. Make sure to do one single lease per unit/house. Doing separate leases by student is never a good idea. If you get objections to that, then those roommates aren't ready to live together if they aren't even able to commit to a lease together. Lastly, we charge a 20% non refundable portion of the security deposit. This ensures that we have money to do a final cleaning after they've moved out and "cleaned" their house, and also allows us to fix any minor items. Of course, we will bill more out of the deposit if damages and charges exceed that 20%, but making that portion non refundable eliminates a lot of debate and arguing upon move out that we re charging them for a cleaning, etc.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. I've had clients in your situation borrow money from family to do their deals, but it almost always involves either paying them interest, or a portion of the profits (typically on flips). The other thing to consider is that if you've never done real estate investing before, and this is your first purchase, then be aware that there's a chance you might make a mistake that could cost some money. If this were to happen with your brother's money, things could get ugly since you've now mixed family with business. 

No real right answer here, it all depends on what level of risk you and your brother are willing to take, and what kind of relationship you guys have.

Very common. End of the day it comes down to if you think it's worth fighting with your agent over it. Since it's being charged to them by their brokerage, either you pay it, or they pay it out of pocket. If your agent does a phenomenal job and you have a great relationship with them, is it really worth going to battle over a few bucks? Try to look at it like just another cost of doing business.

Hi Kedesha,

Welcome to BP and to the investing community! I'm here in Tucson as well, so nice to meet you. As far as your first rental property, you'll want to have an idea of whether or not you want to pay cash, or if you plan to finance the purchase. If you do plan on financing, be sure to speak to a lender now if you haven't already. This will ensure that if you aren't going to qualify for a loan on a rental property right away you can work on the necessary items so that you can get a prequalification when you start looking to buy.

Another key consideration is knowing what parts of Tucson have the best rental rates and will provide the best returns. Let me know if you have any questions about specific areas. The real estate brokerage that I'm a partner of also has a 300+ unit property management portfolio, so we have a pretty good pulse on the central Tucson rental market. 

Main thing is not getting too emotional about these rental properties, and knowing when to pull the trigger on a deal. I've had first-time investor clients that get so stressed out analyzing a deal, and then they hem and haw, and never get started. 

Again, welcome to the BP and real estate!

Thanks for the responses everyone, this gives us good validation of this revised pricing strategy, and gives us hope that our clients won't revolt if we make this change!

Thank you for your responses. I agree, I think that investors (for the most part) will see the value in paying for quality. It seems to be the mom and pops and the homeowner turned accidental landlord types that seem to have a problem with fees and fight over every dollar spent on repairs. But as Steve said, those may very well be the types of owner clients that we don't want. 

Hi,

I'm a co-owner of a full service real estate brokerage in Tucson, AZ, and we have a property management division that is in the growth phase. We are at approx 270 units managed, with 100+ owners. We don't really take on the "slumlord" types of properties. We try to focus on quality rentals that attract good tenants. 

We started out as a "low-fee" type of company that focused on trying to eliminate a lot of the fees that are common in the PM industry, such as marketing fee, placement fees, turnover fees, inspection fees, etc. However, we are finding that with PM being such a labor intensive industry, there's no way for us to provide excellent service without increasing our payroll and resource expenses. 

My questions is this: How big of a factor are fees to a prospective property owner that's shopping around for property management services? Are low fees the number one factor that you would look at, or do you guys think owners would be willing to pay fees in exchange for a company that has a strong structure and business processes, and performance, which can be validated through online reviews, client testimonials & references, etc?

Before we make a big pivot in our pricing and business model, I was hoping to get some feedback from the BP community. Thank you!