REAL TALKÂ RENTALS
Episode 16: Hiring A Property Manager
Are you considering hiring a property manager? What should you look for when hiring a property manager? If you're a landlord or property owner, hiring a property manager may be one of the best decisions you can make for your investment. In this episode, Ben and Eric dive into the key qualities of a great property manager, such as their communication skills, attention to detail, and experience in the industry. They also discuss some of the benefits of having a property manager, including reduced stress and increased profitability. If you're considering hiring a property manager, this episode is a must-listen.
This episode covers:
- Property management
- Property Manager Red Flags
- Value of Property Managers
- Maintenance Issues
Hiring A Property Manager What to Look For
Ben Bailey:Â Coming up on today's episode of Real Talk Rentals, we're going to talk the questions that you should be asking when you hire a property management professional. Welcome back to Real Talk Rentals, a podcast brought to you by Oncue Property Management. We're here to walk you through all the secrets of owning an investment property and everything that goes into it behind the scenes. My name is Ben. I'll be your host. And with me, as always, Mr. Eric Dixon, the go to expert on all things property management. And we're going to be testing that knowledge today, sort of, because we're going to walk through what you should look for when hiring a property management professional. So, Eric, I'm going to have you put on kind of your customer hat and pretend you are shopping in a market that does not have on. Q the obvious choice. Oh, yeah. So. Let's pretend you inherited an investment property. There's no on in this area. It's in a different state. Self management. Probably not an option. How do you start your search for a property manager? And what are you looking for in a property management company? All right.
Eric Dixon:Â So yeah, I'll put on customer hat and then I'm as you're saying that I'm reminiscing the for the first 6 or 7 years here, I was the sales guy who would sign up these new clients or meet with them, answer their questions and so forth. And so, you know, some of their common questions are the questions you need to be asking anyway. Sure. So if I if I inherited a property, I'm looking to hire management company. Um, you know, the, the easiest one is, hey, how much does it cost? You know, what do you charge? Um, what do you do for for those services? But I don't think that that even matters. You know, at the end of the day, like, most companies are going to charge about the same. And so specifically in Arizona, I know we're not talking about Arizona because you would just hire us, but, um, do you or does this property management company handle your sales tax collection and payment and filing every month? You know, that is a big one that we get asked often that if you're in a state or a municipality that has rental tax, that's one of the top questions you should have. Because if some of our even competitors, they don't do that on behalf of the client. Right. And it's kind of like, why do you have a management company if they don't even file your taxes?
Ben Bailey:Â Who wants to handle taxes.
Eric Dixon:Â Your rental tax for you? Um, another one is how fast or at what date do I receive my rental income each month? Okay. So traditionally rent is due on the first, you know. Are you paying me on the 10th? The 15th? Are you paying me on the 30th of the month after all expenses that month? You know, how quickly does that happen? Is it direct deposit? Is it a check? Is it, you know, is it mailed? Is it do I have to pick it up at the office? Sure. Sidetrack. But we recently took over a property that the owner said that they went to the office to pick up their money from the property management company every month. Wow. And so they just signed up with us and have direct deposit now? Yeah. Like it's the year 2023. Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â It's wild because you wouldn't think I wouldn't think of asking that right away. But then it's like, well, if you're an owner and you got to pay your own bills, you got to pay your mortgage stuff you need to know, Yeah, when you can expect that money.
Eric Dixon:Â Yeah. And so these are more proactive questions, right? Right. One way or the other, you're going to find out when they pay you. Yeah, but why not? You know, if you're shopping 2 or 3 companies and you have a little spreadsheet or a little, you know, you're writing it down, say, oh, this company pays on the 10th, this one pays on the 20th. This one is 90 days past cleared checks or, you know, whatever. Yeah. So that's, that's one I would definitely ask, um, how often are inspections? So you know, whether that's the move in inspection, the move out inspection, the routine inspections throughout the lease. If it's vacant on the market, how often are they seeing the property? You know, those are common questions that you would want to know. Um, you know, and how are they documenting those? Um, a big one would be how do you handle maintenance, you know, maintenance issues, whether it's routine or proactive maintenance that you're doing, you know, like an AC tune up or a heater tune up every year or it's just, hey, if the tenant calls and says my water heater doesn't work. Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â Um, and it's not uncommon for some companies to add an additional fee on top of that to mark it up. Yeah.
Eric Dixon:Â So not only how do you handle it, but how much does it cost? Right, Right. So some of them it's Yeah. Per instance or it's like, hey, if you want us to handle your maintenance, it's this much more a month in management or it's this higher percentage. So just finding out, hey, these common scenarios with maintenance, how are those handled? Um, and with that, with maintenance, I'd also find out how they handle nights, weekends and holidays. So basically, you know, if something happens at 10:00 at night, is somebody answering the phone or getting back to you same day or are they waiting until the next business day? You know, for us, we we're on call 24 seven, so night, weekend holiday. There's somebody there, especially in Arizona where in the summer is a huge deal.
Ben Bailey:Â Yeah. You can't go through the night.
Eric Dixon:Â You know, you can't go through the night when it's 100 degrees outside at midnight. Yeah. Um, but even doesn't matter where you live, water related issues, floods and fires. Like there need to be somebody on call.
Ben Bailey:Â And not just for the, um, the resident or the tenant in that property, but also for the protection of your investment, Right? If a pipe breaks Friday night and you're telling me you're not going to get to them on Monday until Monday. Yeah. So my house is flooding for, like 72 hours. That's crazy. But that is the case with some of them.
Eric Dixon:Â No. And it is the case. And it's like if those are the companies that are managing it, you're leaving it up to the tenant to make decisions because they're not going to just let it leak all all weekend. You would hire they're going to hire somebody or they're going to bootleg it themselves. Yeah. And so that's a big one. Um, I made a couple notes just in case here. How long would it take to lease my house? So if I inherited this house and whatever in the middle of the Midwest somewhere and I have no idea what. The market is. I want to know from a professional, you know, hey, how long is it going to take the lead? In some places a month. Vacant is average, you know, and some a week is average or longer. So how long is it going to take to rent? What does that process look like? Do you do background checks? Do you do sex offender checks, eviction history, landlord history? Do you check their pay stubs? Do you check their bank statements, their all that stuff? So how in-depth is.
Ben Bailey:Â It that's got to be like talking to Matt, friend of the podcast, as I call him. He he says that's his number one question is like, how long does it take to get someone in my house? Oh yeah.
Eric Dixon:Â Because to them they're like sitting vacant again. We hit it hard every week, but vacancy costs them the most. Yeah, they've got mortgages, utility bills, HOA dues. That stuff keeps going whether it's rented or not, you know? And so how long does it take to rent my house? You'll find out that the company that could rent it the quickest to the best tenant balancing that is likely going to be just as expensive or less expensive than somebody else because vacancy is going to be limited. So even if their fees are a little bit higher, they may save you more money because they'll they'll rent it quicker. Right? So take that into account. One thing that's important to us that I would want to know is if you have a physical office, I know we're moving in this direction of work from home and virtual and stuff like that, but a brick and mortar office where push comes to shove, I need to talk to somebody face to face or if my tenants need to, you know, that's important. You know, if the property management company is run out of a house and the mailing address is a P.O. box and so there's no physical address, you know, that's yeah, it's not necessarily red flag, but it could be.
Ben Bailey:Â Or if they're not in the market, you know, you think like if you, you know, if you have an office in Tucson, but you're allegedly managing a property in Flagstaff. Right. It's like we know that is way too far. Nobody's going out to that property. Yeah, no one's.
Eric Dixon:Â Going to that property. And the property manager managing it isn't in the market. They don't understand the vacancy and the marketing and all that stuff. So I mean, we've taken over a property where the the owner quit because the home base was out of Oakland, California, managing properties in Arizona. And he's like, Dude, my property manager, great person, man. She's so nice, but she lives in California.
Ben Bailey:Â She's probably killing it in Oakland managing those properties. But here, yeah, it's a whole different world.
Eric Dixon:Â And so Arizona and we're like, Oh dude, we're local. We've got a big office, big team, we're local. So that's important to me. That kind of goes with who's who's going to be my main contact. I would ask that, am I going to be tossed around to a different person in the phone queue every time I call? Or am I going to have a Hey, Ben is my property manager. He's the main contact in his absence. Yes, the team will help you, but you know, having that main contact would be important.
Ben Bailey:Â I was surprised to find that there are property management companies that have like kind of a call center setup where you don't have an assigned person as you would think. That would just be standard. But there are places that operate that way.
Eric Dixon:Â I liken it to like DirecTV or like Dish Network type of thing where I've called DirecTV a thousand times for issues, right? And you get a different person every time. And I feel like I have to re-explain everything. Hey, just look my notes up in the file. Yeah. Hopefully the previous phone call took the notes.
Ben Bailey:Â And the only way you get anything done is if you tell them you're going to cancel. Yeah. And then they boot you to their recovery center. Exactly. Exactly.
Eric Dixon:Â Right. And so you don't want that with your property management company that's managing your half $1 million asset. You know, that's like, Hey, I want somebody who cares, right? And that kind of just goes to the fees almost being not even relevant because when you're talking about a half 1 million or $1 million property or even a quarter million, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. What is tens of dollars or hundreds of dollars to make sure it's done right, you know? Yeah. Um, another, just a couple more that I would make sure and ask if it's required. Are they licensed? Did you and did you look it up like, hey, are they licensed in Arizona? You know, for example, I'm the broker in Arizona for the management company. And so there and then underneath me are the licensed property managers. And that's a requirement in Arizona. Um, and then what's your take on pets? You know, and so pets are a big thing. We hit it hard in the podcast, but 75% of our tenants have pets. Yeah. Just this week my my dad, we manage a property for him and it rented in about a week and a half. He's super excited and they had two pets. And my parents aren't pet people, you know, they've never had pets. I grew up in a house without pets. We love pets that aren't ours. That's kind of what. Yeah, you love.
Ben Bailey:Â To visit them.
Eric Dixon:Â I love visiting dogs. Yeah, I just don't. But, um. But he's like, oh, yeah, the first applicant. They were great. They qualified and they had two Chihuahuas. Awesome. And it rented quick because he was open to pets.
Ben Bailey:Â Sure. So, so would you say from a property management inspection point then you'd want them to know, like do they have a policy in place? Yeah. Do they have a.
Eric Dixon:Â Policy or a recommendation to follow. Right. Yeah. If you go into it blind. Yeah. Want no pets. Well you want them to say hey if you do no pets it's not going to rent or. Yeah. Hey, you. You actually don't need to. Or. Hey, most of our animals or most of our properties do accept pets or whatever it is.
Ben Bailey:Â Or if you have pets, there's a pet rent, you know, extra amount to cover that.
Eric Dixon:Â And so those are the type of questions, though, you're going to want to call and kind of shop these management companies and say, Hey, let me ask them these 8 or 9 questions. See how comfortable they are answering them, see how if it's black and white or if they're kind of just like, Oh yeah, Ben, we can do whatever you like. It's like, yeah, that's too generic. I want somebody who can say, No, this is what we do. We pay you this month. These are our fees. Yes, this is what we do with pets. This is our application process, you know, and go from there.
Ben Bailey:Â All right. Well, my next question. I feel like you've hit on it a bunch in that thing. But how important is fee structure in this process? You know, there's that that seems to be I said lease up was the most common question. But probably number one really is how much does it cost?
Eric Dixon:Â And that is common to they'll just call and say, what are your fees?
Ben Bailey:Â Oh yeah, or we get emails, I get them, people send emails, fill out our forms on the website, and those all come to me and I get ten a day. Can you just send me your fees over?
Eric Dixon:Â Yeah. And it's kind of like there is value obviously in getting the best value you can for the service and you want we want to provide a good value, but we also want to explain the value proposition before we tell you the fee so you understand. Oh on Q does it like this or property management Company B does it like this or. And so I can't speak for companies out of our market, but I can tell you that most companies are within a pretty thin margin. We're about the same. We charge differently for different services. Yeah, but you have to look at what those fees include. So even if we're the same cost as somebody else, we provide more value. And so you want to look at like how important that is. Um, again, and I'll hit it. This is the second time in ten minutes, but the intangibles and the vacancy is going to cost you way more than the fees for management Company One month vacant will cost you more than your annual fees often times. Sure, if your rents $2,000, your annual fees are less than that. Yeah. To do everything and you can do all the bells and whistles. So you want to make sure you have a property management company that can deliver on all of the the things that they do all the services quickly and efficiently so it doesn't sit vacant for three months. You know, if it sits vacant for three months, they could, you know, they're going to make it up or you'll lose and they'll still get their fees.
Eric Dixon:Â Um, I would say the one thing that doesn't necessarily cost money it's an intangible is the communication and the response time, right? So kind of gauge that as you're talking to the either the sales person or the property manager or whoever you're talking to, if they're taking four days to get back to you and you're a brand new customer, not even signed up yet, that's a red flag. It's a red flag. The writing's on the wall, right? Like they're going to take four days to get back to you if they're if they're on the ball. And there are cases where the sales person is great and the property manager is not. But sure you try you like to think that as a company the culture is the same and across all aspects of the business, Hey, if they respond, do the property managers got to be the same way? You know? Yeah. Um, and then I would just, I would just make sure that there's transparency so that there's no hidden fees and make sure to, you know, read through the owner's agreement or the management agreement and say, Oh, Ben explained to me all these fees, but what are all these ones in fine print on page two, like in the bottom right corner, you know? Yeah. And just make sure the transparency is key, I think. Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â Um, kind of related to this, I years ago worked for a, um. A burger restaurant. We can. It's in and out. Worked for in and out. Right. If you're on the West Coast, you know, in and out. Um, and people a lot of times say, why don't you guys have a dollar menu? And they would say all the time, a double double, which is kind of their main burger. A double double is worth what it costs. Like, that's it. Like, you know what you're going to get. And they charge they the most expensive. Not by far. Are they the cheapest? Not even close. But they say this is what it's worth and we're not going to discount it. Yeah, we're not going to give it away for cheaper because we know what it's worth and there is value in that. I think when you go places, if someone's willing to say, Oh yeah, we'll only charge you five bucks a month, it's like, okay, why would they only charge me five bucks a month? You know what? What is what are they getting out of this?
Eric Dixon:Â Yeah. And I guess there's a there's a customer for every scenario, right? Like even with the burger, like, how often do they go in and somebody's like, Oh, so you're not going to give me a discount? And they walk out. Yeah, like, no, usually they're like, Do you know what? Okay, I wanted to ask to try and get a discount, but I'll get it, you know? Yeah, but there are some people that are like, No, I just want the $1. What is it? The McDonald's burger? That's a buck. Yeah, the cheeseburger. It's like it's the cheapest. It's still food. I'm still going to get full and.
Ben Bailey:Â They'll be perfectly.
Eric Dixon:Â Happy. Yeah, perfectly fine. Right. But it's kind of like, well, we didn't. We didn't want that customer anyway because we can't please them. We can't lower the price or whatever. And you know, that's a great analogy. You know, a burger is a burger is a burger. Yeah. Management companies is a management company. We all kind of do quote the same thing. Yeah. It's just the quality, the efficiency, the bells and whistles, you know, the technology behind it, that's all. What's going to make the difference, you know?
Ben Bailey:Â Okay. So you've talked me into, you know, we're we're signing up with this company. You've made your decision perfect. How do you know they're doing a good job? Like, what would you as a customer look at and say, okay, I'm you know, I'm satisfied with this experience? Yeah.
Eric Dixon:Â And the question that comes to mind is the when clients will ask, especially right before they sign up, they're like, Well, look, Eric, everything you've said is great, but how often are we going to hear from you or how often are we going to hear from my property manager? Yeah. And I always tell them I'm like, the the less you hear from us, the better things are going, right? And, you know, they chuckle like, ha ha ha. No, but seriously, how often am I going to hear from you? And it really is like throughout the month, if you're getting your your monthly statement and your direct deposit every month, that means there was no maintenance. Rent came in on time. Yeah. And everything's good. And so it's like you're going to have months and months and months. You could have months and months and months, maybe even the whole year if they pay on time and there's no maintenance issues. Sure. Um, we like to check in a few times on top of that, you know, with routine inspections and different things. But I'd say at a bare minimum, you want to make sure I'm getting interaction, whether it's a phone call, an email or an automated statement, at least monthly, Right? Very minimal. Um, and you have to assume that, hey, if I get my rent check on time and I get my statement and my direct deposit or my check in the mail or whatever you're doing, that has to mean everything is going smooth. Yeah. And what happens is when you have a new relationship with a property management company, you're slowly building on trust.
Eric Dixon:Â Right? And we have this when when investors will come and bring on especially like a dozen or 20 or 30 or 50 properties, right? It's a big, huge move. Over and over time, we build this trust, this trust, this trust. And now we're two, three, five, ten years into managing this portfolio and it's like the owner and the property manager are friends, you know, and they're they're going back and forth. And it doesn't mean you have to have 50 homes. I only say that out, you know, throw that out there because they are trusting us, whether it's one home or 50 homes. Yeah. To manage a huge asset and a huge portfolio. And it takes time. You know, it's not the first month you do the first thing, right? And they go, Oh, do you know what? Take my property, do whatever you want. You know, it takes it takes a lot. And then it gives the the property manager bandwidth to make decisions if the owner's not responding. Yeah. Like, do you know what? I know Ben well enough. He would totally make this repair. It's an emergency. It's under the threshold. We got to get this done right, and then you call back. Go. Hey, man, I was on vacation. Thanks for handling that. Yeah. Instead of what? What are you doing with my money, you know? Yeah. So I love when we when we create that that trust relationship. Um, you want to be able to sit back and relax? That's the reason you hire a management company, right? Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â So you don't have to do all this.
Eric Dixon:Â Yeah. If you want to be in the weeds and you want to get the phone calls and the texts and the emails and the irate tenants and the issues, you're a self manager anyway, right? You just do your thing, you know? And so if a property management company can't provide that to you, you know, the, the time away time with your family so you don't have to worry about it then then I would maybe even self manage might be your solution. Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â Um, I think another thing that's important too, and you kind of touched on it was like with inspections and stuff like that, is it going to be a phone call every time or do they do you have a portal like I know at Oncue We have. Where they can log into. You don't have to talk to anybody if they don't want to and say, okay, here's a bunch of photos, here's a you know how the property's doing. Or if they don't have a portal, do they have to get on the phone and talk to and say, I'm going to email you some stuff to look at or this is this.
Eric Dixon:Â Is kind of the shameless plug, right? Yeah, because this is where what sets us apart is that portal. And it's like you can be a high touch owner or you can be a sit back and relax owner. Yeah, and you both love the portal because you can log in every day or you can log in once a year. Yeah, I.
Ben Bailey:Â Know you and I are extremely online people, so for us it's like I couldn't imagine signing with somebody where it's like, I don't want to get on the phone, man. I don't want to talk to you. I want to just log in and see it, Show me how to look at everything myself. Yeah.
Eric Dixon:Â And we're, we're, we're, we're coming from is instead of our clients calling and saying, Hey, when was the last time you did a routine inspection or you got in the home? Right. Well, log into the portal, go under the inspection tab, and every routine inspection is uploaded there with all the pictures, the dates, timestamps, and it's all in there. Now, if there's issues. Yeah, pick up the phone. Let's schedule a call. Let's get let's get this going. But a lot of times it's not even issues. It's just like, Hey, I was just wondering. I was just wondering. Yeah, I was just wondering when the move out is. I was wondering when the when oftentimes they'll call, what's the the lease end date again. Yeah. And it's like, oh, let me walk you through your portal. Yeah. It's all in there. It's all up there, you know. And so again, that's a shameless plug for Oncue. That's not necessarily the reason of the episode, but it's there are companies that offer very similar solutions or different things that you got to have online access. You should be able to access every single part of your management agreement, your services from your cell phone, your iPad, your laptop. So super important.
Ben Bailey:Â Okay. So last scenario I want to throw at you here. You let's say you inherited this property. It's in another state. You do some Google searches. There's just nobody managing in that area. So you have no choice but to self-manage. You can't sell this thing or don't want to yet. What do you how do you handle that? What would be your steps? If you're going to self-manage a property that you can't physically be at all the time?
Eric Dixon:Â Yeah, fair question. I've self-managed for many years. Right. And it's hard because I'm biased, right? I'm a licensed, was an agent and a broker management company, you know, so it's hard for me to remove myself. But I experienced managing a home in a four plex and a couple houses 15 minutes away from my house. It's doable, man. It's doable. But I had access to leases in the MLS. I had, you know, access to agents and friends and real estate. So it was like, this is easy and I can kind of bootleg it and I can kind of run over and get rent. But I had no portals for my tenants. I had to collect cash or money orders or checks that would bounce into my personal checking account. Like it's just like a mess. Yeah, but you can do it and you can make it. You could actually do a really good job self-managing. I just don't even know how somebody would consider it if they're a plane ride away like was 15 minutes away. Yeah, it was hard enough and it was hard enough, right. And it's the tenants are like, Hey, this is going on. And you try and justify like, well, I could save money if I don't have to call the electrician. Almost electrocuted myself, you know, that sort of stuff. Um, but I would look at it like, what is my time worth? Is there enough cost savings and time savings to justify self-managing if there absolutely is no solution? If you don't if you have to do it yourself, you know, I would I would see there are some online tools that you pay per instance like background checks and, you know, you could do Zelle or, you know, Venmo or something. You you could digitize some of it and make it not totally crazy crazy. But, um, at the end of the day, I'd say just hire a property manager. But, you know, if you own a rental where there's no management companies, it's probably a small, a small, obscure town anyway. And maybe it's so low key that it's not a big deal. Sure.
Ben Bailey:Â I it kind of strikes me that you would probably just have to assume all those original questions that you listed out. Yeah. How am I going to do that? No, you're like.
Eric Dixon:Â How am I going to handle maintenance? Sit back there and go, Yeah, I'm just going to Google maintenance, you know, or how am I going to do an eviction? Well, I'm going to go to the courthouse and ask them for the paperwork.
Ben Bailey:Â Yeah, Yeah. So you got to ask yourself all those questions. Yeah. And if you can't do them, it's like, Man, I got to find somebody.
Eric Dixon:Â I guess that's true. You're like, What questions would you ask a manager? Yeah. And then, you know, we list ten like, Well, what are you going to do if you self manage? Ask yourself those same ten questions.
Ben Bailey:Â If you're willing to do them all, then yeah, keep the property, don't sell it.
Eric Dixon:Â And that's what I found is I would if I had an issue I being in the real estate industry, I've got painters, roofers, contractors, you know, every trade I've got relationships with, leasing agents I've got. And so I was able to self-manage and it was still kind of difficult, but I was able to swing it. I can't imagine if it's just like me in the world out there. Yeah, me and Google, you know, That's it. Yeah. Every time I need somebody to post on online. Hey, does anybody have a roofer? I have a roof leak. Yeah, on a Saturday afternoon. You know, let me.
Ben Bailey:Â Ask you a question. This is not on here, so I'm springing this on you randomly, but, um. Since you were saying your connections as a realtor, if you're going into a market where there is no property management, is it worth calling a realtor saying the area and being like, Can I pay you to help me with this? And so and.
Eric Dixon:Â So oftentimes that's even the case locally is I know realtors out here that that do property management and they're licensed and they kind of just say, hey yeah, I kind of collect rent and do the leases for like 4 or 5 of my friends or Sure. A couple clients to retain the relationship. You know, hopefully there are management companies out there that will honor your relationship with your agent and then and then you can help with the management. But they're also that is a a valuable tool, right? You could say even the agent who helped you buy it or find an agent and say, hey, do you know either a property manager or an agent that could at least handle the basics for me? Yeah, and I'll still be highly involved, but I could manage it. Yeah, from afar. That's a great, great point.
Ben Bailey:Â All right. Okay. Well, I think I have.
Eric Dixon:Â One question for you. Yeah. You told me yesterday that you had a horror story.
Ben Bailey:Â What was that? Oh, man. About self-managing. Yeah.
Eric Dixon:Â You had a horror story about your in-laws or something and you're like, Hey, I'll tell you tomorrow.
Ben Bailey:Â Oh, man, I do my in-laws. Okay, so my in-laws just made.
Eric Dixon:Â A mental note of that, so no, I hope.
Ben Bailey:Â Glad you did.
Eric Dixon:Â I hope the story was worth it.
Ben Bailey:Â So my in-laws, very similar situation. They they live in Georgia and they owned a home in California, a world away. Um, and they'd had it forever. It was their home in California and they moved to Georgia. And for whatever reason, because they owned properties in Florida, they owned a couple in Georgia. They use property management companies for all those, but they didn't for their home in California. So we're just going to self manage it. We rented it to a good family in California.
Eric Dixon:Â No tenant friendly laws.
Ben Bailey:Â Yeah, we're fine. We're fine. We got it. Um, so six years or so go by and they're just collecting rent. They figure everything's fine. It's good They come out there to visit some family. One time, and my father in law is like, You know what? I'm going to call up the tenants and I'll go by the house, check it out. I've been there in six years. He gets to the house. He doesn't know anybody in there. It's a whole different family. There's like 20 people in there. No house is destroyed.
Eric Dixon:Â Exaggeration, 20 people easily.
Ben Bailey:Â He said there was like 4 or 5 people per room sleeping like it was, and he didn't know any of them. He's like, I don't know who's paying this rent, but it's nobody here.
Eric Dixon:Â The rent's been paid for for six years.
Ben Bailey:Â Yeah, but the house was destroyed, so they ended up getting rid of, you know, evicting people and then just selling it. No.
Eric Dixon:Â That's the self-managing nightmare, right? Yeah. I mean, and that is, what, a five hour plane ride away or whatever. Yeah. It's like the rent showed up. So you think everything's fine, right? Yeah. So that's. That's great. Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â He shows up and knocks on the door and goes, Is Frank here? And the guy goes, Who? Like they didn't even know they moved.
Eric Dixon:Â They're like, hey, just just Venmo or email this guy. The rent. Yeah.
Ben Bailey:Â I think they were sending their rent to the original tenant and he was sending it to my father in law. So these guys are literally like, I don't I don't know who you're talking about. Like, no, you don't own this house. We pay this guy.
Eric Dixon:Â And he's probably collecting way more than he's paying here.
Ben Bailey:Â Oh, yeah, exactly right. It's 20 people in there. You get a lot for that. No, that's just the.
Eric Dixon:Â Okay, you'll end it. There is higher property manager.
Ben Bailey:Â Higher property manager it out. Yeah. My father in law's a smart guy. I don't know. I hope he doesn't listen to this, but I don't know why he did that. Not a good decision. All right, so that's it for us. Be sure to subscribe to the show and leave us a five star review if you can. It really helps out. And we will see you guys next time.