Nadeem Ahmed has been with us at Rock Star Real Estate for eight years. He’s been a great asset to the team and has worked with investors on hundreds of properties and tens of millions of dollars in investment real estate. So when Nadeem mentioned that he actually found a good property management company, Orangelist (www.Orangelist.com), we knew we had to check them out. On this episode, Eric Clearly shares his story and the birth of Oranglist along with some great property management tips and stories. Enjoy the show!!
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Transcript
Hey everyone, it’s Tom Karadza out on this episode of the podcast, we talked to Nadeem Ahmed from rockstar and Eric Cleary from Orange Louis’ property management and Nadeem is a great guy. He has been with us for over eight years now. He’s done absolutely everything, worked with tons of investors on tens of millions of dollars of real estate and he’s so soft spoken on this podcast. You’re really going to have to listen closely. I tried to get him to speak up and bring the mic, but you know, he’s, he’s a, he’s a quiet guy but he knows his stuff inside and out so we are proud to work with them. Um, like I mentioned, he gets tons of great feedback from the investors that he works with all around. Great Guy Don. He knows tons of investing strategies all across the Golden Horseshoe. So you’re going to hear a bit of his story and you’re also going to hear Eric Cleary.
And the reason that we wanted Eric on the, on the call is that property management is just a tough business and especially when your property managing single family homes and condos and small apartment buildings. These guys are out in Saint Catherine’s. They’ve recently expanded their business to cover all the way out to Hamilton as well, and they’re expanding further. So we just love entrepreneurs. We love other real estate investors who are trying different things. These guys are that. So we asked Eric from orange list property management to come in and cheer just about his story. You know how he got involved in this, what he’s up to, property management. If you’ve been involved with it at all, you know how tough it is. They can actually started rockstar property management. I’m not sure sure. How many of you guys know this? We did. We got it up to, I think it was up to 34 properties and we tapped out.
We said forget it. Property management businesses, not for us. We couldn’t scale it. We didn’t have the processes and we were giving it a solid effort. So when we hear that other people are doing it successfully and we’re hearing good feedback, we want to share their story. So they’re both on this call. We have a good chat. Um, hopefully you enjoy it. And listen, if you are listening to this and you’re trying to track down some of the latest real estate information for yourself, the best resource from us would be rock star, inner circle.com on that website you can get access to different copies of free books that we have. We have four different free books now. We actually sell these on Amazon and a lot of people tell us they buy them on Amazon to our shock, but we give them away for free because we’re trying to share information, information that’s Canadian base that we wish we had access to when we were starting that we couldn’t find.
Cause all we could find was like us based stuff. So this Canadian based stuff, um, the, the latest book is on there, it’s called the real estate investing blueprint. You can find that on rock star in her circle.com. If you click on the books link, you can get a pdf download of that book. So that’s available there. You can also register for one of our training classes. If you’re new to us. We have an introductory training class all about real estate investing. Make an I teach that class. We stick around afterwards to answer all kinds of questions. Um, you can also get access to our youtube videos or blog posts or articles and some of their free reports that we offer all@rockstarinnercircle.com. This is our attempt to share as much information as we possibly can with you. And the reason is we truly believe in adding good assets to your life and it can be a scary business getting into real estate. So if we can, uh, play a small part in helping that make, make that a little bit easier for you, we really want to do it. It’s also why we’re doing this podcast. So thank you for everyone listening. With that, let’s get on with the show.
Are you ready to live life on your terms? Is it time to take charge business, building the economy, health and nutrition. And it’s the your life, your term show with Tom and Nick Karadza are you ready? Let’s go.
Okay. We are live and the D, I just want to say Nadeem. Ahmed is on the podcast for the first time ever. I’ve been trying to get him on this podcast are asking you at least for quite a long time, but you’re such a nice person and you’re kind of private that you have not come on. So you’re gracing us with your presence as a Grace England. Yeah. Thanks. Listen, I’m going to tell you meant five more times on this podcast for sure. Bring the mic closer to your mouth. Got It. Don’t be scared of the mic. So at Dema Maddie’s here and Eric Cleary is here. Um, Eric, am I saying your last name properly? Yup. Yeah. You just told me that you’re born in Nova Scotia, born in Truro, Nova Scotia at 1991. I really, I don’t know if I know anyone who’s born in Nova Scotia. You literally might be the first person that I personally know from Nova Scotia.
Yeah. But I hear it’s beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I, I you, you left though. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t spend her parents moved. Yeah. So, uh, my mom was there with me for probably a few months and then a, and then we were off to Calgary, uh, west. So I mean, I was a baby, so I had it because you live in Saint Catherine’s now? Yes. So I moved here from New Brunswick, uh, to live with my dad for a year. I finish up high school and then, okay, so it was Nova Scotia to Calgary, Calgary to New Brunswick, and then New Brunswick to Ontario and Ontario. Weisen Catherine’s, I had some family here. Okay. And now all the universities that I applied to, um, at a high school when I was here were, we’re in southern Ontario, so, okay. It, so yeah, Brock was, Brock was my choice. Did you play football? I did not.
I don’t like, you’re like a broad shouldered kid that you could just smash people. Um, no, I did play hockey. Wasn’t, wasn’t ever a famous running back, although I’ve been told I could have been. Yeah, you got it. You kind of have a football hair, you can’t see if you’re listening to this, you don’t know that Eric has a man been happening here and the beard and you got an a cup that look that you could be some kind of football player. But anyway, probably the host for all of those listening, I know it’s 2019 and people still questioned my man bun. But uh, if you need justification, hasn’t a man bun thing played its course though? Like I think you’re now, it’s not like, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s like you’re kind of like dating yourself. You know what I mean? I still play pick up hockey and I snowboard, so, uh, okay.
My hair means a lot to me. But you’re not wearing the beads on your wrists, like Nadeem swearing, but you own beads for your wrist. I thought there was only one guy on the podcast let have beads. I let him, it didn’t have that today for any, everyone listening to this apparently I didn’t know this until like two months ago, but apparently for the last two year, three years, five years. It’s been cool years. Yeah. It’s been cool to wear beads on your wrist. I don’t, I still am learning about this. Yeah. Um, okay, so Eric and then the dean, how did you, uh, well first of all, how did you find, how did we start working together? Because it’s been eight years. Who told you about Rockstar?
So I had a business for about 15 years and one day, uh, I ended up selling it and uh, reached out to Mike does normal. And I said, hey, what should I do Mike? Should I sell this business and what will I do? He says, uh, come work with me. I said, what do you do again, like rock star? And he was talking about rent to own properties. You want me to buy some properties that the
trying to sell you, you sold your business. Like this guy has some cash, you should buy some properties. Okay.
So I ended up talking to him and uh, coming to see you guys here at Rockstar, I think we’re in Burlington at that time we were at and uh, just connect. It just felt right and uh, sold the business and here I am. And uh, you were doing men, I thought you were doing straight up men’s wear, men’s and women’s, you were doing men’s and women’s stuff. Batik stuff. Yeah. From La, from Paris. That’s why you’re always dressed so nicely. You know, Eric stressed really nicely too.
I have my Lulu Lemon shirt on. This is about as crazy as I get in fat and the in the whole fashion world. But uh, I, I’m curious when you started with us, you, we had to basically trick you to buy investment properties, right? What made you think I am? Maybe I will pick up. Yeah,
property. Um, probably the reason I never bought a property, um, is, you know, real estate, you know, negative, stuffy here, tennis live forever, but real estate market’s going to crash. I cannot hold, my dad would say talking to them, like bring the Mike Up. And, um, eventually when I got here, I understood how it works from the time when you walk into the front door, right to the end. The whole process maybe in a standard cave is it’s not very hard if you, if you are in the right place. And I felt myself that I was learning everything here is I’m teaching everybody else to do from the time you walk into the door to the fast our class and, and so on the next steps. And that’s where I feel comfortable. And uh,
it, no, it wasn’t. No, I was forced into it. It just, it’s all right, I’m joking. But now you’ve gone onto by a bunch of fuel for using over the years, if you calculated how many millions of dollars you have to work with, with investors, be, I joke, we don’t talk about this too often, but a rock stars, a group has done over a billion. It’s over 1.2 billion in investment properties purchased. Like, can you believe that? And the first few years was obviously a tinier number, but now it’s rolling. Yeah. Um, it’s crazy what we’ve done. And you’re partly responsible for that madness. Nadeem. Ahmed. So like, just don’t want no, yeah, my, my shirt. Do you have to come here and now you’re here, but okay. So then Eric, um, you’re, so I just want to make the connection between yourself and a deem cause you guys have had a pretty good relationship with the whole real estate stuff. You got into property management. So like just tell me how did you get there? This is right after university. You get into doing property management owns Saint Catherine’s. Yeah. So, excuse me, I was a, it was in my last semester. I was in my, uh, fourth year at Brock wherein a, I was part time at
tell us, uh, as a sales representative. Um, and one evening, uh, my business partner and the owner of born just Brian droppert was in their purchasing of blackberry and he wasn’t my client. I just had overheard their conversation and kind of interjected myself in, um, cause he had rejected a warranty and I was able to sell them on that warranty. Um, thought he was a cool guy. He started talking a little bit about real estate and you know, have I basically ripped him off on the one of those ones. I’m joking, I’m joking. This Day to this day says it’s the best warranty ever bought. He replaces, broke his phone. Okay. Okay. Got It. So, um, so that worked out but uh, yeah, I just, cool guy. Uh, we were chatting a little bit about politics and then a yeah, the conversation obviously started to gear towards real estate and he had all these ideas and he left me as number and email and the next morning I came in, I had a morning shift and I emailed them right away and said, hey man, uh, you know, it was really nice meeting yet.
Sounds like you’ve got some exciting stuff on the go. Uh, we ended up meeting a few days later I at a Tim Horton’s, I had a coffee and um, and that’s it. That’s cause he had already started w was orange list property management already in existence? No. So get the name. He had it. He had a, he had a business name and a website, which the name orange list. Yeah, he’s Dutch. So it’s the national color there, a soccer team and he wanted something that was, uh, people were more likely to remember right. Not, not, not necessarily a name or something like that. Just something that was, would trigger different parts of the brain color, you know, fruit and all that kind of stuff. So, um, and it just flowed, it stood out. The, the, the bright oranges, you know, um, the dynamic in a way and wow, you’re really sold on the branding of orange list property man.
But, but so now you start, uh, he has the idea, he starts a property management company. Your like the first person to be helping them out or something. When I met him, it wasn’t a property management. What was it? So it was, it was, we were just, he was selling real estate to investors and the demand was starting to increase and he was, he was managing properties himself. Um, but with no system, you know, like, like right. All, have we all been there? Brian wasn’t even at the XL stage. He was like, I got a sticky note here with some names and rent numbers. And so I was essentially, he was selling products and I was coming in and leasing them. Um, and that’s how it began. And we started to realize the demand, especially in Niagara, um, was, was insane. You know, there was, there was tons of people that, uh, you know, they, they bought the product and they didn’t know really what to do with it from there.
You know, they were having, they were struggling to find the tenants. Um, once they found a tenant, there was issues. They didn’t know how to effectively deal with those issues. Um, so the overall experience, um, for them, for certain land, there’s, don’t speak for everyone was, was negative. Right? So it’s like, Hey, do I, do I just sell this and put some money in the stock market or what angle do I go with? And, um, you know, so we said, hey, there’s, you know, we enjoy what we do. Um, we know that there’s a demand for it. Um, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s try this out. And, uh, the feedback. Fantastic.
And, you know, it was, we were learning and growing and things just started taking off. And then how did you, so how did you guys cry? Cause in a deep, you’ve been helping investors buy properties and then like the whole night, right? Oh right around tomorrow. I think everyone should know if you’re listening to this with Rockstar, we’ve helped people buy properties right around the golden horseshoe, like Bellville to Niagara, London to Barry kind of thing. Right. Um, but uh, how did you guys cross paths? Were you selling them? Working with one of the builders in Saint Catherine’s? Does purpose built student rentals? So I was buying them, but he was selling them tenanted. And so there comes Eric. Eric was tending, tend to think them the properties for him and that’s how we connected. Okay. Got It. Got It. So you would have found these student rental properties that we’re going to make good investments.
You had investors who were buying them from rockstar right then and you were in there filling them. So yeah. How would you, but I don’t know what you’re about to say. So orange a so, so you know, the, just to kind of go back to what I was saying, there was only, uh, Brian’s portfolio from his real estate clients was only so big. So we’re like, how do we, how do we expand this? So what I began doing and, um, was going in and spending a couple hours a day going through Kijiji finding ads that I thought sucked that weren’t good. You found, it seems that somebody we were know, but so, so the builders ad was just, it had like three photos, a very little information. Um, I cold called Tony. Um, let’s see. We were talking about, and I, uh, and he gave me a chance.
I shot it. So this was the builder that I was working with to buy these investment properties and he, what did he offer? Like fully tenanted student rentals? Correct. Okay. And then you come across the Kijiji ad for the students that he was trying to get into these investment properties. And I just cold called, Hey, my name’s Eric. Um, this is what I think I can do for you. I, you know, I had a whole sales pitch and he gave me a chance. I went and met him at the house and this time orange list has already formed property management, property management arm. I don’t even think we were, we were offering it, but it wasn’t fine tuned. It was like, yeah, we can do that. And you know, we kind of figured it out as we went. Um, we were doing a lot of leasing, a straight leasing at that time.
Um, but the property management got it shortly after. Okay. So then you guys, you find the builder a different way to deem you find this builder out of Niagara. Bought my student rental off him. Oh, you bought your own personal student rental off this particular builder. That’s how I met. This is the builder that you wouldn’t tell anyone the name of for like two years. Keith is here as well. So I’ve brought up Keith on the last podcast. Really be Keith Keith that works with us here at Rockstar. Um, Keith, you, uh, you don’t know this yet, but when the demon find something that really works well, he just keeps it really quiet to himself for like two years. We were asking Eric, I don’t know if you know this for two years we were asking who’s this guy you keep buying properties off of? And he would just avoid the question and he would sometimes you would just walk her to the office laughing. You would never answer. So you found this guy and then you worked with a lot of investors and bought properties out there from this particular builder. Why did you like this guy? Just cause they were purpose built, I guess. Spelled good properties in there. Knew how many bedrooms and the student rentals, uh, from five
to seven. Five to seven. And this is for Brock, I guess? Yeah, mainly Brock. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Niagara College and uh, okay. But don’t think he’s doing anything. He’s doing mostly St Catherine’s. Right rock. Yeah. But just to that one thing that the ad is, you know, the, the cool thing about the Saint Catherine’s market as you do grab Brock and Niagara College, you have a lot of students. I see what you’re saying. Yeah. Got It. So students from both different places. Okay. Is Niagara College big? I don’t know the size of Niagara College. It’s growing a Bronx, uh, pushing some resources towards gearing international students want to come to that school. Um, there are only sitting at around 12% international population, which is low relative to most other universities in southern Ontario. Um, so the, you know, it’s based on infrastructure and programs to help transition them when they get here.
Cause obviously there’s language barriers and that sort of thing. So they’re really spending a lot of money. Brock just did a huge, um, a modification to their business department, spent a lot of money on, on infrastructure and that sort of thing. So population growth for the student body and Brock’s probably increasing, correct. Yeah. Got It. Okay. And is go ahead and email is the thing that I find my personally a lot of international students, uh, Brock, right? Yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s already a good population, but I’m saying it’s still low relative to, you know, lower ea, UFT, Ryerson. So you got those schools work your, cause you’re at 25 to 35%. Um, you know what I mean? So Brock is trying to get closer to that number, um, to be a little bit more competitive, I guess you could say. Okay. Got It. So you bought one of these things, you’ve been helping investors buy these things and then you run into Eric because he’s filling them for this builder.
Right. Okay. That’s the connection and audit. And then after, once we, the clients of members of put purchase a property, just getting in touch, uh, Eric in touch with them and continuing their relationship. Got It. Okay. So then you meet this Guy Nadeem. He’s like, Hey, I’m going to deem I do this stuff, rock star real estate and stuff. And you did, you, did you understand he worked with a whole ton of investors. Yeah. Like it was, it all happens so fast, you know? Um, and the dean was, I again, I just thought it was a super cool guy, smart and you know, had the right intentions for his clients, which is huge because, uh, although I’ve only been in the industry for three, four years in my first year, I saw a lot of things that I didn’t like and that’s not what, what do you mean?
Give us an example. You know, I had run into a lot of properties where, where their agents, uh, obviously the, no names need to be mentioned, but agents would sell homes and, and set the expectation for their clients that they could achieve these rent numbers that were just, uh, got it. Okay. You know, and it was nice to be in a, in a partnership with, with Nadine were where he could leak it, lean on me and I could lean on him, you know, hey, I think we can get this rent. This is a, this is worst case scenario for your client. I know I can get you this in a deme. And then Nadine with confidence can go, hey guys, this house has everything that, that we like, uh, you know, we work closely with Eric, he’s telling us these red numbers are achievable and I’ve done that numerous projects with them.
I know he can, he’s going to get that done. And um, so just overall expanding and improving the experience that we can give to, to, to people buying homes for investment purposes. That was fortunate cause that’s really worked out between the builder out there. Are you still working with that builder? Is that bill? They’re still putting it. So a student rentals are also, what about the duplexes that you’re working on? Is that a different builder in while on it’s different. Yeah. Oh, sorry. That’s out in Welland. Okay. That’s a different builder. Whose doing the duplexes? Do you guys do property management out in Welland as well? Yeah, so I went, uh, with, with, with Rockstar that day. Ah, right. Sorry, I totally forgot. Yeah, we had a tour there. Awesome. So, you know, it’s just, it’s a cool partnership. It’s, he’s talking about the real estate side of things.
Um, you know, obviously I touch on that here and there, but I’m just talking about, hey, these are the kind of tenants I think we’re going to get. These are the kinds of numbers I think we can achieve. You know, so it, it really works well and I think it puts a lot of confidence into the mine of the, of the buyer knowing that, you know, they got these if the property managers right, they’re saying because you’re ultimately can be the responsible for delivering on that number. And that’s how we’ve always felt here at rockstar. Like we take personal responsibility. So if we say a number we have to freaking deliver on that number. But it’s made it work. To your point, when nick and I, when we, we’ve met a lot of agents, well in the past that promised us stuff when we didn’t have a real estate license and sold us properties.
And then only to realize after we owned the property that we weren’t going to get the rent that we thought we were going to get or the property wasn’t a, it was even in worse condition than we thought it was. Um, I remember doing home inspections, we didn’t even know what to ask the home inspector that we let someone else pick the home inspector. Like we didn’t even know what we were doing. Um, so that’s cool. That’s a, that’s a good, really good relationship. Um, and then the region that you cover, cause I know someone is going to be hearing this thinking well, where, where do these guys do property management? Can you just describe, yes. So right now we’re mainly operating out of the Niagara Region. Um, we do have properties as far as Burlington. Um, we are gonna open an office in Hamilton that that is happening.
Um, we do service that area, um, at this, at this current moment. But, um, I wouldn’t say much further than that and a lot of what we do is based on the fact that we got good relationships with, with, with trades. Um, cleaners, all that sort of stuff. And that’s how networks set up there. So we don’t want to stretch ourselves too, too thin and, and you know, and heard our brands. So yeah, mainly Niagara Welland, a Niagara Falls Chippewa, um, beams Ville, Stony Creek. We got it. We have lots of properties that’s kind of like the golden rail starts. I’m calling from Hamilton to Niagara Cause as the train system develops out there, man, that whole area is just going to explode. So Eric, something I wanted to ask you is that um, we’ll get sometimes a beginner investor, an investor getting their first property and they will want some like magical piece of software to do property management tracking and stuff for them. And I always joke and I’ll share what we did when we started. Um, and just the other day I think Anthony and our team emailed you saying, Hey Eric, can you recommend some software to like, I dunno, property management stuff. There’s not that much good stuff out there for individuals who managing a property
or two. No, there really is. So what do you tell people? Um, I mean obviously, you know, uh, Google drive using docs, that’s a good way to stay organized. Um, it’s personal, whatever, whatever’s kind of a optimal for, for what you like to work with. Um, go with that. Because when you started investing in any sort of software, it’s really designed and you know, software here in North America and Canada particular is really designed for, for large volume and from a cost approach, it, it only makes sense when you start, you know, adding multiple properties, um, because you can be anywhere from two to three to $1,000 a month to have software operates. So like, I just want to manage my stuff. Do you give her d you just tell them use excel, Google drive, excel spreadsheet kind of stuff. Exactly. Honestly, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s what we did up until, you know, over a hundred.
Proptosis so yeah, listen, if you’re listening to this, you can get, so I was just going to say that you can go so far with excel. So we use quickbooks today for some of our personal stuff. Um, and it, quickbooks is not perfect by any means, but we’ve been able to craft the reports for what we need to install for ourselves personally. So it kind of works. But we were using excel spreadsheets, I think the income, uh, income tax form, I think it’s like t seven, four, four one or something. I forget on your personal taxes, the form that you slip in there to declare the income and expenses on rental properties. But we googled that up. Um, then we took the income component of that, we put it on excel and then we put the, all the expenses on Excel spreadsheet, an excel spreadsheet.
So you could do it on a Google doc, a Google drive doc now. And then that was the categories for expenses. So then we would have receipts for our properties. So Nadeem, if we were out at one of the student rentals and we needed to buy like furnace filters, some light bulbs and batteries, a ladder, some paint, whatever, we would take those receipts. We’d come home, we’d put them in a Manila envelope. And on that Manila envelope was written the address of that particular property. So if we had multiple properties, we would grab the right envelope, jam, the receipt in there, usually crump up like a ball of garbage. And then once every, I was going to sound smart and say once every two months, but really basically once a year, right before tax time we would take out all the receipts, get our excel spreadsheet out that had all the expense categories that the government wants to know about and we would just categorize all our expenses into those category categories.
We’d print out that excel spreadsheet and bring it to our accountant and then you could do that for multiple properties. So yeah. When you mentioned you know, the receipts, the one bit of advice I guess I could provide would take the time right there in the check to grab your pen and I mark down on her seat is and the whole throwing them in your pocket and thinking that uh, some fairy is going to come in and organize a little for you. But I found if I just had those Manila envelopes, kind of where I had a drawer where I would put my keys and my wallet down and if I had those middle novels stashed in there, I could just go to the right one right there at that moment. Because you’re right. If I kept those receipts for four or five days, does that, I didn’t know what property was what, but that was the magic.
Just putting them in those little envelopes and then it made everything simple. Yeah. But other than that, yeah, you didn’t really need too much. And if you’re a property manager, you were doing up to a hundred properties using excel. Yeah. Quickbooks, like you mentioned a quickbooks, we still use it, uh, um, it in tandem with other stuff. It’s not a god, it’s not our main source, but yeah. Yeah, just stay on top of it. Um, uh, like anything in life, I guess if you let it sit too long, it becomes a little bit messy and unorganized. So, um, whether that’s on a weekly basis, biweekly, monthly. I think monthly would suffice if you only got one or two properties. Just, just, yeah, organize your receipts, write down some numbers, plop them in, and then, you know, when it comes time for tax season, you’re not scrambling, you know, and, and, and things make sense and it’s clear and you can have that conversation with your accountant.
Let’s satisfy everyone’s curiosity. What are some of the worst property management stories you’ve seen? Just give it to us because we’ve seen, I don’t know if we’ve shared them on this podcast, but nick and I specifically at this point, we’ve seen everything. So you got to tell me and it, listen, if you’re listening to this and you don’t have real estate yet, you should know what Eric, whatever Eric’s going to come out of his mouth because I don’t know. Um, it, it, it is, it doesn’t always happen in real estate, but that you should know that this stuff can happen. Yeah. So I don’t even know if you have a story. Yeah. I mean, uh, back in the, in the early days when, when Brian, I had just kinda got started. Um, and I like to mention that these horror stories or from tenants that we’ve inherited, not ones that we’ve rented it to ourselves.
Hey look, whatever you want, whenever you want to tell you. So, you know, we’ve had, we’ve had a, we’ve had owners, great people, family oriented people, you know, uh, trying to, you know, set up investments for their, for their kids and for the retirement. You know, they’ve got the best intentions and you know, in the, in the unfortunately gave the wrong people the benefit of the doubt. So I’ve come into situations where, where tenants have been paid in six months and there’s zero, uh, paperwork. The paperwork process hasn’t even begun. You know, like, well they said, you know, in next month that are going to, you know, and, um, whether it’s, uh, someone you trust or not, you, you gotta be organized when it comes to the, the process. Cause the landlord tenant board is difficult to deal with. But if you follow the steps and you do the paperwork on time and you follow the guidelines, it does work.
So it’s just you’re hitting on such a huge point for me. I tell everyone all the time, I’m like, why are you scared of real estate? Like is in the vacancy you possible damage cause damage will come up a lot. A lot of people are scared about damage, which we can talk about in a second, but a lot of people are like, well I hear tenants don’t pay rent or whatever. I’m like, you don’t understand. We have the tenant board. It’s actually a beautiful thing in Ontario. All you have to do is follow it because most landlords buy into stories that their tenants tell them. So if they don’t pay rent on time, the tenant will say, oh well it’s my car that broke down and I needed to get it fixed because of this and that and the next and I’ll pay you in two weeks at my next pay. And then they’re like, okay, that’s fine and I’m busy. You’re busy, right? You own the property, you have another life. You’re working, whatever it is. So you’re like, okay, perfect. Pay me in two weeks, two weeks comes, no one contacts you. You kind of forget that it’s the end of the month. Like Holy Shit,
it’s the end of the month. You didn’t pay me what’s going on. And then it’s then the first of the month hits and they’re like, oh, you know what, I’m going to pay you for this month. But then they kind of like pay half the last months and only half of the current month and you’re like, f you go four or five months like this, buying into stories where it’s just on day one. If you file the end for form from the tenant board use begin the process of evicting them. Yeah. And, and people, uh, owners and even myself was guilty for this is you don’t want to damage the relationship by hitting them with paperwork, but you got to position it in a way it says, okay, great. I’m okay with you paying me 10 days late. I’m still going to serve you. This just, you know, which is the end for in case you’re listening to this and forcing a rent is late.
It hasn’t been correct. Correct. And, and, and just, you know, it’s, it’s not a big scary thing that you’re, you know, it said, hey, I understand, but I have to protect, you know, my interest at sales blamed nick. I’m like, Hey, look man, I don’t want to give you this, but my brother, man, that is such an asshole, he’s got them under his pillow. Like, yeah, he told me to drop this off and I’m slightly scared of him now. So yeah, you really do. I’m not scared of Nick. Just for the record, I want to set that. That’s sorry, go ahead. Yeah, you really have to treat it as a business, um, and, and in a professional way. And that’s good for, for multiple reasons. But you know, uh, tenants have responsibility, you know, um, uh, as to you, the landlord, tenants ever spoken, listen, you took all the risks to buy the property.
You as the landlord took the risk to buy the property you took on the debt to buy the property, you went through the banking process to come up with on qualify for that debt. So the least you can in return in exchange for you taking all that risk, getting rent delivered on time is not too much to ask. And it’s not like the landlord has the opportunity or, um, uh, the, the, the choice. I’ll just call the bank and say, hey guys, you know, uh, had to get breaks on my car, can I pay my mortgage a week late? They’re going to be like, ah, good luck with your brakes man, and your mortgage payment still due tomorrow. So, so those are the kinds of things. Um, so you’re going back to the story. So yeah, this, these, these poor people, you know how to have a, they’re out $12,000 or whatever the number was and they hadn’t been to the property.
So here’s another thing. Um, you got to set times where you go check in. Okay. And yeah, it doesn’t matter how good you think the person is or how nice their family and how clean it was the first time. It’s important to check in. And, um, how do you guys do it for property management when you’re managing, how do we have quarterly inspections? So every three months, no matter what, whether it’s a million dollar property on the water or a small two bedroom basement apartment for students, um, it’s scheduled and there’s a guaranteed visit. And that does a couple things. A, when an owner calls me, uh, or for, if you’re managing yourself, when you know you with confidence, you can know your property’s in good shape. You know, someone asks you, hey, how’s that rental, you know, treating you, how is it? Well, I haven’t been there in a year.
I don’t really know. Uh, and for us, I had people calling me going, Eric, so what’s going on? How’s everything? I’m like, well, you know, I’ve been there in six months. You know, it doesn’t mean we’re not working behind the scenes, but I hadn’t physically had a reason to go there. Um, and it didn’t feel right. So I’m like, we’ve got to set something up where there’s a set of eyeballs going through house and um, it’s good for us. Can pull that off every quarter. That’s pretty regular. They don’t get missed personal claim that I put it right through your mouth. My own personal claim that I had recently, uh, the insurance company company told me that I had to visit my property three times, part of my agreement with the insurance company, which I didn’t even know. Got It. So you’ve got a vizio property three times.
So those are, we treat that or if I’ve heard that directly, there’s insurance company before the Dgr Nance. Oh really? Yeah, I don’t if that’s new. That’s interesting. Okay. Okay. So yeah, it does, you know, um, I think there’s some tenants that would maybe be a little messier or not put as much attention to detail and that’s in the back of their mind. You know, they don’t want to have a bad relationship with the landlord. Um, so I know they have the ability to quickly go in there and clean it before you show up. But you can tell, you know, you can tell what house has been maintained and how do the appliances look and there’s clear signs of, of, of uh, so it, it does, you know, we, there’s probably some people that are a little extra cautious, which is super good at it, minimizes the wear and tear on a property.
Um, how did that story and about the people hadn’t been paid in six months. So it ended with me in a suit with gloves and a shovel cleaning these people’s house out. Like they lieutenants finally, they just laughed garbage in. And I won’t talk about all the items I saw, but it was very uncomfortable. Um, and Brian actually has a photo. I’m coming from off. I don’t get the sense that you get an uncomfortable too often. So for you as well. So it was, it was bad and a, yeah, we had a, we had a meeting before, so status dressed nice, you know, looking, trying to look good and um, and yeah. Uh, Brian’s got a photo of me shovel and crap out of bedrooms. And so we did everything we could to help these guys. Right? Like we were, you know, we felt horrible and uh, we ended up getting a new tenant in there.
Were you able to track down the tenants who left or no? Uh, I the owner’s pursuit it to a certain extent how it ended. I don’t, yeah, there weren’t, you said they weren’t putting in by you but just if you’re listening to this, there is the concept of skip tracers in Ontario that you can hire to like track people down. Um, so if someone owes you rent, the process in Ontario is like, if somebody owes you rent and if you’re listening to this and you just want to know you can take them. So you have to get a judgment from the small clip from tenant board saying yes, they were in fact in arrears rears and then you rent. You can take that to the small claims court and actually kind of, if you win, you can garnish someone’s wages. Yeah, get your rent. You just have to know where are, where they are and where they’re working.
Yeah. And you can hire a skip tracer, which is basically like a bounty hunter for tenants. So like he, like you mentioned, uh, the tenant board is the first step. You got to get the, you got to follow that process, uh, and they’ll give you the day you got to get the ruling. Yeah. And it’ll actually show the exact amount minus their last month minus whatever it is, factoring in your legal costs, all of it up to that point. We’ll be in a nice, uh, document for you and that’s how you pursued them. So that’s the worst story. You have the six months in Iran. Um, no, that’s good. I mean, yeah, I thought it was going to be worse. We’re really, we’re really, everyone’s scared about damage. Everyone’s scared about damage. So how about damage? Yeah, honestly, I, I had a student house that we did, um, uh, I won’t say what that number, but a chestnut property.
Um, we have not, this is the name of the street. Okay. Yeah, just the street. And I won’t mention the number, um, clients of your guys’s, uh, and this is showing how the inspections worked. Uh, so on our second inspection at the halfway through there, at least, we noticed that the carpets were destroyed on the stairs and this was a brand new build property. Yeah. So, and the screens were also destroyed in anyone who owns a rental property knows that screens are Enes are such a pastor. Yeah. So, so now the advantage of doing an inspection as opposed to just showing up when your tenants leave is these tenants still had to live in this property for six months with us managing it. So I got ahead of it very early on and said, hey guys, I’m going to get a quote. Uh, you know, we’re not out here to rip you off or anything like that, but I’m going to get you a legitimate quote outlining the costs of, of the damage that you’ve cost and you’re going to be responsible to pay for it.
What did they do to the stairs? So the cats, the cats were pulling up the, uh, so it was all threaded and destroyed. And the screw, there’s probably six screens that were all smoking, I guess, right? Yeah. Multiple things. Uh, yeah, like one of the rooms they painted. So anyways, so I, I got these quotes all within, you know, like a, a 10 day period, um, sent them to them and collected the money three days later. And that’s not every situation where they pay that quick. But what it would’ve done is at least give us the opportunity to slowly collect the money from the students over a three to six month period. You know what I mean? So it’s, it’s a lot easier because these students actually graduated and moved back to China. So please tell me how it would have been a, would have went if I didn’t go there until, you know, totally move out day and my landlord would have unfortunately had a large expense and uh, we, we eradicated that for them to buy what, to put the story when the guy drove into the garage or the team, he speaks right into the Mike, I need you to speak, right?
Yeah. I, uh, I so softly I had a tenant in, in another new property, uh, back into, um, uh, garage door, brand new one for after a night of partying. Right? Yeah. He was the, the damage happened at 3:30 AM uh, according to the records that we were able to receive. So, and he did notify us that he was drinking the night before, so I’m assuming he just had not gone to bed yet. Um, so anyways, again, the, the advantage of getting a co signer on a student leases, his dad was involved in liable. So his dad ended up just mailing us a check again. I went and got him a quote. Uh, he sent us in the check in, we got the grant. I think most landlords fears or new investors for years or a little overblown because I tell them, hey, look for like every hundred properties that we see, we don’t really actually see that many things.
They’re good at 100 properties or might be three or four properties that do have pro like problems other than late rent and stuff. But in general, like we don’t see like massive damage on properties or anything like that. No. And then a lot of that falls into the beginning. You know, if you do the work in the beginning, finding the right person, you can, you know, it usually someone with a decent credit and a good job and you know, the, you see of their vehicle pretty clean. They’re not about to just do a full transition in life and turn into Eric, you forgot to mention you when the guy with the garage door, you walked into the house and woke him up in bed and say hey, oh yeah. I went, yeah, it was a little upset. Obviously. I mean two opposites. Your Aaron’s the loudest person we’ve ever had on the podcast and the teams, the soft spoken person transitioning between Youtube is awesome.
So the door was open. So yeah, I’d, I’d, I’d not, one of the students let me in and they had the ones who told me, hey, yeah, he was out in his car doing things he shouldn’t have. And I was a little upset. I mean, I’m always, what do you mean doing things he shouldn’t have missing drugs. They saw his car was, the headlights were on at three in the morning and he’d been drinking and he had kind of ham. So again, was he driving the streets or just say moving the car? He might’ve went to the store. His story wasn’t really articulate just to say. So I just went down and knocked on his door and a, and he kind of was making some noises and I said, hey, can I open the door? And he said, yeah. And I opened it and say, what happened?
I said, he’s like, I don’t really remember. He said, well, I got a, I got a, uh, more than one person saying, hey man, uh, this guy backed his car into the garage door. And he’s like, well, I don’t think that was mean. I’m like, well, your car’s there and it hasn’t been moved. So someone with a moped didn’t sneak in behind you and ram the garage door. Right. So, so, yeah. And, uh, you know, again, I didn’t come blasting down on him and just communicate and say, Hey, listen, you did it. You know, he did it and here’s what it costs. I wonder what the privacy rules are for cameras on a student rental on the exterior. Like for student, we’ve never really done that, but I’m just thinking could we put like just cameras on the exterior of the student if any rental PR?
No, I guess you can, it’s there. They’re renting it because we would have access to, there has to be a certain level of consent. I know it’s a little easier than when you get into the multiunit. Yeah, sure. That makes sense. Yeah. Because then you have common areas and, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, in some ways, if it’s a single family home, like a rental, I don’t know. We’re probably breaking some privacy rules. There are no, I don’t think you can do a scene up there on rental properties on a single family home student rental. I can kind of almost see exterior. Yeah. Yeah. It’s definitely a no, no. Yes, definitely exterior only. Let’s be clear here. Exterior. Yeah, definitely a no, no. When you have a tenant that wants to install a surveillance equipment and a multiunit building because then you’re breaching somebody else’s, yeah.
Got It. Now, but as a landlord, there’s the, the, the laws are a little bit different because it is your property. Um, and if they’re set up in a way to, uh, you know, um, protect your belongings and the in the, in the common space, that kind of thing. I don’t have the exact answer to the, to the regular show. Got It. Yeah. But it’s just interesting. Something we’ve never really looked into too much. And then, um, the team, I’m curious, when you’re a ta, you have liked, you didn’t grow up in the Niagara region, but you work with a lot of investors out there. Why are you liking that? Because you’re going to Saint Catherine’s a law. Well, in the law Niagara Prob like now I grow the city of Niagara. Um, what, what, what, what are you finding out there? Reveal your secrets? Um, just,
uh, again, working with the builder. Okay. Purpose built properties. Uh, Brock University has been working with Eric, finding good tenants. Could students also bidding a lot of rent to owns in the northern, northern St Catherine’s. You’ve been kind of killing it on the rental. Just buying nicer homes, nice areas. So rent to own. So if you’re listening to this rent to own, we did almost exclusively for years, like 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and then as we grew a Rockstar, investors started doing like every kind of strategy you can imagine. But the rent to own stuff, um, really has picked up again because the lending rules in Canada have tightened up and uh, it’s hard to find people, I’m sorry. People are having difficulty getting properties if they have a bit of bad credit and the rent to own really has picked up again. You’re just finding, finding a lot more tenant buyers, finding a lot more in the Niagara region, finding love more, um, uh, option payments, option fees available compared to different areas and finding higher amounts.
I’m not sure if there’s any reason behind it, but just it’s been good. Uh, what do you guys see the Demon Oscars too? What are you seeing for straight rent out in the like Niagara Region? Like just saying, I dunno, single family home Saint Christopher and start a family home 2000 up to 1950. And you’re buying that house right now in Saint Catherine’s for foreign a bit. Four and a half. So maybe, okay. It wasn’t that long ago that in Saint Catherine’s we weren’t like 1300, 1400 a month in rent. So your $2,000 a month in straight rent, not rent, own straight. Right. So in a rent to own on the same price point of House, a regimen about 23, $2,300. Yeah. And uh, an option payment of about a 10 Scott it 10 to 15. Got It. Um, and I’ve gotten as high as 2025. Okay. And is the 2000, is that the super high end? Just for straight rent? Uh, maybe you could say,
yeah, like uh, the high end, like the Nice, I’ve got it. I got multiple properties in the and the high end, close to the lake, northern, northern St Catharines, um, renovated nicely detached garage, that kind of stuff. That’s debt goes from anywhere from 21 to 2100 plus utilities. Um, and then anywhere from 1850 to 2000 is, is an average house in a, in a decent area. Um, new towns go for around 18 to 19 like hotcakes. They just, those rent real fast. Um, so yeah, it ranges depends on some variables obviously that uh, that affect your overall rent price. But if you’re in an in a decent neighborhood, um, you know, not the most highly sought after, but a desirable neighborhood, uh, detached with. Okay. So I get a town home right now in Saint Catherine’s, I buy it. I’m like,
Eric, can you rent it out? How long has it taken you to find a tenant? Between two and three weeks. Yeah. So it’s quite a good, did a rent to own for one of the rockstar members? Took them three weeks at 2100. Nope. Okay. And New townhome are really like you to deem, I’m going to have to push the mic
right into your face. That’s how this is going to come out of a place of love, I swear. Okay. My voice is a little bit after the big leaf one last night. I know, I know. Yeah. Um, the leaf when was, I mean I was just smiling.
I was exhausted after watching that game. I was like, I was like a puddle on my, on my couch, man. I couldn’t take it. The second part of the third, a second period and then third period holding up smelling murder’s a penalty shot was a martyr’s penalty shot was a thing of beauty. Now I just want to sweep the Bruins and just get done with those guys guys. Yeah, we don’t like to give it a time. I got it. I got it. Okay. Um, so you’re seeing, um, I got off track there on the rent o two to three weeks. So it’s happening quick and their rent to own if you’re putting in two to three weeks that fast. Cause when we started on rent to own way back, it could take six weeks, sometimes eight weeks. I remember saying 48 weeks. That was pretty normal for us.
So the demand is strong and Saint Catherine’s, you guys are like the fact that you’re working directly with builders and investors are buying these properties and I think you like that cause they’re nice new properties, property management. You probably liked that area cause they’re nice new properties as well. But I just think demand out in Niagara, like it’s just reminds me of Hamilton 10 years ago, so much. You know like I, I feel and I don’t know if you’re seeing the changes and you’re there all the time, so I don’t know if you notice it but that area to me is going to explode. Yeah. And and, and especially in Saint Catherine’s, you have a growing health and education sector. Right? Cause I know a lot of people like to criticize the Niagara Region for will. Like what type of job? I think if you’re in Toronto, you, you only drive through Hamilton and then Saint Catherine’s or Niagara Falls because relatives are in town from out of the country, then you have to do the Niagara Falls trip or you’re going to the Buffalo airport because you want to save on on a flight.
Yeah. Right. That’s the CFO or the casino. Yeah. There’s not many options that you’re going out there, but that’s kind of the image. But you’re thinking that’s changing. Yeah. I mean I will mention Niagara Falls for, for detached, uh, is a little bit of a longer process. Um, I would say anywhere from three to five weeks to rent a detached house at reason being, it’s just so competitive. There’s so many new builds, so it’s actually effecting the price a little bit and it just takes a little longer. It’s still a great market will in an area with that many new belts, cause a bunch of investors buy from the home builder all looking to rent stuff out and the nurse, that kind of glut of inventory. So just an example, guys, that we have a couple of properties on. Marvin’s court for as a, as a new development in, in Niagara Falls and uh, through some conversations, uh, with the builders out of, there was 40 houses on one street, 32 of them were investment properties from purchase from Toronto investors, 32.
So that’s 70, like almost 32 or investment properties investment. Yes. So there was just least signs and yeah, you’d see like the odd family like scan and the thing is you have to survive through that period. Where’s that, where there is that glut of inventory and then some people panic and they want to sell because they can’t rent it out that fast and then they sell and they’re selling against too much inventory up. It’s kind of a nasty thing that first little period. Um, okay, so Niagara takes a little bit longer and that’s not all the time, but that’s the average tuition. Yeah, a little bit longer. I just think where it’s going to explode. We’ve brought this thing up a fourth of the distance between Toronto and Berry. Is it pretty much exactly the same? It’s one kilometer difference than Toronto at St Catherine’s.
And Barry has continued to grow since basically I was a kid in this area. Um, continues to expand it and I feel like Saint Catherine’s Niagara is going to go through that same, I know metro links is trying to get more track tam on CN rails tracks from Hamilton to Saint Catherine’s. They’re trying to do more than one train the new stations. I know that metro links really wants to develop some of the new stations between Niagara and an existing stations in Hamilton to be hubs where people are building a builders are building communities right around the Gautrain station. It’s even condos and stuff. So that whole stretch is going to be the golden stretch for me. You know, it’s, uh, so you’re, you’re in a good kind of good spot for that. Um, so, uh, um, as I also wanted to mention, we talked about a damage on our property briefly.
If you’re listening to this, you can actually get insurance. Um, some of the insurance companies have rental property insurance where you can insure against damage. So if you’re worried that like someone’s going to damage your property, you can actually get insurance for that. So I’m only sharing that because I really think properties are good thing to add into your life. Um, and most of the things that you’re scared of, if you find a good property manager, if you’re working with someone like in a deem you can kind of like minimize this stuff. That’s my thinking.
Of course he could. Well that’s what we try to do is mitigate, uh, mitigate the risk for the clients. And, and it seems to be working very well. Um, we forced, not forced on us, it’s a bad word. We, it’s a requirement to, to have tenant insurance to rent the house from, from orange less, um, which, which is, which is beneficial. Okay. So describe tenant insurance. Just everyone’s aware. So yeah, it covers their belongings. Um, so let’s say you have, I just had a property with a leaky basement, uh, a month ago and the tenant put a claim in on their own tenant insurance for some of their belongings. All right? So it doesn’t all fall on the homeowner and their insurance policy. If there’s a free catch, a freak act of nature, let’s say. Um, and there needs to be a relocation for that tenant. Their insurance covers, that kind of stuff.
So it’s just a, and if there’s, if it’s a larger issue, you have two insurance companies now communicating with one another, you know, so it kind of, you know, obviously alleviate some of the stress and pressure off of one individual. Do you, sorry, what do you use for your hoodie screening tenants? You want to share that? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, the, the screening process starts from, from the first email, the first text, the first call. Um, obviously we’re busy and we don’t want to bring, you know, a certain kinds of people to your property. You expect you, you hire us, you expect a certain level of quality and service. So I immediately just start asking questions, you know, what do you do for work? Or where’s your income stem from, you know, what your school are you in. Uh, you know, just general questions too to understand.
Do you have any pets? Do you smoke? Um, and once I feel comfortable at that stage, then we line up a viewing. All right. So was in a lot of cases it’s private or I, maybe I’ve had three or four really good people call me and, uh, I go meet all three or four of them at the same time. Just letting them know, because some really do admire the fact that they got their own special private viewing. Right? They’re more comfortable that way and I, and I can respect that. So, um, and then we get there and if they liked the property, we then, uh, do a full financial, um, and security background check. Um, and, uh, in addition to that, we collect all their financials. So, uh, you know, proof of income savings, uh, the program we actually use, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll show us, uh, it uses Equifax to do the, to do the credit report, but it also will show us their, what they have for credit.
Do they have a car payment? Do they have, you know, what’s the Max limit on their credit card? How much have they spent, what’s the revolving credit? Um, and with those pieces of information, you can really make a confident decision in, uh, in mitigating your risk. Is it, what’s the chances of this person not being able to make a rent payment? You know, so we were using, you know, intuition, which is also important along with all the resources we have. A, that’s how we might use your spidey sense is still like number one social security check. What kind of security check. So yeah, like I like just to give you an example, we met a gentleman in a, in a nice suit shows up in a, in a new Tahoe like, oh wow, this guy’s a killer, you know, run everything. The guy has a sex offender charge from 2016 so that’s not someone we’re putting in your house.
Um, so those are the kinds of tools that we use. Um, neighborly has been one good one that a lot of a rock star members have been using. I think the open it up. Do you remember, is it free now? I think for individuals, neighbor leaves my free, if you just Google it up neighborliness like Nab B r l y. Um, but it’s like, uh, uh, uh, credit check service that will give you, I know you guys use an even better one. Um, but the neighborly is a really good one. It’ll give out like the whole, I think no, it was your one that does their social media profiles and everything. Yeah, the program is called certain. It’s a company based out of a BC. Um, and yeah, it’s very, very detailed oriented and it’s clean. It’s easy to understand. Um, you can see what debt has been bad, has gone to collections, what’s debts in good standings so you can identify, you know, okay, this person’s credit scores a little bit low, but they’ve got a student loan that maybe they just haven’t been paying or they had been paying, but it’s still big.
So you know, cause someone with a low credit score, it might still be a great candidate and you need to know why. Right. And I’ve been able to answer those questions for myself and for our clients through, through that program. And then typically, are you signing people to one year leases? I guess if it’s a straight rental property. Yeah, I do 12 month leases and I even, I have landlords that want to do longer and I educate them in a way to say, hey guys, so like we don’t know, like, this person looks amazing, but you really don’t know until they move into your house. And if you’re in a longer lease, you’re limiting your options, you know? I mean, if they keep paying you and even if you don’t like them, it’s hard to get them out. Yeah, you’re right. But, but you could sell, you know, you, you could sell your property. Uh, obviously it’s tougher to sell if they’re locked in longer. It’s true. If it’s a shorter lease for 24 months, he can’t increase rent
either. Ray, it’s TAHPERD increased rent and turnover is not a bad thing, you know, because it gives you an opportunity to, to, to achieve more rent, you know? Um, not in every scenario. I’m not saying we love turnover, we want people to just move in and move out. Um, but it does give people the opportunity to, to move out. And who knows, maybe the market’s gone up like it has a, and that we have another spike. And if somebody’s moving out means $200 more a month, that’s $2,400 a year. Even after paying a leasing commission, you’re still at far, far ahead then, then you know, your current tenant. And I’m not saying we motivate people to move out, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Peace of mind. I get it a little bit longer, feels good, but um, it, it goes on a month to month. They still have to give 60 days notice.
Stuff’s all applicable and there’s nothing wrong with going month to month. I just remember thinking, I thought at the end, early on, I thought when the lease is over, if I ask them to leave, I could say, hey, I don’t really like you. Can you just leave the leases over? But in Ontario, yeah, they can go month to month and they can, as long as they’re paying, they can stay. But all your points about a shorter leash. Totally makes sense. You’re also a nice person because earlier you said that some people really admire the fact that they get a private viewing. We, we passed by that so, so many years ago. And the reason was I was driving two things. I would, I would it, listen if we can, if nick and I can survive in a real estate than anyone came because the biggest property management tip that we ever picked up from ourselves as instead of keeping the keys at our house where we live, um, why don’t we just get a lockbox and leave a pair of extra keys at the house so that if any of us have to drive to one of the rental properties, we don’t have to worry about having the keys or not.
When we discovered that little tray that changed our life, because you know, many times we would be at a property and nick would call me. He’s like, shit, I mean here, I forgot the keys. Are you around? You know what I mean? And then our next step was put them in the glove box of our cars. And then finally one of us is like, Hey, wait a second, why don’t we get these things called lockboxes and leave a spare of extra keys like hidden in the back of a post somewhere that’s like changed our lives. But uh, anyway, uh, we always get people to show up to the properties at the same time. And the reason we did it is because nick and I were working in other jobs when we first had rental properties and when we started showing them, people would lie to us whether they were going to be there.
And I know this has happened to you because it’s happened to all of us. If we show properties, whether they’re going to be there or not and how we drive all the way down to Hamilton from Mississauga and they wouldn’t be there. So I was just like, screw it everyone where I’m, you know, I’m showing properties at two o’clock and some people would even say, hey, I prefer kind of just to see it myself and say, I’d love to be able to do that. My schedule unfortunately just doesn’t allow for it. So I can understand if you don’t want to be there, but there are going to be like three other people and usually everyone just showed up earlier. Uh, anyway. Um, but you’re just a nice guy or no matter what anyone says, Eric, you’re a nice dude. My mom tells me that. Yeah. Got It. But yeah, so no, again, it’s asking all those questions and really like when I get in my car and drive to a house, I’m excited. Okay, this is someone that I really think is a, is a good candidate and I’m going to see it. I’m not perfect, you know, I’ve been like, yeah, you do. You guys do a good job.
What is someone listening to this that doesn’t have property management yet, but they’re out in an area where you guys aren’t operating? For example, let’s say in like Durham, somewhere up in Berry, what should they be asking a property manager? Like what are the tricks that property managers kind of try to play around with people on? Yeah, just, just try to have a general conversation with them, you know, keep it casual, but a, get the information that you’re looking for without being too like, you know, uh, what was your last paycheck? And so what’s the information they should be looking for? Like you guys do quarterly visits to the property. So something like that. Yeah, just just set the expectation like from, uh, from the moment I meet somebody who’s interested, I say, you know, an orange just isn’t going to be coming by to bug.
Yeah. We’re never going to show up unexpected, but we are coming by four times a year. Okay. You’ll be given notice and that’s just accepted, you know, we don’t want to bug them, but they need to know that there is going to be, so what about monthly reporting to me as the owner of the property? Do I get a quarterly semiannually? Like, how do I get, how do I get information on expenses that you might have to incur? So the program that we use is called pay prop a for rent collection. And that generates a 30 day report for you on the 15th of every month. So let’s say you get one January 15th, it will be for the month previous. Okay. So rent collected expenses, um, money coming in, money going out essentially. So it’s clean, keeps you in the loop. My office is in the loop with you anyway.
You know, you’re not just going to have bills coming in and be like, well, what’s this? There’s, you know, we’ve had a conversation with you and we’ve troubleshooting with the tenants and you know, uh, all those sort of things. And then on some of these properties that are like legal duplex as a student rental, single family homes, so not the buildings. Um, I wanted to ask you about that building stuff though in a second. Um, what is an amount that you guys prefer to be able to charge to somebody without the landlord being notified? Yeah, so we, uh, it’s $200. That’s it. Hello. And that’s, it’s, it’s rare that we have to do that, but it’s just, it’s set up. Most of ours are like 500 right now. I feel like. Yeah, no, it’s 200. It’s, we’re comfortable with that and most things are minor.
It’s a service call. Um, but like I said, if it’s a Friday night and I got a tenant, we have an emergency line set up. So it’s, you know, I get a text, an email and a call. It’s very, very organized. Um, and I can quickly look, okay, there’s, we’ve got water coming through a light fixture in a basement that support, and I can quickly, I’m not worried about contacting the landlord all set everything up and then contact the landlord. Right. Or if there’s something, it’s a, if it’s a known issue and they’ve mentioned it to me before, I’ll call him, cause he might have some information that’s extremely valuable. Um, but like I said, if d, depending on the urgency, I need to know that I can, you know, fix the issue and not be worried that they’re like, that was 150 bucks. So how the Ma, the number of times going by a property, how I’m getting my information, it sounds like from you guys it’d be like on the 15th of the month that comes in via email of some sort I guess.
Well you’ll get your rent so you’ll, you’ll, you’ll get your rent payment on, you know, say the third or the fourth or the fifth of every month. By the time it goes through all the necessary, the 15th is just like the report of getting the report. Okay. So for the previous month you’ll be able to, you know, like I said, you’ll already be in the loop, but you’ll get an actual legitimate report showing, okay, I had a $55 bill to fix a door. Or um, this was, uh, an electrical bill. So it is, it does outline and it says what it is about. I need someone to go represent me at the tenant board. Can you do that or do you have to hire a paralegal? Yeah, we’re not allowed because we’re property managers. So I was doing it for my clients and I’m doing it before to our members.
It was nick and I make an early on. Nick and I were at the tenant board wasn’t even our property, we weren’t even property managers and we weren’t paralegals and we were like fighting on the behalf of rock star members. I get last time they’re like, you know, you could be hurting your client by being here and not that they dislike me or anything like that, but it’s just you have too many interests at play. Right. So it’s, yeah, I can kind of see it. So do you have a relationship with a paralegal then? Absolutely. We have a, and I wouldn’t say in house, but very close. Uh, separately. It is separate. Is that how most property managers do it? Yeah, he gives us a good deal because of the volume, right? Like he’s our go to guy, so he gives my clients like, just to give you an idea, an n four a to to file it to go represent you.
All that stuff is a flat $400, which is literally almost half the cost that you’ll see out there from other paralegals. What about for repairs? Should people, when they hire a property manager, expect like a certain percentage markup on repairs from property, is there like a range that they should be looking out for? Well, I mean, if it’s a multiunit building or you know, if it’s a new single family, you know, it’s obviously it’s going to be minimal expenses. Um, but yeah, you should just expect there to be a, you know, it’s tough to give a dollar amount. It really is. But um, on a, on a new build, maybe your maintenance for the first year is only $500. And you know, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s, what about, sorry, what are the property manager gets a call saying toilet needs to be fixed. Um, is there a markup on whoever they call to fix the toilet?
That’s not going to be an in person. It’s in house. You guys are in house for all [inaudible] so we now we set out electricians and plumbers and whatever you guys, whatever they bill us is what we bill our clients. So there’s zero mark. So you’re not marking up at all. Isn’t that common? No, no. That’s a huge competitive advantage that that orange juice has over competitors. Okay. And you said they’re in house, but then you said we outsource electricians and plumbers. Who, who’s in our human? Yeah, like our contractors that can do things from windows to doors to framing the drywall to mudding, all that sticks screens. That’s always been a pesticide that is also outsourced fixing screws. Okay, got it. So you have that in house. So, and we just know these guys, they show up on time, which is important for their relationship with the tenant.
Um, they do good work and you know, I, I’ve in multiple scenarios, had a guy go to fix something. Uh, Scott went to fix a um, uh, a window. Well and when he was there, he noticed another window and it wasn’t part of what he was sent there to do, but he fixed that and the client was still billed the same amount because that’s what I’m really cheering for you guys. Cause most property managers we meet, once they get bigger and stuff, some of the processes start to break and stuff. I really, you guys are doing good stuff. Thank you. I really hope that, uh, yeah, just grow and put process in place to continue doing it. Cause it sounds like you guys have got a good thing going on. All the feedback we’ve been hearing has been good. So really that’s kind of Kudos to you guys.
This is not an property management’s not an easy business at all man. But like any other business to a, you know, a, do you need to set up systems and processes and it operates like a mystery. So what, okay, now I’m a landlord. I need someone evicted. You have this guy apparently go guy or girl that’s going, how am I notified? Like how do I know what’s going on? Like I don’t even really care to know. But is it just like, hey, this person hasn’t paid rent, were starting the eviction process or they’re at the l l one stage of the eviction. So yeah, just to, just to clarify, we, my office will help landlords organize all the paperwork so you don’t necessarily have to hire a paralegal. Okay. We’ll do all the paperwork for you, send it to you, you sign it. And we’ll tell you what you need to do to prepare.
We’ll help you do that. But obviously for your advantage, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s in your best interest in and a lot of cases to, to hire a paralegal. Um, and I would like to mention that in me and my four years, I’ve only had to go, uh, two times for my own tenants. Um, good for you. And that’s an honest job screening. And I’m not saying that we don’t do things outside of the landlord tenant board. I’ve had to make deals and arrangements to have, you know what I mean? That that happens. But in actual push come to shove, yeah. We’ve, we’ve only been, how is your office set up right now? So I, I, for the longest time I thought it was just, you know, so yeah. How are you guys set up? So I have a maintenance coordinator that’s in my office from nine to three.
She takes calls, emails, uh, just for maintenance. That’s her job. She organizes with the contractors, sets that all up, stays in contact with owners, let them know what’s going on, what troubleshooting steps have taken place with the tenants, that kind of stuff. I have a, an accountant that deals with all the rent collection, invoicing, um, that sort of stuff. I have to leasing reps, I’m one of them. Specializes. Rob Specializes in the student rentals. Um, that’s his job team. You’ve worked with these guys, these guys. Rob, yeah. Rob Scott. He’s likable guy, you know, so he works hard and his job is to just stay on top of the student stuff. So September properties, he’s already got the ball rolling. Um, he’s, he rented so far. 72 bedrooms for May one, I think he’s got 14 left. Um, awesome. So that’s is it’s because the student is almost a whole other business to a certain extent.
It really is in terms of, you know what I mean? So I had to bring, I couldn’t own renting cycles. Um, so to leasing reps that, that, so there’s three of us that are just purely doing leasing. Um, and then Brian kind of oversees the, he’s a general manager, I guess. I’m, I’m the leasing manager, so I’m going through on a weekly basis just making sure properties are being rented and making sure they’re priced right, doing price adjustments. Um, and then I, you know, I deal with some of the accounting firm first and last and that kind of thing, but, and what about, okay, we’re property managers seem to get in trouble from my experience in using them for ourselves as sometimes they’ll take on a project that’s too big. So for example, they’ll say, well, you know what, you need a kitchen renovation or there’s a wet basement and we’re going to run it. You know, we’ll handle that all and the mark up these things quite high. So if, if you are doing a
renovation that’s like a kitchen needs to be renovated, are you, you’re, you’re just not dealing with that at all? No, no, we do full, full, full renovation. Okay. Yeah. Is that a different company? Part of orange lists? So it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s orange list is actually now invoicing are, you know, oranges header. Um, we’re, we charge a project management fee, which we’re transparent, right? So, uh, I’ve got some clients now that I’m, that I’m doing stuff for. Uh, we probably got around three or $400,000 in projects happening as we speak. Um, and we’re not running around with their heads cut off because we work with people that we trust. Okay. So you’re, you’re doing a straight pass the expenses straight over. Here’s your management fee for managing this project for them. They know what that fee is, will help pick up materials, colors, you know, in tandem with the owners.
You know, they have it, they obviously, it’s their product, their house, they want to be a part of it. Um, we just know what material, uh, looks really sharp for four tenants. What’s, what’s going to last long a where you can save money and still achieve those high rents that you’re looking for. You, you don’t always have to go with granite or quartz and nice piece of laminate will do just fine. You know, you don’t need to tile, you can put vinyl. So there’s a lot of things that we can add that can drastically, you know, shrink your bill and still get you that rent that you want to cheer. Cool. And Nadeem. This, this builder, these builders, you seem to be do a really good job making relationships with builders who are doing stuff. Are they the student rent purpose built houses? Those are still, I just asked you this but I just want to make sure I’m clear. They’re still doing those. Yes. Correct. And what kind of, what’s on the inside? Cause the Eric’s talking about different material. Like what kind of flooring are they putting in these properties? What are the kitchens like?
Uh, tiles, laminate, flooring and carpet on. Yeah. So it’s just landing in street carpet and the, and the kitchen kind of just basic kitchen. We’re not putting granite and Nice Laminate, nice laminate or courts. If, if, uh, if the client requests then they would courts in a quartz countertop and a student rental. Yeah. Holy smokes. I’m getting old and stainless steel appliances. England steel appliances. Okay. Um, and then the, oh, sorry. It’s come a long way from used appliances that we used to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we, we had to have that conversation. You know what? No, we still have some old appliances and some of our student rentals that are really old and the appliance repair guys are like do not get rid of these old appliances cause they’re made so much better that it’s actually better to do a small repair on this because the new ones that are coming in often from like China or whatever, they’re breaking so frequently and then it goes actually cheaper. Totally. Yeah. Totally. And we had to convince some students in one of our properties just really recently that says, I know these things look really old but our guy told us they’re better than getting a new ones in here cause they’re starting to get a little kind of beat up and stuff but to, okay. And then have any of your legal duplexes out there finished yet or is that still ongoing legal duplex? Some of them are finished. Yes. Yes. Some of them are finished. And how are they set up?
They just get orange list. Has helped us a lease those out. Uh, I think in the last one was east Chester. We had five bedrooms, upper level secondary suite. Uh, just a professional. Yeah,
we’ve got a couple of students. The cool thing about the, the way these ones were laid out, it was a, it gave you options so you could rent to a couple, which in that case
gives, they have a living room where the, if it’s two students would be a bedroom. Um, so you could rent a two students, you can rent to a single person. They have a bedroom in the living room, you know, or a couple, that kind of thing. So, um, you know, they’re insulated. Well the, obviously when it’s, when it’s legal and it’s new, there’s a lot of steps. It’s illegal duplex that you’re renting out as a student rental, two separate units. It’s like to stay in rentals to student rentals almost within the one property. Correct. Yep. Got It. I see what’s going on and we achieved really good rents. Then what did you get on that? Uh, we got, uh, 2,500 up and then 12 or 11, 50 to 12, 50 down, 2,512 50. So 3,700 of them. What did you, what are those binders for the quarter?
And the utilities are, I know that’s something that can scare investors, but, uh, you know, I like to tell people I probably have 200 houses that are all inclusive and I’ve had one meeting in the last year with students going, hey guys, you know, are you leaving your windows open? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it’s not as scary and it actually works well for the investor because those numbers are padded, right? So it’s, um, God and you build it. When you factor in the utilities, you’re giving the tenant peace of mind write down on a fixed budget costs. Yet the owners taking a little bit of risk. So there’s a little anxious. And I said, well, we’ve done it both ways. We’ve kind of talked to students about putting it in their name. Um, and we do that on a few properties still to this day. One of my, uh, a university student rentals at one point, the water bill, what’s going so high?
I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. This one girl, and there was essentially running a laundry mat. She was washing everybody’s clothes, all her friends close. I had to go talk to her and say, look, we’re not doing this anymore. You want to do this? Utilities go in your name. Yeah, you want to be an entrepreneur. Like that was it. But I think I let this go for like four or five months where you’re kind of looking at the bills and you’re like, well what’s is that happening in this property? You know, do I have a toilet? That’s, cause sometimes that you can waste a lot of water just on one little leaky toilet that’s draining a lot of water. And I kind of thought it was that for a little while. But anyway, don’t run laundry mats in your student rental properties. And so Eric, thank you so much for, what’s the URL to, what’s the best way for people to reach you?
Uh, yeah. W W W. Dot. orange.com is as obviously the URL to our website. I’m on there. You can, uh, read some of the content pertaining to what it is we do, how we do it. A little bit about myself, Brian, um, and, and our staff and our team. Okay. Say it one more time so people catch it. So www.orangelistalloneword.com, orange list.com. Um, and then, uh, Nadeem, just your email address. Yeah, my personal emails, Eric e R I c@orangelists.com. Here, send me an email, eric@orangelist.com. Guys, really appreciate you doing this, the team. Anything else? We’re good. Gold leaves. Go, go, leave. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. That thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, it’s Tom Karadza against, hopefully enjoyed that talk and hopefully you can hear in the deem as quiet as he was on that podcast. So, uh, thanks to Nadeem and Eric for coming in. Always fun chatting with people are up to good stuff.
And if you’re listening to this and you want more real estate information yourself, you can always check out rockstar inner circle.com for all the latest stuff. Thanks everyone for listening. We really appreciate the feedback we’re getting on this podcast. Until next time Your life, your terms.