Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
[00:00:15] Short Term Rental Management. We are gathered here today, today to talk about managing rental properties.
[00:00:23] And I've got some bad news.
[00:00:26] I got fired by a property management company. And I'm sitting here scratching my head, literally. I'm like, how is this even possible? So let me break it down, let me tell the story a little bit. Also, I apologize. My office is completely disgusting.
[00:00:39] Stacks and stacks of mail everywhere.
[00:00:42] Because I've been traveling a ton and it's just, I don't have time for it. Can we stop with the mail already?
[00:00:47] No more mail, please. As a mailman's son, third generation, actually not a mailman.
[00:00:55] But anyway, also along those same lines, I am moving offices here pretty soon and I actually did the math. This will be my sixth, I think my sixth home office. I was virtual before COVID which actually came in really handy when Covid hit. Anyway, this is a property management company. I have many of those, by the way, with my long term rentals, of course, I manage my own short term rentals in house, which is a pro, a huge part of the problem.
[00:01:33] It's difficult for a property manager to work with another property manager as it is with any job, or at least for this one anyway.
[00:01:47] It would be difficult for me, no matter what profession I am, to work with somebody else doing the same profession on my own pro, my own assets.
[00:01:59] If I'm a financial advisor, it would be very difficult for me to hire a financial advisor to decide how to invest my money.
[00:02:13] And I understand that's my fault. These people don't know, they don't care. They just, they were hired to do a job, right? And I was with the same property management company in this town. I'm not even going to name the town. I'm not going to name names, not naming towns.
[00:02:25] I was with the same property management company in that town for like 10 years and then I, you know, decided to try something else.
[00:02:35] There was a few things I wish they were doing differently. And I had a buddy, long story short, I had a buddy that is in that town. He's got a few houses and he said, hey, my property manager is pretty good, you ought to give him a try. So he did, didn't go well, now I'm actually going back to the original property management company. I had to go back with my tail between my legs and say, so anyway, let me tell the story. So about six months ago, I remember being summertime I switched to this property management company. I got like 20 units in this town, probably not even, I think it's like 18 units.
[00:03:12] Again, I have multiple property management companies in different towns, etc.
[00:03:17] Of course I have my own. Just want to be perfectly clear for anybody who's never been here before, I have my own property management company.
[00:03:25] My property management company manages short term rentals, overnight rentals, vacation houses.
[00:03:35] All of these properties are owned by yours truly. Anyway, property manager comes on last summer, about six months ago, give or take.
[00:03:49] They put me, they put a girl in charge of my portfolio and when we moved over I said this unit, you know, I'm fairly in tune with my, with my properties.
[00:04:01] And when I moved over to this new, this lady, I told her, I said this unit needs to be affected.
[00:04:07] I just knew because that, you know, scuttle butt, whatever, they had been paying rent and it was time for him to go.
[00:04:15] And honestly I think they may have already disappeared.
[00:04:21] And she says to me I've never done an eviction.
[00:04:31] So I'm sitting here and I'm, I, I said to her, I said here's the deal.
[00:04:37] I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. This is a new relationship. I'm going to assume you're a go getter and this is going to work out great. But you should not have told me that you've never done an eviction. I basically just went to the, I've come to the dentist with a cavity and you just told me you've never filled a cavity.
[00:04:57] Evictions are Property Management 101. It's part of it.
[00:05:01] We hope they don't happen, but they do.
[00:05:07] A lot of times it never actually gets to court.
[00:05:09] They disappear in the middle of the night, whatever, turn the keys in, you know, that kind of thing, all sorts of different scenarios, but they do happen.
[00:05:19] So I helped her through it, I've walked her through it because of course I, I managed this property myself back in the day.
[00:05:27] I didn't place this particular tenant that was having an issue. I placed the.
[00:05:31] Actually I'm not even sure which property that was at this point. It's been a while ago. Six months ago I had, I did place a lot of the tenants that are in those units back when I was self managing, you know, my, my management company was managing those properties before I mo. I moved and turned them over to somebody else.
[00:05:54] Because it is very difficult to professionally at scale manage properties from a distance. You can do it with your own properties from a distance, no problem. We talk about it here every day.
[00:06:05] But to do it at scale and bring in other people's properties, you need to be there. So I moved and I get. Turned them over to somebody that was there. Somebody I knew.
[00:06:17] Anyway, turned it over to this company, this new company that my neighbor knew, my friend, my buddy knew.
[00:06:22] Six months ago, she tells me she's never done an eviction. I said, I wish you hadn't told me that. Long story short, they fired her.
[00:06:30] The company I hired fired her shortly thereafter.
[00:06:36] So obviously, that was the first red flag and a lot of red flags along the way. And I just am too busy to care, to be honest with you. I just need you to rent the damn properties and. And worry about it later.
[00:06:49] So anyway, they put a new kid on the properties, and he called me up, told me his name. I Googled him and said he lived in Utah.
[00:06:58] So I called the owner of the company again, and I was like. Which is. By the way, it's hard to. Hard to get a hold of this guy. He's got a Google voice.
[00:07:08] That was. That was where I went wrong. What are we doing? What am I doing? Working with a property management company that's using Google voice. You can't afford a better phone service. Come on. Google voice is terrible.
[00:07:19] And why are you trying to hide your real phone number anyway? You're a tiny little company. Just use your real phone number. Give me your iPhone so that I know it's blue and we can talk like regular people.
[00:07:27] What are you hiding from? So that was a big red flag.
[00:07:32] So anyway, I call this guy back, and I'm like, hey, this guy you just put on these properties lives in Utah. I just looked at his Instagram and I compared the two pictures from their website to Instagram. I'm like, it's the same guy.
[00:07:46] Turns out, according to them, it's the same name.
[00:07:50] Dude looked almost the same.
[00:07:54] Didn't live in Utah. He lived in this town, apparently.
[00:08:01] So I'm like, all right, fine, let's give it a try. I'm too busy to care. Just. Just rent. Rent the damn houses. I'm busy.
[00:08:19] Anyway. Long, you know, time goes by.
[00:08:24] Two, three weeks ago, they said that a tenant had moved out and they needed to rehab the house. So we came up with a plan, and it was more money than I wanted to spend, and. But we agreed to his dollar figure, and they went in there and they started.
[00:08:39] And then they called me the day they started working, and he said that he sent me a bunch of pictures, and then he sent Me a new bill that was going to be way more money than the original bill, which we're talking now at this point, like a third of what I paid for this house to do this remodel. And I'm like, what are you. What are we talking. This is ridiculous.
[00:08:59] So he calls me and he says, yes, due to the fact that there's no moisture barrier in the crawl space, the joists are rotted.
[00:09:10] And apparently, I guess I'm walking around with a sucker's tattoo on my forehead because I called him back. I said, this was on text. I have it documented, actually on text.
[00:09:22] I said, tell them to stop working on the home.
[00:09:27] Get them out of there. Whoever told you that this. This joist problem was caused by lack of moisture barrier is a dumbass, and they don't need to be working on this property, Okay? That's what happened. And it's true, because moisture barrier are not.
[00:09:49] This is not going to affect damage in the subfloor in the joist, okay? I mean, it'd be a really weird catastrophic situation or some sort of flood, you know?
[00:09:59] And I just said, if any. If this person that's doing this remodel told you that's what happened here, they are either A, lying or B, they're too dumb to know what really happened. And either way, I want them working on this house.
[00:10:15] Keep in mind, they just sent me a bill for 30 grand to do this remodel.
[00:10:22] And it's the property management companies, rehab company. They're the same company.
[00:10:29] So I said, pull them out of there. I'm not paying for this.
[00:10:32] Then I shot one of my crews up from another town. I'm not. I'm not naming names or locations here today, okay? I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus. I'm just telling stories.
[00:10:46] I said, get him out of there. And I sent my crew. My crew up with. There was up there the next day, and he goes, this definitely a washing machine leak.
[00:10:54] And I said, yeah, it's exactly what I figured it was. Meanwhile, the. The damn property management guy ripped out half of the hardwood floors without telling me.
[00:11:07] You don't think that if we're to the point we're ripping out hardwoods, that you should make a phone call to the owner of the property and say, hey, do you want us to rip out these hardwoods? They're damaged.
[00:11:18] Well, why are they damaged? They're damaged because the washing machine was leaking, which is your job to make sure that you know that there are no leaks in the house when you Inspect on a regular basis.
[00:11:34] You didn't inspect this thing.
[00:11:36] You just took over six months ago. There should have been at least one inspection right away and maybe another one since then.
[00:11:43] So it's your fault that the washing machine was leaking. I understand that. We can't count on the. Get the. The ho. Guest, the host, the Sorry, the tenant, to notify the management that the leaks are happening. A lot of times a tenant doesn't even know or doesn't care and just. They don't tell you. I get that, but you need to be going walking that house and finding leaks.
[00:12:06] If that washing machine was leaking to the point where it's costing me 30 grand, then any idiot that walks that house, even if they've never done an eviction, should be able to tell that that washing machine is leaking. And don't even begin to give me this.
[00:12:26] This moisture barrier bull crap.
[00:12:31] All right? So anyway, yesterday I got an email that said, due to some foul language, we are discontinuing our relationship with you.
[00:12:43] So I called him up and I was like, oh, really? Has nothing to do with the fact that I use my own crew instead of your crew who's trying to gouge me on a job that was. That's. That's now necessary because of your negligence.
[00:12:57] So I got fired.
[00:12:59] I got fired by this completely inept property management company.
[00:13:07] And there's a lot of lessons to learn here. As. As with everything. Number one, I should never have called the guy a dumbass.
[00:13:15] That's where I went wrong. Apparently.
[00:13:17] Apparently I got in trouble for saying the term dumbass, which, again, I do have a screenshot of this dumbass. Maybe I'll post it over the screen here if I want to get fancy with it.
[00:13:29] Whoever. I said, whoever told you that is a dumbass, and that's why they fired me.
[00:13:34] Has nothing to do with the fact they're completely inept and don't know how to manage properties, and they're trying to gouge me with their own rehab company.
[00:13:49] And I shouldn't have shot my mouth off and used the word ass. I'm sorry for that. I am. I'm so sorry. But the truth is, is I'm busy. I'm busy. I don't want to hear about wet subfloors. It's your job to make sure subfloors are not getting wet, you idiot.
[00:14:09] Can't believe I got to get fired up about this stuff.
[00:14:15] So this is, you know, I mean, I'm. This is a therapy session at this point. I'm. I'm I'm. I'll be. I'm gonna admit it. I can't be shooting my mouth off and getting mad at people.
[00:14:23] You get bees with honey. 100%.
[00:14:28] But it ruined my day.
[00:14:30] To think that the world's greatest landlord got fired by a property management company.
[00:14:38] Unbelievable.
[00:14:40] I don't know if I had a point at all today, but I couldn't. I had to get on here and tell you this story here on short term rental management. This story has nothing to do with managing vacation homes. I understand that, but hey, maybe you can learn something from it. Make sure that stuff's not leaking on your subfloor. Number one. That's a bad day.
[00:14:59] Which. The subfloor happened to be hardwoods on this one.
[00:15:05] I freaking laid the LVP myself on this house with a buddy of mine. I hired a buddy of mine and I went over there and helped him.
[00:15:11] Ten years ago, or I don't know how long ago it was.
[00:15:18] And I even told this guy, I told this guy four times. I said, there's a transition strip in the kitchen. And I don't know why. I can't remember why we did that.
[00:15:27] There was no reason for that transition strip to be there unless we were going from one type of flooring to another, obviously.
[00:15:35] And it turns out there was hardwood and tile and. And I told him four times, please, when you pull up the vinyl, tell me why that transition strip is there. Never heard from him.
[00:15:44] Not until there was a freaking hole going down to the crawl space where they ripped out everything without telling me and then sent me a bill for $30,000 on a house I paid 90 grand for.
[00:16:01] Unbelievable. And then they fired me.
[00:16:03] So world's greatest landlord got fired by a property management company. Can you believe it?
[00:16:08] What a wild and wacky day. I love you.
[00:16:11] Hopefully you learned something from this story. Maybe not, but it was too good not to tell.
[00:16:17] Don't overthink it.
