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When to Self Manage and When To Just Pay a Property Manager? Can you Self Manage Out of State Today?

Video Closed Captioning:

good morning good afternoon good evening

folks michael zuber one rental at a time

back with his thursday expert and ceo of

him lane miss dana dunford how are you

doing dana i’m great thanks for having

me michael thank you for giving us some

time every other week it is awesome that

a ceo of a company is willing to

contribute to one rental at a time so i

just want to thank thank you for me

as well as the entire audience they

really like your videos

great well thanks for having me i always

have fun on these shows and i always

learn something from you as well there

you go well hey one of the things i

thought we should talk about first is

when to self-manage when is it a good

idea uh and then when to pay a property

manager obviously i chose from the jump

to pay a property manager but i think

you’ve shared with me before something

like 76 or 71 percent of folks

self-manage

so i thought you and i should talk about

it because you really provide stuff for

folks that self-manage which is awesome

i’ve gotten great feedback and for some

people it just doesn’t make sense pay

the 10 percent pay the 10 points and be

done right

yep yeah and it’s um 72 percent of

rental property i knew it was 70

something

you were right in the middle there or

it’s right in the middle of what you

mentioned that’s funny that’s funny so

when you when you uh when you developed

him lane right from the beginning your

aim i’m guessing you can correct me if

i’m wrong was to be that platform to

help facilitate and improve

and really lessen the burden for folks

that self-manage that’s that’s what i

take away from jumping around in the

application yeah that’s correct it was

also to provide a new

basically a new category in the industry

where it was like great you have these

two options of like do everything

yourself or

hire a full service manager and most

people fall somewhere in between yeah

like hey i really want control and

transparency over my assets especially

when you’re just getting started and

you’re getting property one two three

because it actually helps you understand

should i buy another property down the

street should potentially look somewhere

else and once you’re into those details

you know that a bit however the

administration is really hard like

physically giving tenants your phone

number and they call it 2am for

its request

a lot of folks are like well i don’t

want that so i do want to hire a manager

but they always go back to

cost and control and then go back to the

self-management and so it was really

saying how do we have the industry work

together better where you can get

property management services from

licensed professionals when you need it

but you also have that control where you

know rent is going to you

you’re able to control all of that and

then plug and play where you need

support and so it’s really that kind of

middle option that we saw that was

really lacking in the industry

yeah folks and if you’re a part of my

programs even just the free course you

need to take a look at that because

dana’s put together a pdf on how to use

their 30-day trial i strongly recommend

a lot of people are reaching out to one

rental at a time getting in the course

doing the daily discipline but you want

to do more because i only ask for 20

minutes if you’re new i strongly suggest

you executing the 30-day poc

and and see what it’s like to be a

landlord because a lot of you i think a

lot of folks

i don’t know how to say this without

being

without pissing somebody off

they kind of glamorize being a a

landlord right it’s going to be so much

fun i could do this and this and it’s

you know it’s

it’s it takes work and there’s a lot of

checks and balances and audit trail and

history that you need to collect that

if you’re new to it you may not be

thinking about there’s a lot of

back and forth that i think hemlane

really helps people with

yeah and and that is so true that if you

don’t set yourself up and you’re not

educated on how to do property

management you know you fantasize of

being a landlord and just getting a

check in the mail every month massive

income right mailbox money um and it’s

not passive at all um from that

perspective and you know it depends

sometimes you can get lucky on one

property your first property and you’re

like oh this really easy the tenants

never bother me for anything and

then you get the next property which is

quite different or there was a reason

the tenants were never bothering you

yeah you could have known about so that

happens as well yeah i mean you’re

absolutely right

i did an audit of my

uh rentals this summer and there was one

house that i hadn’t had any issues or

issues no calls for like eight years

and then then i had a triplex that i had

five turns in a year and i’m like well

that triplex is not going to make any

money this year yeah turns are expensive

so

uh that’s awesome so again i think 72

self-managed that’s that’s amazing um

you know sitting back when there’s a

couple of things

that you think of you’re like no you

should not self-manage is it are there a

couple

so i think there’s two things it’s um

property as well as personality i think

those are like the two those two p’s are

oh yeah

the things to consider um and what i

mean by that um with personality and

property i’ll start with personality

there are people who are terrible with

operations

and they you know they don’t check their

emails they are a little bit aloof when

something comes up and they don’t like

mitigate risks in advance like if an

email comes from a tenant they’re like

oh yeah i’ll file it away and i’ll check

it later

um

and um they’re potentially just too busy

right

and you really have to know with your

personality are you willing to put the

work in a couple of hours and there’s

it’s more hours up front once you have a

good process in place the hours reduce

over time so that’s why it’s really hard

people say how long does it take to

manage your properties and it’s like

well depends on your property it depends

on you it depends on how much you’re

educated on property management what

tools you’re using all of that but that

personality is really important and

there’s some people um which i think you

know michael you were really at the

beginning

um really busy oh yeah i mean you were

traveling and then like 10 different

countries and had no time to even look

you were that person to say hey go to

not an option full service manager

versus someone like me who i like to

spend my weekends going and checking how

the properties are performing and things

like that so there’s that personality

the other one is property um and so from

a property perspective

if you have a property in an area where

you know the tenants aren’t tech enabled

and you literally have to go down to the

property

and collect the the rent um in cash

which we don’t recommend but that still

happens today

um if it’s if there’s a lot more work

that needs to happen with the property

then that comes down to okay is it worth

your time doing that or is it worth just

paying the 10 for a property manager um

so i i really do think it comes down to

personality and property

and um then to some extent you know

property also has to do with location so

we have investors who successfully

manage out of state really well because

they know the properties they’ve been

there they might have made connections

with the handyman

um they’ve leasing agent on ground who’s

local who they trust to do the turnovers

for them and place

a qualified tenant um but there are some

people who like literally by sight

unseen don’t know anything about the

neighborhood don’t know

like you and i obviously don’t recommend

we cringe when we hear that and no one

on this um

the best uh does that but i think that

comes down to the property and knowing

the property and knowing yourself and

you do you can ask those questions um

because you’re right your property

management fee significantly reduces

when you self-manage but what you have

to take into account is your own time as

well yeah make sure that you say okay

how much is my time worth am i willing

to do this and make this operationally

efficient where it is a game because

sometimes when people self-manage and

you see how long they’re taking and how

manual it is it’s like wait okay you

definitely should have hired a property

the process is down and that 10 of

monthly rent

is much less than what your time is

doing it today yeah i totally agree what

i would strongly suggest people that are

in the one rental at a time course the

free or the paid one is really play with

the 30-day trial because i think hemlane

gives you a fighting chance to

self-manage when i started this in 2002

hemlane wasn’t there it was really

pay somebody or try to do it myself i

was in five different countries a week

or whatever it was it was just like not

an option

it just wasn’t even an option to

consider so i really love what you’ve

done in him lane giving somebody a

fighting chance and i agree

you know my market’s two and a half

hours away you can get a lot of places

in two and a half hours on an airplane

so i think out of state with him lane

could work but yeah please don’t buy

sight unseen and just hope it works

please don’t do that that’s that’s not

good yeah that’s not good and and the

other thing about it is a lot of people

think that it’s i have to select a

solution now and stay with it oh yeah

that’s true also seeing it successful

where you might say hey i don’t have the

time now to self-manage

and i haven’t built up a network or list

i don’t know what the benchmark number

should be for vacancy rates and

um or the rental rates and you could use

a full service property manager who has

that expertise and then after a year or

two we’ve seen folks move over to

hemline and be like okay i know that

this is the rental rate i should be

receiving

average days on market is around 15.

okay i’m good to go i i have a really

good understanding of um what’s needed

or like what my benchmarks are as well

as i have more time now i’ve educated

myself over the years

and and so it’s not uh like hey you

choose a solution now when you have to

stick with it you can obviously change

between solutions and we have people who

come to hemline where we tell them it’s

not a good fit for them yeah it’s hard

to say that but it’s probably the best

thing to do for sales and like that um

making sure that it’s the right fit

there are some people who come and like

never respond to emails to like set up

showings with agents and things that’s

like okay if you’re not on top of it

right now you’re not going to be on top

of it with the tenants and that’s not

fair to your tenants yeah just use yeah

we’re going to document how bad you are

that’s not good and and so it’s

interesting because there is that as

well on our side that we’ve been doing

and it makes it a better experience for

everyone because don’t forget the

tenants are your customers and so we’re

looking out for you if we say you

probably shouldn’t be self-managing yeah

um and we’re we’re it’s because we’re

looking out for your customer who’s the

tenant that’s awesome so folks again if

you’re in the course you follow the

channel you want to pretend to be a

landlord for a little bit you have to

try the 30-day trial dana where can they

find that

you can go to www.hemlanehe

and then just

mention the one rental at a time show or

michael zuber’s name because either way

you’ll get 20 off your first year that’s

very cool folks and again in the show

descriptions there should be a link down

there as well but yeah himalayan.com

take the 30-day trial it’s it’s the

holidays a lot of you will be off work i

strongly suggest if you own zero rentals

get the pos or poc get the pilot or

trial god i’m getting my software where

it’s messed up get the trial play with

it use the pdf or even watch the video

series in the course thanks dana great

thanks michael

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