Ep024: Residential Real Estate Investing 101 – From Accidental Landlord to Intentional Investor

Chris McAllister: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Landlord Profitability Playbook podcast. I’m Chris McAllister, founder of ROOST Real Estate Company, and I’m here today with my co-host Laci LeBlanc. Good morning, Laci. 

Laci LeBlanc: Good morning, Chris. 

Chris McAllister: So today’s episode is for all of the accidental landlords out there.

And what I mean by accidental is maybe you’re somebody who tried to sell your home and just couldn’t quite get the price that you, uh, wanted or deserved. Or maybe you’re somebody who’s sitting on a, on a mortgage with a rate that’s just so good that you can’t imagine giving it up or maybe you just inherited a property and you don’t quite know what to do next.

However, you got to owning that first property, I just want you to know that, that you’re not alone. And a lot of people become landlords more by circumstance than by design. So the good news is that’s often how some of the best investors get started, and that’s why I’ve titled this episode, residential Real Estate Investing 1 0 1 from Accidental Landlord to Intentional Investors.

So let’s dive in. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. Chris, I, so I am not an investor, but I’m surrounded by investors as we’ve talked about multiple times, but it’s still kind of fascinating to me. How do most people who end up becoming accidental landlords become a landlord if they didn’t really plan to or intend to? 

Chris McAllister: Well, I think what’s interesting is E, even if you never plan to, I think for a lot of people, that first property that somehow.

Falls into their lap, for lack of a better phrase. You know, just that becomes the spur or the impetus or fuels that ambition. Well, this worked out, this is kind of cool, maybe I should do another one. But the, the key here is, is not every real estate investor starts out with a master plan.

You know, a lot of people just fall into it. Maybe they’ve got a house and they’ve gotta move for a job and they can’t, can, can’t get what they want for their house or, you know, something’s wonky with the market right now, the local market, or maybe it’s a situation where they’ve outgrown their starter house, their very first house, but again, you know, maybe they got it during the pandemic or just after.

And it’s got a three and a half percent mortgage rate. They just don’t wanna give up. And then, you know, sometimes, maybe parents or grandparents leave a property behind and there’s an emotional attachment to it. And, and for whatever reason in the moment, they just can’t quite bear to sell it.

And thousands of property owners start this way. And, you know, honestly, you know, LA you and I have talked about this. I sometimes think of the term accidental landlord to be a little bit disparaging, but I haven’t really, I don’t mean it that way, but I haven’t really. Come up with something that that sort of describes the situation any better and really kind of what I want to talk about today is, you know how people who pick up a house.

Turn it into a business and a strategy for building wealth that supports them for years and years and years to come. And what’s just kind of cool about the whole situation is so many of us who got in this way, got into real estate, got into investing, you know, it, it, again, it wasn’t a master plan, it was just the circumstances.

Something happened in life. We ended up with our first house, and then we ended up with, another one, and another one, and another one. But in any case what separates the successful investors who start with that one house and, and move on or stick with that one house for the rest of their lives?

It’s not luck, right? It, it’s, it is being in the right place at the right time. And, and you know, there’s one way to look at this. If you became an accidental landlord, congratulations. That’s, in my opinion, that’s kinda lucky. But the thing that’s most important, and the thing that helps move people from accidental to more intentional is it’s the decisions to, to start treating that house as an investment.

Not as a, a bother or, or a leftover, and that decision to start treating that house as an investment, that’s the decision that changes everything. Okay. 

Laci LeBlanc: I think that’s a really good point. I think for a lot of people who aren’t in the investment mindset already a house that they have that they’ve moved on from or that someone has left them can feel like a burden, right?

Because it’s not really, investing has never, I don’t think, been easy, but it feels harder now even than it used. B. So I wanted to ask you why does keeping that property and becoming an investor, how does that still make sense for people? And, and can you talk to us a little bit about why and, and how That’s a good decision.

Chris McAllister: The short answer is yes, absolutely. You know, I, I’m gonna tell you, and I truly believe this, it’s always a good time to be investing in real estate. The, the issue right now is there just are good deals. Not just great deals, but good deals on the market. Are good deals are just not on the market right now.

We’re in a, we’re in a cycle. We’re in a season where you know, if more intentional or professional investors are sitting back. You know, they’re, they’re taking care of what they have. They’re keeping their eye out for new opportunities. But the fact is they’re not seeing anything that gets them all excited to, uh, you know, jump on and, and, and spend money on the beauty of, being in the situation where, you know, suddenly you have a house for whatever reason, whether it’s.

The one you own, or the one that somebody passed on to you, that’s 90% of the battle these days. You’ve already picked up that house at a terrific price. You’ve already got, you know, potentially great financing already attached to it. You know, that’s more than halfway to setting yourself up as, as a, as an intentional versus accidental.

An investor, real estate still works and it will always work because it’s tangible. You can touch it, you can understand it, you know it’s stable. Yes, there’s ups and downs, but at the end of the day. There’s, there’s a range, right? But it, it’s essentially stable. You can touch it, you can drive by it, you can see it, you can improve it.

And you know, a well-managed property pays you in three different ways, right? You get the income from the rent that your tenant pays. You get the appreciation because the house continues to grow in value. And every single month that you use that rent payment to pay your mortgage, your building equity.

Maybe depending on where you are in that 30 year mortgage cycle, it’s not a ton of money, but every dollar counts. So there’s three things. There’s income, there’s appreciation, and there’s equity. You know, getting that rent every month that the property just becomes more and more valuable over time. Right.

Tenants are paying down the mortgage. You’re, you’re building wealth and, and, and it, and it doesn’t feel like a lot of money at first, but over time, and I’m not talking over a lifetime, you know, over 3, 4, 5, 10 years, you’re gonna build real. Wealth and real estate rewards. The long game, the long view, and it rewards patients.

There’s, I’m not here to say that, you know, holding onto that house is, is gonna suddenly double your money overnight ’cause it’s just not, but it’s gonna be steady, it’s gonna be compound growth, it’s gonna build over years. You don’t have to worry about timing the market. You just have to, you just have to participate.

You just have to be in it, right? And, and, and manage it wisely. And when you do, you get that magic thing that we talk about all the time, Laci, that mailbox money. And that’s a, that’s a sweet place, right? 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, absolutely. And we say a lot. The only better time than now to invest in real estate was like yesterday.

And I think it’s important to point out that if you have a property that you purchased before and now you’re moving on, or that somebody else purchased before and left to you, however you become this accidental landlord. That’s really, it’s like you started investing yesterday. Because you got the deals of yesterday, you got the price of yesterday because everything constantly goes up.

Right. Um, so I think that’s a, a cool thing to point out. But I do think that there’s a, we talk a lot about mindset, right? And I think there’s a huge mindset shift that you have to make from going to homeowner or you know, owner of a home that was betrothed to you to becoming an investor. Can you talk to me a little bit about that mindset shift?

Chris McAllister: Yeah. When you live in a home, Lacy, your decisions are always personal, right? You decorate for yourself. You upgrade. When you feel like it, you fix the things that bother you. When you rent a property, you have to make decisions like a business owner, not like an owner occupant. So every choice you make has to go through one simple filter.

Does this upgrade? Does this improvement? Does spending this money make the property safer? Does it make it, you know, more durable in that? Will it last longer or does it potentially make it more profitable because I can command. More rent than I currently am in, in, with the house and the condition that it is, and that, that’s the mind shift.

You’ve got to start thinking of it like a business owner. You have to stop reacting emotionally, and you have to start managing strategically. You know, you focus on preventive maintenance now instead of emergencies. You, you make upgrades that attract, better qualified tenants or tenants that can pay more money.

You, you, you think like an investor running a small, steady business that works for you and not the other way around. You want that first house to be working for you. You don’t want to always be working for that first house. Do. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, for sure. We talk a lot about the neighborhood standard and, you know, updating to the neighborhood standard or maintaining to the neighborhood standard and somebody who is, you know, three fourths of the way through a kitchen remodel we didn’t wanna do because of a leak.

We did make choices, you know, based on the neighborhood that we live in, right? We’re not gonna put, we don’t live in a, a super high end neighborhood, so we’re not putting in solid surface countertops and Right. Um, so I think it always makes sense maybe to. To think about that, right? Because eventually you’re gonna sell or eventually you’re gonna do something with the property.

But talk to me about how that kind of decision making factors into making a really good rental. Because I think a lot of, especially new landlords or accidental landlords who are doing this for the first time, think that they might have to go fancy to attract. Tenants. 

Chris McAllister: I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions out there, and it’s definitely a mistake I made when I first started investing in real estate going on 25 years ago.

Tenants don’t want, I, I won’t say they don’t want luxury, but they certainly don’t expect luxury. What they want, what they de demand and what they deserve is reliability. They want a clean, safe, well maintained home where everything just works the way it should work. That doesn’t mean solid surface countertops.

It doesn’t mean jacuzzi tubs, it doesn’t mean luxury plank flooring. You know, it, it just means that everything works. It’s, it’s safe, it’s clean, it’s reliable. Great tenants, you know, care a lot more about. The appliances, do they work? If you’re offering appliances, are they working?

Is the lighting decent? Are there ceiling fans if appropriate? You know, things that don’t cost a lot of money. And, and more importantly than that, when something does go wrong in the house, they want a quick response from the landlord and that’s, they care about that. Far, far more than granite or solid surface countertops, or the fanciest appliances.

All they want is something that works and a reliable home attracts reliable tenants. And a property that looks cared for tends to be cared for in return. You know, if you’re unsure if your property. Is rent ready? You know, uh, get ahold of a property management professional who can walk through that property with you.

And I’m not necessarily talking about your real estate agent. You know the person that you would go to to help you list and sell, sell that house, but reach out or ask for a referral from that person to a property management professional so that they can give you real world advice, information, and knowledge about what tenants are looking for.

In your neighborhood. You know, sometimes getting a house re ready is as simple as fresh paint, a deep clean, a couple of new light fixtures, right? It’s certainly not a total remodel. I just want everybody to keep in mind, you’re not living there anymore and honestly, what you want doesn’t really matter, right?

What matters is what the renters are looking for. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I think a lot of times the. I don’t wanna say cheap, but like the less expensive options, right. Are easier to take care of. Right. So they’re, they’re more affordable, but they also are more durable and they last longer. And when it comes time to replace them, right, you’re not replacing granite with granite.

You’re replacing laminate with laminate, or you’re replacing, you know, laminate flooring with laminate flooring versus hardwood. That’s almost impossible to take care of ’em. Right. You can tell I live in a a hundred year old house with wood floors that I have to take care of. But let’s talk about, um, fi, finances and how some of these financial decisions come into play.

What should, how should a first time landlord think about the financial side of things from that perspective versus, you know, buying it and, and keeping it for themselves? 

Chris McAllister: I wanna kind of keep it simple. Okay? But I, I don’t, I don’t want people freaking out over the math or anything like that. A rental property brings in income, but it also has expenses.

And what is left over is your profit, right? Let’s say you collect $1,800 in rent. And your mortgage, your taxes, your insurance, you know, a reserve for maintenance and so forth. Let’s say that adds up to, you know, over the course of the year, 1700 a month, then you’re making a hundred dollars a month, right?

That may not sound like a lot, but it’s $1,200 a year in your pocket. And in addition to that, again, your tenants are paying down your loan the entire time. So yeah, you’ve gotta know what your mortgage and your taxes and your insurance are. You need to talk to, uh, a property management professional about, you know, what you should be holding back for maintenance and so forth.

I, I tell people, you know, at a minimum, you know, if you’re getting $1,800 a month, I would really like to see you be able to hold back. You know, 180 to $200 every single month in reserve so that when something does go wrong it’s not a personal crisis to, to get it fixed and paid for. But, you know, a hundred dollars a month is great.

You know, that’s the cash flow we call mailbox money. But even if you’re just breaking even, right, you’re still be building equity, you’re still setting yourself up for future income. That house is still going up in value, right? So real estate is about. Predictable returns over time. It’s not about instant cash and the best landlords among us, whether they have one house or a thousand houses, they focus on consistent.

You know, base hits, right? They’re not trying to hit home runs every single time. They’re taking the, the long view, they’re playing their long game. And it’s just such an incredible thing. You know, if you, if you’re in a situation where, yeah, if you pick up a little beer money every month because your, uh, rental income exceeds all of your expenses, that’s fantastic.

But I gotta tell you, if you’re playing the long game and you’re doing it for the right reasons, for, for. Wealth for FU for yourself and future generations. Gosh, breaking even Laci. It’s not a terrible thing. 

Laci LeBlanc: I agree. Yeah. So you mentioned the expenses. I wanna talk a little bit more about what people should plan for in terms of ongoing costs or surprises with maintenance.

I think that’s kind of a big unknown out there if you’re not already a landlord, if you’re not already an investor. So talk to me a little bit more in detail about that. 

Chris McAllister: Well, there’s still, there’s five main expenses, main expenses, right? You’ve got your mortgage, you’ve got your taxes and your insurance.

And if, if, uh, you know, if this is a house that, uh, you know, you have that, that you don’t wanna sell, chances are your mortgage, your taxes and insurance are rolled, all rolled in to that monthly payment, right? Best case scenario, if this is a house you actually inherited, maybe there’s not even a mortgage.

Maybe you just have the taxes and insurance to deal with. So those are the big three. Mortgage taxes and insurance. But the thing that trips people up. And is, and that they don’t plan for appropriately is maintenance. And again, management. So again, the first three are obvious, but maintenance and management are where new landlords often get hung up.

So you’ve got a budget for maintenance. So like I said earlier, roughly 10% of your rent every month should be set aside, put away. In reserves so that you’ve always got a cushion of cash. So when you know the water heater goes bad, you know, you’re, it’s, it’s not a, a household crisis, right? It’s not a budget buster.

You’ve already got that money set aside to take care of that rental. And, and, and if you don’t do that and you try and you don’t use that cash either, whether for emergencies or whether to, you know, do some basic improvements to maintain the, the property either during a tenancy or between tenants, I just want to tell you, ignoring those issues, it, it doesn’t save you money.

Deferred maintenance may get you through the month. But it just delays the reckoning and the bill’s going to be much higher when it comes to, than if you can take care of any issues that arise as they happen. As far as management goes, you know, a lot of folks, accidental landlords, you know, they, they manage the property for themselves and that’s often fine for a while, but, you know, life has a way of making that harder.

Right. You know, most of us have jobs and careers and kids and families and friends and hobbies and everything else, and. Oftentimes, you know, when you become an accidental landlord, if this isn’t something that you’ve, you know, really worked at to get good at, for a certain period of time, it can disrupt your life.

So there’s always a place for professional management, whether you have a single house or a thousand houses, nobody wants to get those calls at midnight. Nobody wants to have to, you know, police lease violations. Nobody wants to have to unclog toilets, you know, on Sunday afternoon. You know, all that type of mental stress.

Can add up when it happens. And, and that’s where, you know, I think that people should think about professional management and that’s where professional management earns its, its key, but there’s a cost to that. Right. You know, so, you know, a lot of companies. Charge a percentage of rent. If you’re thinking about budgeting for professional management, I can’t speak to what other folks do, but you should probably plan that.

There’s gonna be 10% of the gross rent’s gonna go to the management company each month. And there’s probably gonna be an additional fee for leasing a property and other fees like that. If you wanna see what we do at ROOST. And if you go to, uh, invest with ROOST.com we, we have our, our.

Price for services list right out there where everybody can take a look at. So whether you pay a percentage or whether you pay a fat flat fee. Did I say a fat fee? A fat flat fee fair flat fee? You 

Laci LeBlanc: did, but that’s not necessarily accurate. 

Chris McAllister: A fair flat fee. There is a cost, but. You’ve, you’ve got to balance that cost against being able to live the life you wanna live and, and, and not having to manage the property or the, or the tenant relationships.

Laci LeBlanc: And on top of that, I think we are of the opinion, obviously that property management is really more of an investment than an expense. And I think that, you know, we get a little nitpicky with the words there, but property management can really, having that in your corner right, can really help to increase the value of your property over time by helping you keep an eye on things.

You know, preventative maintenance, um, by helping you get the right rent. But talk to me more about that. What exactly does a property manager do? What are you paying for beyond just collecting the rent every month, which seems simple in, in your mind, but then once you figure out how you actually manage a property, I think it gets a little more complicated.

Chris McAllister: It does, you know, a good property manager is your operating partner. A great property manager manager handles everything from pricing and marketing to screening tenants, to signing leases, to collecting the rent, to managing delinquencies, to doing evictions, coordinating repairs, recommending updates.

Getting properties rent ready between tenants. I mean, a good property manager can basically do everything that’s required to maintain and, and profitably operate a property. You know, at our company, you know, we, we see it as, uh, we, we look at the entire property management, um, service offering right?

As being about relationships and, and our. Our goal, our, uh, operating system at, at ROOST Real Estate Company is we manage relationships. We don’t just manage transactions and we don’t just manage problems. You know, we keep communication clear. We enforce policies consistently and we, protect the property and we protect the owner.

You know, I think this is a good time to mention, you know, our fiduciary duty is licensed real estate brokers. Is to the owner. We also have a duty per state law to, um, treat the tenants fairly and honestly. But we treat the tenants are, are our customers in the legal sense of the word, and our owners are our clients in the legal sense of the word.

So I digress a little bit there, but what it comes down to is a great property management. You know, when something breaks, they’re gonna already have. People lined up to, to take care of something when it breaks, right? When the rent’s late, they already have systems in place to identify it, see it post, follow through, call them, God forbid, file an eviction.

But a, a good property management company has already got systems in place to deal with what happens when the rent’s late. And that type of structure that type of professionalism gives, gives you and your property. Predictable performance and stable income over time, and that professional manager, it’s gonna turn your property from potentially a second job for you that you don’t want, that you don’t need, that you, you shouldn’t have to take into a real investment.

You’ll notice, I’ll never say a passive investment because I think that’s a, a, I don’t think passive income exists in the real estate business, but it’s definitely going to keep it from becoming a, a second job. 

Laci LeBlanc: Misnomer, I think is what we refer to that as. Yes, yes. Misnomer. Um, you mentioned communi keeping communication clear, and I think you hit on one of the main reasons that folks are reluctant to work with a property manager because they’re reluctant to give up that control or, kind of the insight they have into.

Going on at their property, who’s living in their property, being able to like know what’s happening in it. So I think communication and how Ruth particularly communicates with our monthly owner statements and, you know, the updates that we provide, things like that are really important. Um, I was reading the newsletter from, I think it was property management.com sent out the newsletter and it was talking about how most.

Of the landlords they survey, uh, wanted more communication from their property management company. They, they didn’t feel like they were being bothered. So I think that you hit on kind of a big reason that some owners are reluctant to hand things over to a professional manager, but we also get a lot of people who are more than ready to hand things over to a professional manager.

What’s the biggest reason you would say folks go from self-managing as accidental landlords to utilizing a property manager? 

Chris McAllister: I think, you know, most, most owners start by managing, you know, themselves to save money. I mean, I don’t think it’s any, any tougher than that. You know, especially if they’ve got a long-term tenant in the property that either they found or.

You know, maybe it was a rental property that got passed on, but you know, the, the only fathomable reason for, unless you can’t find a good property manager in your market, but the only good reason for managing yourself is to, is to save money. And I respect that, but eventually. Our owners anyway who sign up with us, they realize that the real cost isn’t that monthly management fee.

It’s their time, it’s their stress, and it’s the cost of their mistakes, right? If you actually, if you hire an experienced licensed property management business, you’re benefiting from the fact that probably they, as investors and, and all the other owners that they work for, they’ve already. You know, seeing, hopefully all the mistakes that can be made and, uh, they’ve, they’ve learned from ’em, right?

They’re not repeating mistakes. They’re learning from mistakes, and they’re gonna help you avoid making the same ones. Professional management reduces vacancies. It attracts better tenants, and it keeps maintenance costs under control. It also gives you back your evenings. It gives you back your weekends, your peace of mind.

And that’s really what. I think our owners are, are paying for, right? They’re, they’re paying for sanity and they’re, and they’re paying for stability. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I think that’s a great point. Um, I did have another question about the long game, but I think we’ve talked a lot about how, real estate is a long game, so I’m gonna ask you instead, what are some of the biggest mistakes that new landlords make when they become, become accidental landlords?

Chris McAllister: Yeah, but you know how I love the long game, Laci, so just, I just wanna, you’re right, we have talked about it, but I think it’s worth saying again, the magic of real estate is compounding over time. I can’t stress it enough. Every month that you pay that mortgage payment, what you owe goes down. The value of the home goes up and.

You, you’re just winning across the board. Five years in, you might still see it, I guess as a side investment, a side hustle, whatever. But within 10 years, you know, that first house could be your most stable, valuable asset. And again, you don’t have to have a dozen houses. You don’t have to have a hundred houses.

Right. Even one well-managed rental property that you control over your working life can add tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, to, to, to your retirement fund. And the key is, is to start managing it, even if you’re gonna be an accidental landlord for the rest of your life, and you’re never going to buy another house.

Right? Start managing it intentionally now. Because consistency over time beats timing every single time. So again, that’s my pitch. One more time for the long game, Laci. So forgive me, but to answer your question, you know most of the horror stories that we hear. They tend to, to revolve around the same handful of mistakes, right?

You know, they overpriced the rent, right? They think emotionally, right? So even if the, the neighborhood rent, you know, the standard for the neighborhood is a thousand bucks, they think, well, that was a special house. You know, grandma did this and that. Or, you know, my kids grew up there and we loved the fact that we could see the bus stop from the, the kitchen window.

That’s not gonna get you any more money. And to, you know, think that because this house is yours and, and, and you’re emotionally attached to it, that DA is going to, you know, rent for $1,200 when every other house like it in the neighborhood is renting. A thousand dollars is a common mistake.

The other common mistake is that we, we see, and we talked a little bit about our earlier, is ignoring maintenance and deferring maintenance and not, investing in preventive maintenance and the big, the other thing. That just kills people, is choosing tenants based on a gut feeling instead of, professional applications, professional screening.

So many times I, we see, you know, new landlords make the mistake that they meet somebody. It they hit it off and, you know, that person’s got the first month’s and last month’s rent and the security deposit in their pocket in cash, right? So they, instead of going through the due diligence of making sure that this tenant is gonna, maintain their end of the lease bargain and return that house at the end of the lease term.

In as good or better condition than, than when they moved in, that all goes out the window because, you know, wow, there there’s 3000 bucks right here. This is great. We’re gonna be fine. And it, it never. Ever ends well, but overpricing rent, choosing tenants on gut, feeling, ignoring maintenance, all of that is preventable.

If you have the right systems and or the right people in place, you can, you can avoid making every single mistake that we’ve seen so many other folks make, at least early on in their investing careers. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, right. People, right systems. You mentioned there’s also a lot of really good technology out there, right?

Um, figuring out the right rent, there are a lot of tools that you can use to, to help you, right? We use a market rate rent tool, uh, to help us figure it out along with a lot of expertise from the people who’ve been in this business for a long time. Um, you know, we use Tenant Turner and we use AppFolio and we use property mail to keep things, you know.

Instead of on a legal pad right. In your office. It’s all Yeah. In one place. And you’re able to look at it and track it and, and get flagged when something needs to happen. And I think it’s worth pointing out that access to these tools is available to everybody. Um, but especially if you only have one or two properties, you’re gonna pay a lot more for access to these tools than you would to just.

Pay for access to a good property manager who’s gonna utilize these tools and give you access to them, you know, and foot the bill, honestly, or at least split the bill with all the other owners on their, on their role. Yeah. So I think it’s really important to, to point out that there are also, you know, tools out there that can help with this and by, you know, utilizing some of those tools, either yourself or.

Probably more effectively via a good property management company. Um, a lot of these headaches, a lot of these mistakes can be avoided. Um, 

Chris McAllister: it’s, it’s funny, you know, one of the things that we didn’t touch on or I didn’t touch on is, you know, the, the monthly bookkeeping and accounting. You know, a good property manager is gonna make sure that you’ve got excellent accounting that your, your accountant is going to be happy with or you’re gonna be happy with if you happen to do your own taxes at the, at the end of the year.

You know, you can get by so long on a, a spread, a spreadsheet and a checkbook, I guess. But that’s the other thing that you should expect from professional management, even with a single property are, books that are correct and, uh, accountant ready. Every single month and certainly at the end of the year.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. I mean, this is entrepreneurship really, right? This is a small business for, it’s, if no matter whether you have one property or a hundred properties, it’s a business and you have to treat it as such, especially financially. So I think that’s a really good point. So if, if I’m listening to this and I have this property, either that I’m not sure I wanna sell, I might want somebody, left me, what is the first step?

For me listening to this who wants to get serious and start treating this property like an investment instead of, you know, a side hustle or something. You know, a burden, something we have to deal with. 

Chris McAllister: If you wanna get serious about. I guess there’s two ways to look at this. I want everybody to be serious about that one house, even if it’s the only house they ever buy.

But if you’ve had any thoughts at all about becoming an investor or buying rental properties and you get that first house, whether it’s because the one that your family has outgrown or because you know somebody passed it on to you, having the house alone, as we said earlier, you’re halfway there.

Owning that first house is the, is the hardest part. The next step is to stop treating it like a bother or a leftover, or, you know, a project or a burden, and to start thinking of it as a business and start thinking of it as a wealth generator. You know this, just because you decide to become an investor with this first house doesn’t mean that you’re gonna drop everything and you’re gonna start flipping houses and chasing deals.

And maybe you will, maybe you’ll, you’ll get the bug like so many of us have done. And this just becomes something that you become incredibly passionate about. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It just means that you do need to understand the value of what you have. And. And be intentional about managing it smartly and letting professionals help you.

And, you know, again, that’s what we do every day at at at our company. You know, we, you know, we probably have. If we, if we were working with, 300 odd owners, I would say a third of those folks only have one property and they, you know, half of them will probably keep it that way for the rest of their lives.

But our job at ROOST is to help home owners. Become intentional investors. I don’t want any accidental landlords. It just feels like a mistake waiting to happen, right? It seems like it’s dangerous. It, it makes me nervous, but we wanna help homeowners become intentional investors and, and a good property manager, you know, is gonna strive to protect your property.

They’re gonna strive to streamline your operations, and they’re going to give you the confidence that your investment is going to perform well over time. Without any chaos. That’s the dream. But, uh, you know, that, that that’s what I want for you. And, uh, honestly, that’s exactly what you should expect from your.

Property manager and, and this is a good time to talk about that. We’re gonna put it in the show notes, but if you wanna download a free copy of our book called What to Expect from Your Property Manager, even if that Property Manager is You, we’ll make that available in the show notes here so you can, you can take a look at that yourself.

Laci LeBlanc: I think the, the point that I would like to make is that, you know, a lot of people think that maybe they can’t afford a property manager with just one investment property. They don’t have the, you know, the income to maybe cover it. But I think the question is, is can you afford not to have one? Yeah.

Because it does have to, at least you have to at least act as a professional property manager if you’re not gonna hire a property manager. Right. So that takes your time. Um, but I think that the point is, um. You know, you have to treat this intentionally and like a business and you have to be a professional about it, whether it’s you or whether you’re hiring somebody to do that for you.

Chris McAllister: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that wraps up today. So I want to thank you all for listening to today’s episode of The Landlord Profitability Playbook Podcast. And if you’ve been thinking about keeping a rental property or keeping a property that, that you own instead of selling it, or if you already own one that’s sitting empty I hope, uh.

Today’s conversation will give you a clear picture of what’s possible for you. Real estate doesn’t have to be complicated or stressful. It just needs to be managed intentionally, and, and that’s exactly what what we try to do every day at our company. But again, if you wanna learn more about how to, uh, make your property perform you can download a copy of what to Expect from your Property Manager.

And you can also visit learn with roos.com and you’ll find free resources, practical guides, a bunch of videos that’ll walk you through everything from setting rent to working with a property manager. And, and when, and if you’re ever ready to take that next step, you can also schedule a free property management consultation with Gretchen Mitchell on our team.

Does that wrap it up, Laci? 

Laci LeBlanc: I think that does it. 

Chris McAllister: All right, everybody. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.