If You Are Thinking About Managing Your Small Apartment More Efficiently, Then This May Be the Most Important Message You Will Read.
What does this image have to do with you managing your small apartment building? I am going to tell you but first, let me ask you a couple of questions to make sure we are on the same page.
Who
Who is the person in charge of creating the vision and goals for your property?
What
What is your process for handling inspections and maintenance work?
When
When you go on vacation are you able to manage your small apartment remotely?
Where
Where would you go to get property management ideas that allows you to work smarter and not harder?
Why
Why did you make the decision to get in real estate in the first place?
How
How do you expect to grow your apartment cash flow so that it covers all your living expenses?
My assumption
My assumption is that before you owned/managed the small apartment, you didn’t realize that it is actually a business. It is not like stocks where you just buy and then just wait. With owning and managing small apartments you are in the driver seat. You can control and predict what to do and what to avoid.
My assumption is that you are not involved in real estate as a full time career. You may have another profession that requires your attention.
My assumption is that you do not make it a habit of studying in depth on buying and managing apartments through Podcasts, Books, Videos, and Conferences.
My assumption is that even if you outsource property management, to avoid, the “triple T.” Toilets. Tenants. Trash. The company you deal with is only a local company. The company also just manages similar properties like yours and they also manage residential homes (which have a totally different need than commercial real estate that is 5 units and up). They will never ever manage a 200 unit apartment building.
My assumption is that you have been called at odd times like, 7pm while eating dinner table about maintenance requests from tenants. As an alternative, you tell the tenants to email you with specifics. You tell them specifically what to put in the email. They don’t. They email, but give little details on the issue. There is no standard way tenants send requests, that you receive and then for you to send the task out to your maintenance vendor.
My assumption is you are concerned about someone suing you because of harm or neglect on the property. Avoid resident disputes on security deposits for damages.
My assumption is the majority of your documentation is on paper. Which makes it difficult to control which items are routinely inspected, charged correctly, how often they are inspected and whether items are consistently photographed.
1
My name is Cordell Davenport,
my struggle, research and studying on buying and managing Small Apartments will benefit you.
A couple of years ago, I decided that all my entrepreneurial efforts were not pulling in the results that I expected. I was disappointed while at the same time proud that I at least took action on my ideas. I had something to show. Something to sell. My problem was I was like an octopus on roller skates. I had lots of action, but no direction. No focus whatsoever.
During this same time of analyzing my results, I came across this short video by Tyler Perry. I felt he was talking to me. It explained why I was not where I wanted to be. The message was,
“ plant your seed, water it and believe. Narrow your focus to one idea and make it work. That will give birth to all the others. ”
So, I decided to focus on what my end result is. I want to own and manage a portfolio of small apartments near Oakland, California. Like Tyler Perry said in his video, pick one focus. For me that one focus was and is Small Apartments.
To acquire wisdom on Small Apartment buying and managing, I studied and studied. Read many books. Would always have Podcasts on while I drove the car. I would go to conferences. I got my real estate license. I took other real estate training courses too. Through my process, I learned a common thing. The small apartment owners and managers are often overlooked on products, services and resources. Everyone preaches get bigger, get bigger. I am like I don’t want that. I am trying to create more free time, not be worried about apartment buildings in multiple states, or having 50 employees. I don’t want to work 40 hours a week. I want to stay small on purpose and use technology and systems to create leverage. I want to operate small but think big. I don’t want 4 cars and a boat, a 5,000 square foot home, etc. My goal is to create a lifestyle of free time that allows me and my wife to both quit W2 jobs and have enough income that covers our expenses, have extra for travel, have our retirement taken care of and be able to help our friends and family.
So I created a website called Small Apartment Investors.
www.SmallApartmentInvestors.com There as I learn things, I push it out there to help someone else out who has the same desire as I have of owning a portfolio of small apartments. This is done by following this formula for success, in exact order:
Mindset +Skill set + Performance = Results.
One time I was on a Zoom meeting with a Multi Family Website I subscribe to. They had a panel of guests presenting. I asked during the meeting, “What about the Small Apartment Owners, How would they do what you are describing?” They said “that’s a good question but this is not a good fit for them” and then they went to the next question.
I thought to myself, I know, but how could small apartment owners take the same benefit of the technology. If you don’t use technology, systems and checklists in your small apartment building, it is not your fault.
I come to find out that this is common, from small apartment owners knowing about different tax write off strategies that big time apartment owners use, to having systems, to having checklists. It became clear that small apartment owners were ignored like what you do when you see a 800 number call your cell phone.
Or, just like the image in the beginning with the small child, and the adult.
You are a small child (with the small apartment operator).
The adult is the (big apartment operator).
So what I ended up doing is reverse engineering what the big time apartment operators do and transform the lessons learned and bring them down to a small apartment owners level to look eye to eye.
With these big apartment buildings, either they are a part of a Real Estate Investment Trust, where they are a part of a portfolio that is traded on the stock market, or they may be a Syndication Group where General Partners and Limited Partners come together and invest as a group to buy large properties.
The industry that supplies and products and services to these big apartments tend to be like dogs at the dinner table. Hungry for food by the food at large apartments at the table, when in the corner is food already there in a small bowl, where the small apartment owner is. The dog chooses to eat the big table, they want big dollars they don’t want the small kibbles and bits small apartment owners go through.
Think about it logically, if you wanted to buy a car and you and another person came in the door at the same time. Both of you are willing to make a purchase. But your budget is 15k and the person next to you is 95k. Since they work off commission, who do you think the car salesperson is going to give their attention to?
Exactly the Small Apartment Owner is plan B or C.
That is why I say, and focus only on Small Apartment Owners desires, needs, concerns, wishes, problems and solutions.
I didn’t realize when I started my education journey on buying and managing small apartments, that not only does it give me a road map but it also allows for me to create a company that buys and manage small apartments, teach others success principles I have learned and form a community small apartment investors that have the same goal.
Can you imagine a plane taking off without going through proper checklists? Of course not! Checklists are needed to balance discipline, give instructions and provide structure.
Checklists help reduce/prevent:
- 1Failure of memory. Human memory is susceptible to forgetting, especially when there are many steps to remember.
- 2Failure of attention. Human attention is limited. Boring or routine tasks are easily forgotten, particularly in the face of stressful or pressing events.
- 3Skipping steps that don’t usually matter. In some processes, skipping a step or a cautionary check is harmless most of the time, but on rare occasions can lead to catastrophe. These kinds of steps are tempting to skip because they never seem to matter until they don’t.
Checklists help reduce/prevent:
- 1Precise, efficient, to the point and easy to use.
- 2Verifying that steps have been completed.
- 3Setting discipline and standards for higher performance.
- 4Provide reminders of the most critical and important steps.
Just imagine what your life would be like with assurance knowing you can have checklists and systems in place just like the big apartment operators. So click on the button below right now and you’ll be taken to a secure order form.
It doesn’t matter to me if you can sign up right now or not. I will still be going about my daily business and striving to reach my goal of owning and managing a portfolio of small apartments. Whether you join or not join, however, without my help you will always be working harder than you really need to. I know it sounds kind of harsh, but I think you will agree that it's true.
I am here to help you operate small but think big.
Sincerely,
Cordell Davenport
PS.
You are no longer a neglected small apartment business operator.
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