SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 499: PROPERTY MANAGEMENT AND LANDLORDING IN A COVID WORLD

It’s a whole new normal for 2021 landlords!  With the impact of the global pandemic on every aspect of our society and economy, real estate investing is no exception.  In today’s podcast, landlord, property manager, podcaster and real estate investor Andrew Schultz shares what he is doing to strategically position his real estate business to succeed in the new normal.

What You Will Learn

• How we need to emphasize the service aspect of  real estate now more than ever
• Why growing up in a landlording family was a great education for Andrew Shultz on both his life and business
• How a degree in Criminal Justice helps him as a property manager
• Why starting out in property management gave him an advantage as a real estate investor
• What the long term benefits are of positioning a property management firm as a “Covid resource center” for both tenants and property owners
• Why staying up on Covid-related legislation issues has given him a competitive edge in growing his business today
• The importance of knowing and working within the foreclosure market in the months and years ahead

About Our Guest

Andrew Schultz

Andrew Schultz is a real estate broker and owner of Own Buffalo Inc (OBI), a residential property management firm and real estate brokerage in Buffalo, NY.  With a passion for investment property and property management extending over a decade, Andrew’s goal is to educate investors both young and old on how to avoid some of the pitfalls of investing and property management.  In addition to running OBI, Andrew hosts the RentPrep for Landlords Podcast as well as the Ask A Property Manager Show.

More About Andrew

• Andrew grew up in rural western New York  state in a small town outside of Buffalo called Medina
• From a working class family
• Not a lot of money
• Farming community
• His mom was a landlord
• He remembers, as a kid, doing turnovers on an apartments with his family – painting and doing whatever needed to be done to get apartments ready for rental
• He also remembers seeing “kit houses” that were for sale by Sears & Roebuck where people could buy everything you needed to build your own house, shipped via rail car – wood, electrical, everything you would need to build your own home.  They would publish floorplans in the Sunday newspaper for these houses that he used to cut out and put into a notebook – his first foray into real estate!
• By the time he graduated high school, his mother had sold the income properties
• He went off to college and got a bachelors degree in criminal justice
• He was going to go into law enforcement
• Even though he didn’t go into law enforcement, there were things he learned that help him later in real estate
• After college, he got a “dead end” job doing collections.  He realized that was not the job he wanted
• He found a job on Craig’s List as an admin assistant for a property management company
• Here, 12 years later, he is still in the same business, except he has his own property management company

Own Buffalo Inc (OBI) – His Property Management Firm

• One of the skills he learned in college, that he still uses today as a property manager, was from a course he took called “Investigative Research”
• He learned how to look at things from 30,000 mile view – separating yourself from the situation enough to be able to figure out what really is going on – one of his most useful skills learned in college
• His company handles mostly small multifamily properties – duplexes, triplexes, quads, plus a ton of single family rentals
• He has a lot of clients who are building their rental portfolios
  • They start with small multis and move up to 10 or 20 units
  • He shares others mistakes with some of his growing clients so they don’t have to repeat the same mistakes other clients have experienced

Covid Changes to Landlording and Property Management

• When Covid hit there was much confusion for landlords and property managers alike because no one knew what to do with a global pandemic
• There were some regular systems in place that helped them from an operational standpoint but there was still that 15% that said “what happens next?”
• He has focused a lot of his time on doing research on proposed legislation that could have an impact on his business and the business of his clients
  • He looked at:
    • Eviction moratoriums
    • Foreclosure moratoriums
    • Federal and state funds available to assist those impacted
  • He shares the information he finds with his clients
  • He has also looked at stimulus funds and how to access designated funds
• Real estate was shut down in New York the first two months of the pandemic
• Because property management was considered an “essential business,” his business continued
• There have been at zero evictions since March 2020 because the courts in New York are not hearing the cases
• His company is helping both tenants and clients:
  • For Tenants
    • They have been pointing them to local rental assistance agencies
    • He is helping all tenants asking for help as best he can
    • Haven’t changed new applicant criteria
  • For Clients
    • Telling them about mortgage forbearance assistance
    • Suggest talking with lenders to get loans refinanced at better terms
    • Has a credit repair company that they have referred
    • Referred clients who were eligible to PPP loans
    • 75% of clients only have one rental property and may be “reluctant landlords” (inherited a property)
• Various property classes are being affected differently
  • A and B class properties have experienced no problems
  • C class properties are experienced some challenges
  • But all A,B and C class properties are still maintaining 90% occupancies

Your Biggest Mistake

• Not taking on a mentor sooner or a business consultant
• Advice from someone experienced and who has been there before
• Help zeroing in on prime target customer earlier on
• Could have been a larger company by now

Your Biggest Success

• Knowing how to systematize things
• And how to put those systems in place
• Knowing how to take the most common and frequent business activities and put them into an efficient, less time-consuming system
• Creating systems so you can step out of the process or business altogether and know that it will be able to continue on its own

Advice for Old Dawgs Looking at Real Estate Investing to Help Them in Their Retirement Years

• Landlording is not for everyone
• There are other real estate investing options that are less labor-intensive that residential rentals:
  • Triple Net commercial properties
  • REITS
  • Hard money lending
• Understand first what you want to do and don’t want to do and develop your goals from there
• Know what your strengths and weaknesses are
• Know the market you want to invest in
• Work with professionals who will add-value to your business
• If you don’t want to do the day-to-day management, look for partners who will so you can focus on what you enjoy and do best

Current Business

• He is growing the property management arm of his business
• Has picked up quite a few clients over the last few months
• Most of the new clients have difficult situations they are trying to work through
  • These clients are seeking professional counseling, almost coaching, along with the management aspect
  • He sees these clients growing over time into much larger operations
• The next big opportunity for his company, over the next 24-36 months, will be in the foreclosure market
  • A lot of smaller investors/landlords will likely be pushed out of the industry
  • It will create an opportunity for other investors to jump in and acquire more assets and grow at a rapid pace
• Even though Buffalo is considered one of the poorest cities in the country, it is also a deep sellers market

Rap-It-Up

• Favorite real estate book: Millionaire Real Estate Investor and Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller
• Favorite business book: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willick
• Most valuable web site for success (other than your own): Google.com, BiggerPockets.com and Facebook.com
• Favorite app: CamScanner
• Favorite quote: “Prior planning prevents poor performance.” – Andrew’s 6th-grade math teacher
• If you lost everything – all your assets – and had to start all over, knowing what you already know, and you only had $1,000, what would you do to launch your real estate investing business?  I would start attending (real estate) networking meetings, start looking for properties that I could put under an assignable contract (do wholesaling to raise some cash).  If I’m able to work, I would find a job that has commission potential.  For example, contracting work (he has that knowledge to do this well), where I could make a percentage of every job I could sell.

How to Reach Andrew

• All-in-One Website: WhatsDrewUpTo.com

IF YOU LIKED THIS PODCAST, we would love if you would go to iTunes, Stitcher, GooglePlay, iHeartRADIO and Spotify and Subscribe, Rate & Review our podcast.  This will greatly help in sharing this podcast with others seeking to learn real estate investing as a means to achieve a successful retirement.

Check out our other podcasts at olddawgsreinetwork.com.

Get a FREE copy of our 3-Minute Rental Property Analyzer at olddawgsreinetwork.com.

Additional Episode Sponsor: Meno Studio – menostudio777@gmail.com