Who is Miriam Ader Miriam Ader has 32 Years of experience in Property Management in Indianapolis Indiana. Miriam s Company Dorfman Property Management is currently managing approximately 800 residential units and most are single family homes. Miriam is also a Real Estate Broker in Indiana. REISecrets.com
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Stacy Kellams, and I have got an amazing interview for you this month. This month I am going to be interviewing Miriam Ader, who has 32 years of experience in property management. I get this question all the time by real estate investors. They want to know what do they need to know to hire a good property manager, what do they need to be careful about before hiring a good property manager, and all those sorts of questions. So I thought, you know what, I just need to interview a great property manager and get all those questions answered. So, Miriam, thank you so much for joining us today. Hi, Stacy. How are you? I am doing great. Thanks. Great. I told them a little bit about you. You have got 32 years of experience, so this is going to be an awesome call. But why don t you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got started in the property management business and what you were doing right before you got started, and all that good stuff. Okay. I graduated from Indianan University in 1975 with a Bachelor s degree in psychology, and I was not quite sure what I was going to do with that, but I also had a minor in business and had planned to go to law school in the fall. That summer, my father had suggested that I join him in work and work at a property management company that he had hired to manage his properties and he was doing some construction work for them. And he suggested that might be a good place to spend the summer while I waiting for law school to start. And then, the fall came and I started law school and decided that was not the place for me. So he said, Come on back and they will find a place for you until you figure out what you want to do. 2
About seven or eight months later, they decided that they needed to close their operations because they were purchasing a savings and loan company and it was a conflict of interest somehow to do both. And so, they sold a few of the accounts to my father and I and that is how we started the property management company. Awesome, and you have been running that property management company since then, since 1976. Since June of 1976, right. Wow. That is awesome. I guess I should tell everybody that when you guys started you only had less than 100 units and now you have over 800 units, most singlefamily houses. Correct. Correct. We started with small portfolios that my father owned at the time as well as a handful of accounts that we purchased from the previous company. They were all residential units, some small apartment buildings, duplexes, four-plexes and single-family homes. Okay, awesome. And it is mostly single-family homes that you manage today, not apartment buildings. Correct, exactly. We manage about 800 units, majority are single-family homes. We still have quite a few duplexes, just a couple of small apartment buildings, but that is not our focus. Right. A little bit later on I am definitely going to ask you what the difference is between managing the single-family houses and apartment buildings. I am sure you can shed a lot of light on that for our listeners today. But first, let s talk a little bit about what does it really take to become a property manager? I know it is a state-wide thing so it is different in all 50 states. But I believe in all 50 states you do have to be a licensed realtor, is that true? 3
Well, in Indiana, to own a property management company and manage for a fee for others you do need to be a licensed real estate broker, not just a salesperson. Okay. The people who work for you do not necessarily need to be licensed, but managing partner of the business does need to be a licensed broker. Okay. All right. I am just going to ahead and ask you this question right now since I have got it on my mind. I just finished writing it down. Let s talk a little bit about the differences between managing multi-family apartment buildings and single-family residences, real quick. Obvious, you prefer the single family since you manage the bulk of your portfolio is single family. I am guessing that you prefer that. We have done both over the years. There was a time, briefly, where we probably had 4 or 5 small apartment buildings that we managed. But the big difference in that is that you have to manage the labor at the building itself. It does require onsite personnel. It does require services provided that you do not necessarily obviously provide to a single-family home, you are maintaining the grounds, you are maintaining typically, usually some kind of heating plant. When the heat goes down, obviously, you have affected many people as opposed to one person. So, just like everything, the impact of every decision you make impacts more people when you are managing a multi-family building. Right. I am sorry, go ahead. No, that is okay. Go ahead. I was just going to say, let s talk a little bit about the differences in the price ranges. Do you prefer, I know the price ranges vary all over across the countries. 4
People in California may not be able to relate to the numbers we are actually going to use. But do you prefer managing properties that rent for more money and are on the higher end of the rental spectrum than properties on the lower end of the rental spectrum or vice versa? There is a market for both here in Indiana. So, we started off, the majority of our properties, would in be in the mid-range in terms of economics. We would be looking at a market of low to middle income people. In the last 5 years, as actually California investors have discovered that buying new or practically new homes in Indiana have become a popular investment, our niche has changed to where we are managing more high end rentals where the rents are $1,000 or over. For Indianapolis, that is a pretty good rent amount. That is a pretty high end rental. Right. Yeah, I would say for most of the country, it is probably more average here in Austin. But for a good portion of the country that is probably the case. How do you go about, I know everyone listening to this call is an investor or wants to be investor and either owns rental property or wants to own rental property and that involves putting tenants in their rental properties or hiring a property management company. But now, let s focus just on if they want to put tenants in their properties themselves, I cannot think of a better person to ask about the screening process that you go through before you put tenants in your clients properties than you. So, can you talk a little bit about what your screening process involves and how detailed you get looking at the tenant s background and their work history and all that stuff? Obvious, we have them fill out an application. I think for all your investors that is pretty standard. Yeah. 5
Part of that application process would be to get their permission to run their credit, which these days is crucial. You cannot run a credit report without their signature to do so. Right. Once we have that application in place, then we run a basic credit report and get a credit score. We do a national tenant screening. We use a company called National Tenant Network that does that for us at the same time that we do the credit report. Then, our next step once they have passed that test is to check their employment, verify their employment, verify their income, verify their possibly past landlords, check their references. I think probably the screening process is the one of the most important things as an investor or as a property manager that you can do when you put a tenant in place. It is not foolproof, but it is probably the single most important thing that you can do when you are putting a tenant in your property. Yeah, absolutely. I could not agree more. Let s talk a little bit more about your property management operation. How many employees and what types of employees do you have managing your rental properties for you? Or not yours personally, but your client s. I m sorry. Right, that is okay. We have 7 full-time employees, 2 part-time. Two of our fulltime employees are outside leasing agents. They spend all their time pretty much out of the office, showing properties, checking vacancies, meeting prospective applicants, working with contractors to get the properties rent ready, that type of thing. Inside office, we have bookkeepers, customer service reps, and then we have the 2 parttime employees that just basically are inspectors. They are just going around checking properties, vacancies, occupied, looking at problems, putting out our signs, picking up our signs and just generally dealing with the outside work that needs to be done. Yeah, okay. Awesome. 6
For those people who are listening who may not be familiar with what a property management company does to begin with, what services does your company provide, and I guess in general, what services do most property management companies provide? Taking it from a vacant property, for example, we would start off by inspecting the property, deciding what the price should be with the owner s assistance, getting an estimate possibly for making the property ready to rent, making sure utilities are on, making sure that the pipes are not going to freeze in the winter, making sure the grass gets cut, the property has good curb appeal, just basically getting the property ready for rent. Once that is accomplished, then the next step would be to market the vacancy. There are a variety of types of markets that we have in place that would be our responsibility to make sure that we are doing everything we can to find a tenant for that owner. Once the markets is in place, then the next step is to make appointments, be available to keep those appointments, show the vacancies to prospective tenants, get the application, process those applications as we talked about earlier, communicate with the owner about those applications or about whether there is interest in the property. I think that is a key service that we do provide in communicating with the owner, letting them know what is going on with their property whether it is rent ready, whether the price is too high, too low, whatever is going on with that vacancy. Right. Once we have approved a tenant, that may be with or without the owner s approval, they have some say so in that process. Then the next step is to schedule a lease signing, collect money. That is always a good part for all the investors. That is the good part. Yeah, it is a good part. So at the lease signing, another key thing that we do is the walkthrough at the property, doing a checklist to make sure that everybody is in agreement of the condition of that property. Perhaps take pictures at that time as need be. 7
Do everything we can to ensure that when that tenant does move out that everybody is in agreement the condition that they took home in, in the first place. Then once the tenant is in place, again, back to the money part, we would be collecting the rent, pursuing delinquencies if that has become an issue; handling court action, if we get to that point of an eviction; taking maintenance calls from the tenants; handling those, again, according to the owner s input. Some owners that we manage property for want to do their own maintenance. They want to know about every maintenance request that comes in. Other owners are much more hands off. We are pretty respectful of that process. So, that varies from owner to owner, what we would do with those service requests. If the owner asks us to, we will then hire contracts to go handle the maintenance. Then the invoices for that maintenance come to us, we will pay those bills. We will be the bookkeeper we will process all of that, provide a statement to the owner each month showing income, expenses, cash flow for the month, recapping all that on a year-to-date basis for them as well. We deal with emergencies, lease renewals, periodic inspections of the property, reporting to the owner about all of that. And then, once the tenant moves out we have got the move out walkthrough and then ultimately, hopefully, refunding the deposit to the tenant. Wow. For everyone listening, I think that everybody will agree that you pretty much do everything related in that property from A-Z. Exactly. And the point, earn your money. Definitely. Yeah, I was going to say and probably should actually charge a higher percentage of the rent than you do. And that is actually a good question we have not really touched on that yet. 8
What do typical property managers, and I know it is negotiable, but what is the typical rate that a property management company is going to charge a real estate investor? The average in Indiana, at least in Indianapolis I should say, most property management companies are charging 10% of gross collections. We have some investors that have multiple properties with us and for that they get a bit of a discount. And then there are a couple of other programs in place that a lot of the out of town investors that have come into the market recently have a discounted fee because they are part of an investment club or an investment group. Those groups have really taken off here in Indiana in the last few years and their groups have negotiated some lower fees as a result of that. Okay. Just for everyone listening, that is pretty close to what it is here in Texas. If you go to a property management company here in Texas, if you just own one single-family house that you want to rent out, it is going to be pretty standard 10% across the board. But if you own, I would say the breakpoint here in Texas is probably 10 properties. Once you get above 10 they will start offering you a little bit of a discount. Is that about what your number is there as well? Yes, exactly. And part of that depends on the rent amount as well. Sure, right. If you have ten of the lower income houses that might not make the same break as the higher income houses. Absolutely, absolutely. While we are talking about this and the price that you charge investors and homeowners to rent out their properties, and again, it is all negotiable. In the beginning stages when you are negotiating with a new prospective client to manage their property, I know it has been my experience here in Texas that most property managers seem to want to sign a contract, get the property owner under contract for about a 12-month term or a one-year term. Is that pretty standard in your area as well? 9
It is pretty standard. We typically like our contracts to run the length of the first lease. So in other words, let s say you sign up February 1st but we do not lease your home until March 1st, the way our contract reads is you would be under contract with us to manage the home until that first lease expires. Right, yeah. And the reason you guys do it that way is you do not want someone to come to you with a bunch of vacant properties and you fill them up, and then they fire you and say thanks for the tenants. Exactly, exactly. We have done that to protect ourselves. And then, typically, we go on a month-to-month basis thereafter. Do you? I have had some owners that have been with us month-to-month now 20 years. That has worked out pretty well. Wow. Yeah, exactly. I am guessing since they have month-to-month for you for 20 years, you are not including any penalty or jacking the rate up on them a little bit to incentivize them to go back under contract with you at that point. No, we have kept our fees pretty steady, really, for quite a long time. We would earn more money, obviously, by higher rents and stable tenancy than by another percentage here or there. Right, absolutely. Along the same lines here of negotiating with a new investor in the beginning, what are some of the things that investors should ask, in your opinion, of a potential property manager when the investor is thinking about hiring a new property management company and letting them manage their properties? 10
What are some of the things that you have seen knowleagable investors ask of you over the years that were good questions? Two types of potential clients come to us. One that is just kind of canvassing the area, they have not bought a property yet. They maybe targeted a particular property or several properties that they may purchase, and then those that have closed or in escrow on the deal and getting ready to close or already own the property. So, the questions are a little bit different depending at which point the investor comes to us. Right. But typically the first thing that I think that they should identify is whether or not the property manager does manage the type of property that either they own or intend to own. In other words, do they do single-family homes? Is that what they specialize in? If you are buying a four-plex or a 10-unit small apartment building or a bigger project, is that what they do? So identifying if they are a good fit for the property you are purchasing, I think, is important. And also, do they manage homes in the particular area or neighborhood or vicinity or community that your home or your invest property is in. I have seen situations where people have come to me and it is just not what we do. Better to know that at the beginning than to find that out down the road. So I think that is probably the first question that everybody should ask a potential property manager. Then, I guess, get into the specifics of what does that company do. How do they market? What do they charge? How do they screen the tenants? How often do they look at the property? How often do they inspect the home or the property? How do they handle lease renewals? Just all the different specifics of the process. How do they handle repairs? Do they have employees that they are using for the repairs? Do they use subcontractors? Just everything about how they do business basically. 11
I think that is very important. Then, taking it kind of a step further is what about the bookkeeping? When do they get their monthly statements or reports? I was just about to bring that up. That is very important. It is very important, very important. I have owners all over the country and it is done slightly differently all over the country. So, you need to know that you are all expecting the same thing to happen. Are you expecting to get your check on the 10th or are you going to get it on the 25th of the month? I think that is crucial again with the communication with the owner. You do not want to disappoint that owner that, they are sitting there waiting for a report or a statement and a check that does not arrive when they think that it is going to. Absolutely. I think that is very important. Absolutely. I have taken it a step further, and you may have had people do this to you over the years. But I have had so many property managers over the years that, when I switch to a new one, now I ask them for a copy of what their statements look like. Because I have been with some property management companies that use some archaic software from 1976 that they are still using that is just like Greek to read. Sometimes you can get these statements, and I know you know what I am talking about, you can look at some of these statements, depending on what software program the property management company is using, the statement could be very, very easy read or it could be like trying to figure out Chinese math. Exactly, exactly. And you would want to know, I want to know now. I say, Can you show me what your statements look like so that I can get an idea for how easy I am going to be able to just pick out those key numbers that I need to pick out each month and not have to spend an hour trying to decipher my statement each month. 12
Exactly, ext. I m sorry. Go ahead. What were you going to say? The other thing, I guess, I would want someone to ask a property manager is how long they have been in business. What is their experience? What their background is? I would ask for references, absolutely. Obviously, you are going to get good ones from the ones that they give you. But sometimes just the way that they respond to you can be very important. I would ask about availability. I would ask how often you can reach someone. Is it easy to reach staff members? What are the office hours? Are there emergency numbers available for both the owner and the tenant? Communication, just ask about communication, I think is what I am trying to say here. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, my goodness, I had another thing right on the tip of my tongue that you had reminded me of that I have asked my property managers in the past. I just completely lost my train of thought. It will come back to me, though. I m sure it will. I remember what it was. It was about repairs and maintenance. Let s kind of talk a little bit about repairs and maintenance because I know, you mentioned it briefly already, but each property management company does their repairs and maintenance a little bit differently. I have been with property management companies who have inhouse people who go out and take care of all the repairs. And then, I have been with property management companies who farm that out to the local plumber or the heating and air guy. Right. In your experience, do you have a preference of one of those types over the other one? And do you think an investor should be concerned about that at all? 13
We have always preferred to use kind of a rotating group of subcontractors that we trust and rely on that we feel give their pricing as opposed to having employees inhouse. Our experience has been with employees inhouse that we are trying to bill their time, if you will. We are trying to always find something for them to do and it just has not worked out for us. So, our response to that problem is to find good subcontractors who will give us a priority and give us priority pricing as well. Simply for the fact that we are going to use them on a regular basis, establish those relationships and keep them busy, but not too busy, just busy enough to where they can get to our work and will always take our call and know that they are going to get a check promptly and they can rely on us and trust us to treat them very well if they treat us very well and treat our very well. Absolutely. With regards to the repairs and the maintenance, do you have, I am sure you have property owners who make requests on you similar to this like for instance with my current property management company that I use I asked them to notify me on all repairs that are going to be over a certain dollar amount, in my case $300. If it is going to be over $300, call and let me know ahead of time to give me a heads up so I am not shocked when I get my property management statement at the end of the month. Is that pretty standard, or is that more advanced? It is, it is. Yes. Okay. Yeah, our standard contract, first of all, gives us the right to handle an emergency. I am sure your investor that you deal with would want to know that we are going to be responsive to protect the property as well as the tenant in the event of an emergency, no heat, no lights, no water or a flood, or some type of weather related issue. A couple years ago we had tremendous wind storms that came through Indiana and caused great damage through a section of the city. 14
Those types of situations you would like to know that your property manager is not going to stop, try to track you down wherever you are and get your permission to deal with a situation like that. Right. So, we do have standards in our contract that we are allowed to do those things. Having said that, the next step is to let the owner know after the fact as quickly as possible if something major has happened. So that would be certainly a responsibility that your property manager would need to take on. Now, on a regular basis your $300 is a pretty generous amount. Our standard contract, we are to notify our owners $100 or over. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it is really a comfort level for you as the investor as to what you feel good about and it is also partially a trust level with your property manager. I have had many owners that worked with us for years that finally just say, Look, just call me on $500 or over or major repairs, after they get to know how we do business. Right. And what they can expect from us. So that is a little bit of a tailored item to the comfort level of the individual investor. And you are absolutely right when I first started using the manager that I am using now, I have been with him for three or four years now I believe. I believe that threshold was down around $100 or $150. But then, once you build that level of trust, obviously, the lower that dollar is set, the more phone calls you are going to be receiving. So, I told him, I trust you more. I don t need you calling me every time you need to go out there and do something, so let s just raise it so I get less phone calls. Like you said, that comes with trust and time. 15
Right, right. And then of course, something else that we are constantly doing is properties ready for rent. So, taking it kind of a step further, that is a situation where we want to get bids, we want to have something in writing for the investor to look at, we want them to sign off and give approval of how their money is being spent. So again, they are not in for a big surprise at the end of the month that we have painted, cleaned and totally rehabbed their investment property and they did not know about it. So, obviously, that is something they would want to see in writing. Right. You just reminded me of what I was actually going to say a while ago. It was not about the repairs or maintenance after all, it was my current property management company does something cool that none of my other property management companies had ever done. I do not know if you do this or not. But I really like this service a lot. My current property management company, and this was a surprise to me, I did not think to ask this question when I was interviewing them years ago, but they send me a notice when one of my tenants moves out. Yeah, we send a notice out when the tenant gives notice. Oh, wow. That is even better. Yeah. You guys need to open a branch in Texas, so maybe I need to start buying property there and let you manage it. There you go. I like that better, buying in Indiana. Absolutely, absolutely. Because, yeah, that is huge. When a tenant gives us notification of their intent to move, which standard is 30 days, but sometimes they alert us earlier. We turn around and actually send a letter to the tenant confirming that we have received their notice. 16
What they need to do to be eligible for a deposit refund, what their responsibilities are on move out, and then send a copy of that same letter to the owner. That is awesome. For those of you here listening who may not fully understand how cool of a service that is and that you really should ask for that, I think, when you are interviewing a potential property management company because this is a potential scenario that has happened to me in the past with property management companies who did not do this. You are cruising along through the month and you think you have got a tenant in there. And as of last month s statement you did, but maybe they did a midnight move right after last month s statement went out or what not. But you think you have got a tenant in there. Turns out you do not find out until next month s statement that you did not have a tenant in there all month, and not only did you not have a tenant in there you had a bunch of big maintenance bills on either that place or some other places as well. And all of a sudden you go from being real happy with last months statement to this not so happy with the next statement. Things can go from good to bad within a 30-day period. But when you get those letters from your property management company in the middle of the month between statements saying so-and-so moved out, now you are prepared for it. And I would think that all property management companies would want to do that. But you would be surprised how few do. Like I said, out of all the property management companies that I have used over the years, the one I am currently using is the only one that sent out notices or has ever sent me a notice anyway. And interesting enough, in dealing with many, many investors over the last however many years, 30 years, I would tell you that the one thing that I hear over and over again, especially in the last few years, is that communication is key. Being a property manager is not being a miracle worker. If you own investment properties you know that there are good months and bad months, there are good years and bad years, particularly if you are holding a property as a long-term investment. 17
You need to be able to roll with that. But if you have a property manager in place who is not communicating with you, I think it creates several bad situations; obviously, a bad situation between you and your manager, but as well as it leaves you open to too many problems. You need to know what is going on. You need to be able to plan. You need to be able to project financially what you are going to be doing in the next year. If your property manager is not communicating with you I do not see how you can do that. Time after time people come to me and say, I have a property manager. I am not happy. Why are you not happy? I am not happy because my property is vacant. Well, that could be for a lot of reasons that maybe is not the fault of the property manager. It could be location. It could be price. It could be condition of the property. It could be many factors that are keeping that property from being rented. But if an investor comes to me and says, I am not happy because I cannot get my property manager on the phone. I do not get reports from them, or if I do they do not make sense. I know they have collected rent, but I do not get a check. Then there is a problem. Then there is a huge problem. So, those are the things that I think an investor who is either using a property manager or thinking of using a property manager needs to investigate thoroughly. Absolutely. I could not agree more. Well, let s shift gears for just a second, Miriam, and let s talk a little bit about the marketing aspect and what have you found to be the best ways to market to get good quality tenants over the years? Well, that has changed quite a bit, particularly in the last few years. I am sure real estate investing has changed due to the introduction of the Internet. Right. Marketing our properties has changed quite a bit also. 18
We still love a For Rent sign. That is still your best way to contact people in the area who want to be in that area, looking in that area, telling friends about properties that are for rent in that area. So, For Rent arrows, directing people to that For Rent sign. All of that is still crucial. The newspaper, I think, has become slightly less important that it used to be, although we still use newspaper ads. Indianapolis only has one large newspaper, but we also have local papers for particular neighborhoods in areas that we use as well. But the Internet is probably our favorite venue right now for finding tenants, especially good quality tenants. It is the premiere way to find a tenant right now. I could not agree more, and you just made me think of something that if I were looking for a property management company now, for a new one, I would go to their website and want to see what their web presence, how good of a web presence they had. Exactly. If they just a little rinky-dink website that was not doing a whole lot, or if you could not find them on Google or anything like that, I might be a little bit concerned versus if they had a very I m sorry go ahead. I think having your own website as a property manager or an investor who is trying to market their properties, because I see individual investors who have their own websites marketing their properties. I see those all the time. I think having your own as well as using some of the larger national clearing houses, I know that Craig s List, for example, has been very popular on both the East and West coast. It is just now becoming a source of leads here in Indiana, as always the Midwest is a little behind. Sure. In terms of those types of things. But more and more, people are looking at that even in Indiana and I think there are several other national clearing houses. 19
And then we have the use of the Metropolitan Board of Realtors here in Indianapolis that has a website that also puts leads out to other realtors who can help you lease properties as well. Absolutely. I could not agree more. Let s talk about marketing for hard to rent properties. I will tell you where I am kind of going with this. I have quite a few properties around a military base here in Texas. And when the Iraq war started, due to the base pulling troops out and sending them over to Iraq, there were a lot of vacancies in this town. Several of my properties sat vacant for several months. I was trying to figure out a way or how can I set my properties apart from everybody else s and try to get people motivated to move into my properties instead of everyone else s. And so I came up with this idea, I was in Sam s Club one day and I saw DVD players in there, this was four or five years ago. The DVD players were $39. And so I called my property management company and I said, Put this on all my properties Free DVD Player. And within 30 days, all my vacancies were filled and every time somebody would move in, I would go down to Sam s Club and get a DVD player and ship it up to my property management company to give it to them. And they loved that DVD player promotion. Have you guys ever done anything like that or had to do anything like that? We have tried something similar where we give gift cards to a local store, K- Mart or Wal-Mart or whatever. We found, actually, that what people liked better was just a flat out discount on the first month s rent. Yeah. Whether it was $50 or $100 or $200, we found that to be one of our ways of renting a tough property or renting a good property in a tough market. In Indiana, we have season to deal with, in Indianapolis particularly where we get through the holiday season and then we get into below zero temperatures and nobody wants to go out, let alone look at a property or even move. 20
So in order to get people moving in those directions, we will offer a move-in discount. Typically, the bigger the discount will go for a slightly longer lease. So, if somebody gets half a month free, they might get have to sign an 18-month lease for that privilege which solves two problems. You have rented a property at a tough time of the year and then your lease does not renew at the same terrible time the next year. That is great. So, we love doing that. That is a favorite wintertime special that we run. So, I do not why people have not been as responsive to the gift cards or something like the DVDs, because I have had other owners say, How about if we offer a TV or this or that? I think it is just expensive to move right now and people appreciate the discount on the actual move in costs. They are very responsive to that. Yeah, they are. In fact, you just reminded me of something I remember. Another investor here in Texas was telling me one time that they gave away $75 of groceries. They gave away a gift card with $75 that they could use down at their local grocery store to buy groceries, and that worked really well for them. I thought that was unique. I had never really heard of anyone doing that before. But I would agree that typically they would just prefer a half month or a full month free and making them do something for that privilege like extending the lease to 18 months versus 12 months, that is a brilliant idea. I like that a lot. We love not having properties go vacant in December and January. Absolutely. That is just our toughest time of the year to rent homes. The Indianapolis market tends to slow down quite bit at that time, so it is important that we keep people moving during those months. I agree. That is a great tip. Well, Miriam, we are coming up on the end of the hour. Can you believe it has flown by so fast? 21
No. Do you have any other parting advice for someone who is potentially looking at hiring a property management company sometime in the near future? Let me just say before I say that, if I have not said this during this call and I do not know if I have or not, obviously, I had mentioned I use property managers myself and have for years and years. I believe in them wholeheartedly. They pay for themselves many times over, a good one. A bad one, likewise, can cause you many hours of pain and misery. But a good one, you heard Miriam, everything that her firm does from A-Z, I would much rather just let them handle all that stuff so I do not have to worry about it. A good property management company is going to save you many, many headaches over the years, many more than you would have otherwise. So having said that, I firmly believe everybody should use property management companies. But is there any parting advice or anything we have not really talked about that you think people might need to be aware of before we wrap up this interview? I think that there are a lot of very good property managers out there, and I do wholeheartedly as you do, obviously, believe in that. The reason that I am in this business in the first place is that my dad owning investment properties many, many years ago hired a property manager and that is who I went to for and that is the business that ultimately launched our business. So, I do believe in the process. I think that if you are an investor and you have a regular job, you really do need somebody who is sitting in an office ready to talk to your tenant so that they are not interrupting your day. And I think if you are a full-time real estate investor, you should be out there trying to find good investments and not spending time talking to tenants about when their lease renews. I think that investors really should take advantage of the good property managers in their area. However, I think that it is important to find an excellent property manager not just a good one. I think that finding one with experience and one that has organized their office to be available both to tenants and to their clients is crucial. 22
I think in this Internet age being responsive, returning calls promptly, being available on the weekends, I think all of those things are things that you should expect from an excellent property manager at this time. And that is what you need. I think that there are a lot of investors out there and a lot of property management companies and you should find an excellent one to work for you. Absolutely, and I could not agree more. This has been an awesome interview, Miriam. I have been wanting to interview a great property manager like yourself for quite some time and I am so glad that you agreed to do this interview. On behalf of everybody who is listening and all my subscribers, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. I can tell just by this little bit of time we spent together on the call that you are definitely one of the best property managers I have ever talked to, just by this little interview we have done right now. And I am not just saying that just to say that. I have interviewed a lot of property managers over the years for my personal portfolio, obviously, and anybody who is thinking about hiring a property management company, I think, should go out and interview 3 or 4 and sit in their office and just talk to them about some of the things we have talked about in this interview and you are going to see real quick the differences that we have been talking about over the past hour. Miriam, again, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to share all your experience with us. I think this has been a great interview, and I really, really appreciate it. Well, you are very welcome. It has been a pleasure. All right, great. Well, we will talk to you again very soon. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. 23