All Forum Posts by: AJ Shepard

Hours:8am-4:30pm in office

Days: Monday-Friday

Deadline: Position remains open until filled

Compensation: DOE salary range starting at $50k Company

Website: www.uptownpm.com

Office opportunity to join our team. The successful candidate must be a friendly and professional individual who will enjoy being a part of our dynamic and energetic team. We offer a positive work environment for an outgoing and eager person with a passion for problem solving! Candidates must be extremely customer service oriented, have a strong work ethic, and a positive team player. Experience with residential property maintenance is a plus but NOT required! An ideal candidate will have a high C and S DISC score.

You will be responsible for coordinating various projects for the Maintenance Services team and assisting with other management priorities and administrative tasks. You will maintain the computerized maintenance management systems (Lead Simple and Appfolio) and be the main contact for resident requests, questions and information for the Maintenance Service department.

Job duties could include:

● Primary person who answers all phone calls into the property management maintenance

department at Uptown Properties. Must be professionals and accurate. Responds to office cell

phone calls, texts, and voicemails.

● Serve as primary contact for tenant maintenance support, administration/record keeping and

tracking work order metrics.

● Use Maintenance software to manage work requests, input new work orders and determine job

content, arrange by priority, follow-through on existing work orders and run reports on

maintenance activity.

● Ensure required licenses and permits are procured. Verify required CCB#, proof of liability

insurance and licensure for contractors.

● Organize and maintain the Maintenance Services Policies and Procedures Manual, Maintenance

compliance records and other documentation.

● Represent the Maintenance Services department in interdepartmental meetings to support and

facilitate communication and action.

● Organize and assist with all aspects of work order management and documents/records.

● Provide initial troubleshooting of tenant complaints regardingMaintenance Services for property

equipment and systems.

● Answer questions, direct problems to appropriate staff members, conduct follow up discussions

pertaining to customer satisfaction. Help us keep our clients and staff safe. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is a requirement for employment.

Job Requirements:

● Three (3) to five (5) years’ experience in customer service, office management, or a related field.

● Computer skills, strong organization skills, good phone and public relation skills.

● Knowledge of residential property management functions, processes and tools.

● Ability to communicate effectively in writing and in person with property owners, tenants, vendor

partners, the general public and co-workers

● Ability to be prompt and dependable

Competitive Benefits As an employee in our office we will give you the support and professional opportunity you need to maximize your potential.

● 401k with match program

● Employee Recognition Program

To Apply Please submit a resume with cover letter including: why you would be a good fit for this position, a list of 3 professional references of previous employers, a completed DISC personality test, which company core value most inspires you and your work ethic, and an example of how you would address from start to completion one of the following work order situations:

1. My garbage disposal is not working

2. My refrigerator is not working

3. The outlets and overhead light in the bathroom are not working.

The best way to get started in real estate is to learn as much as you can by reading books, listening to podcasts, learning from other people's experience in BP forums, and looking for the right mentor too. Joining the local meetups in your area will also help you connect and pick the brains of those experienced investors in the real estate game. Best of luck in your RE journey!

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You’ve got the right idea to partner with someone.  I’m gonna second the advice of a syndication and do that until you have a little more capital.

Finding a partner as you described is a great idea.  There are a lot of people out there that think they know what they are doing.  Or want to try to get into real estate.  I would be very hesitant to put any money with someone on a local brrr project without having a lot of oversight and know that if the partner flops I could take the project to the finish line.  

You might start advertising on Craigslist for contractors that want to own real estate.  Keep connecting with people on here who live in your area or close.  

Definitely keep saving, using your credit card and heloc at the same time is risky.  I would suggest doing this after you have a couple deals under your belt.

 I agree that if you can raise rents doing so sooner as opposed to later is very good advice.  One thing that we do is offer a month to month rental agreement (forced notice) or they can negotiate that price down if they sign a lease.  This does a couple things, sets the expectation that your property is worth more.  Allows for the tenant to believe they are getting a good price and it sets the expectations at the end of the term that the rent will be raised again.  Hopefully this process also keeps more tenants because you can adjust down to market rent that will keep a good tenant in the unit.

Second to comment on Portland, Or laws.  If you know how to operate in them, they are actually fair.  10% per year is not an unreasonable amount of rental increase without having to pay fees or relocation costs. (If you want to raise rent above this, you pay relocation costs to relocate the tenant, however there are 10+ exceptions you can use) As long as you know what the costs are, you have to build it in to your budget.  So perfect example of how Gov is driving prices of doing business up which in turn makes the property more valuable.  Good investors find ways to mitigate these costs and capitalize on the appreciation within the market.  Also drives out the competition from the marketplace because everyone else has comments like above.  Knowledge is power and business is about knowing more than the next person and putting that knowledge into action.  There are deals everywhere, you just have to be willing to invest your time and effort to find them and perform. 

Joe,

That seems like a good story and a good way to compare syndication to an active job.  
The comparison in each of the scenarios highlights the time and effort involved. Both will make you a return, both contain risk.  It seems like the flip and rehab will certainly be more risk for you, but could also make a 50% return.  But like you said, you’d be trading your time, headspace and still not positive of the 50% return which could go to negative as well.  
The syndication route allows for you to continue meeting with other property owners and takes up very little time.  The risk seems to be less as you would vet the operator to make sure they do what they say they can do and have an established business with track record.  Maybe some time up front to put into vetting, but generally not a ton of time.  

There is an avenue for everyone out there to invest in real estate in some capacity. It just takes some willingness to figure it out.  I don’t think there is a right answer, just a right answer for you.

I know the guys at verivest, they do background checks on all the people involved in the GP before putting the company on there.  

Crowd street also has a rigorous application process and I would find it hard to believe that it is straight fraud.

Is the deal going bad and are they running into permitting problems?  Development is a very risky business and I know a lot of the deals on crowdstreet can be development deals.

How long has it been since you heard from them?  It’s not uncommon to get quarterly reports.

Before jumping to conclusions, you may want to reread through the documents and confirm what you invested in.  I see ground up development of hotels on their bio, which sometimes means you won’t see a distribution until it’s complete, which could be a couple years.

I think you kind of answered your own question.  Many syndicators structure the deal so that if there is great upside they get a larger portion.  As a LP, they made good on their pro-forma that you originally signed up for and probably out-performed that.  Sounds like a Win-Win to me?

There is a ton of work that goes into finding the deal, brokering the deal, performing typically a value ad, managing the property.  There is no doubt there is work there, don’t you think they should be compensated for doing a better than predicted job?

Ben,

This sounds like an interesting concept. Have you found contractors that would want to participate in this type of deal yet?  My suggestion, before spending a bunch of time on talking with lawyers (and money) maybe find your partners and develop the structure that would be acceptable for all the parties involved.  My guess is that you are going to have a hard time finding partners that would work without being paid, but that’s just my opinion.  Most contracting companies run pretty lean and pay their subs and workers weekly.  I’m not saying you can’t find someone to partner with, but you might want to start with that key partner.

@Justin G. Great info! 

In addition to that, syndication allows you to create a well-diversified portfolio that maximizes your profits while minimizing your risks. It lets you spread out the risk with other investors.

Also, If you’re an equity holder, this structure allows you to compound your money for years without paying taxes until the property is sold. Because of depreciation combined with interest payments, and other expenses, a property can easily show a loss for tax purposes even though it’s generating a positive cash flow. So, your investments will be extremely tax efficient.