All Forum Posts by: Luke Jackson

I would just find a good local handyman to put it on there. He should be able to buy it and then invoice you for the lockbox and his labor. 

Hey guys,

How do you track your networth? Currently I'm putting it into a excel spreadsheet but it's a pain in the butt going through the amortization tables every month. Is there a IPOsoftware out there that tracks the properties principal (including C4Ds) and can hook up to a brokerage account for IRAs? 

Thanks,

Luke Jackson

It's a small world, I currently manage the properties discussed above. This is why I love BP, you get to talk about deals and properties regardless if they're across the country or across the street. 

  I also kicked around the idea of the $5-10 discount like stated above, but I don't know how I would track it efficiently.  I think what I am going to do is give them a instruction sheet stating how to pay online when we sign the lease.  If they make a large fuss over it or are older, then we can let them pay in conventional ways. In this way we will slowly raise the percentage rate of online payments as we turn units over. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me everyone! 

Hey Everyone,

I'm currently having a hard time switching tenants over to online rent payments.  Right now only about 10% of my tenants pay online.  I've given everyone instruction sheets on how to pay online, but they don't seem interested in making the switch.  How do you guys convince your tenants to pay online? Do you make it mandatory in the lease? 

Thank you! 

I've been listening to a lot of property management related podcasts lately to continue to improve.  One thing I found interesting was that a lot of management companies have a significant portion of their income come from fees that aren't part of their management fee rate.  What are fees that you charge to help grow your income?  (Lease renewals, extra keys, lockout, etc.)  Do these fees deter your tenants from renewing leases, or don't they think twice about them? Thank you. 

I have a client who is looking for an 8-24 unit apartment building within roughly 40 miles of Alexandria, MN.  The party is willing to do some rehab work.  

Locations interested in:

Alexandria, MN

Glenwood, MN

Morris, MN 

Fergus Falls, MN

St. Cloud, MN

Please shoot me a message or give me a call with any leads you might have.  Thank you! 

@Peter Lohmann

I want to clarify your evaluation of a PM business. For instance if a PM company has 100 doors that gross $10k a month in management income, the company is valued at roughly $120k?

Right now I'm managing about 85 units and am trying to get more of a "company policy" in place so that I can streamline my business.  If the tenant is not paying rent, when do you guys send out Notice of Default letters stating they have 30 days to vacate? What actions do you take to for tenants who are continually late and don't care about paying late fees?

Thanks,

Luke Jackson 

Thanks for all of the wisdom guys! I am a licensed realtor in Minnesota, but selling is not my main focus. I do have a commercial listing and some lots, but that is just because they are my buddies.  My main focus is to scale the management business. My goal is to distance myself from the tenants and do more of the financials, line vendors up to work on the maintenance issues, work with my current property owners, and acquire new properties to manage. 

My fist mistake was agreeing to manage an older 50 unit apartment building for a flat 6%. When I accepted to do it for the investor my thought process was that it would get me over 60 units, thus giving me some credibility in the marketplace, which it did. And frankly, it'd give me roughly $2,000 in income a month to pay the bills. Now I realize that an older, mid to low income building like that is quite a bit of work for 6%. 

As an inexperienced manager, how do I put systems in place for other people to work off of? I feel that you could have systems in place for 75% of the work, thus being more efficient and giving my wife and perhaps a future employee somethings to work off of. Would I setup minimum qualifications based on the property? I.E. credit score, background, etc? A process for delinquent tenants?  I feel that I need to streamline it so no one in confused.

Right now I have my wife starting to do some of the showing. We have our Google Calendar linked so I can see what week looks like and schedule showings in. This is a big help for me.

Am I working in the right direction?  This is a MASSIVE learning curve to say the least! 

Thank you so much for taking you time to help me!

Luke Jackson