The first episode in the Real Returns podcast—a series devoted to educating people about how real investments can make real impacts—covers various real estate topics geared toward landlords. In addition to our regular hosts, Andrew Reichart and Dan Calhoun, episode one also features esteemed guest JC Castillo.
JC is the President and CEO of Velo Residential, a third-party property management and renovation company specializing in large-scale multifamily properties in Texas and Oklahoma. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, JC is passionate about impacting the lives of his residents and employees.
During the episode, JC voices fresh perspectives and best practices relevant to anyone who is currently or plans to get into real estate investing. Read on to get a brief taste of what's coming from Episode 1 of the Breakdown of Real Returns Podcast: Positive Impact of Profit for Both Residents and Landlords.
For many renters, the relationship with their landlord is tenuous at best. They may view their landlord as an overbearing, uncaring, unbudging corporate entity. In reality, many property owners are just regular people who, like everybody else, need to make a living.
That's not to say that there are no bad landlords who treat their tenants poorly. There are certainly those who give landlords a bad reputation, but most landlords are just ordinary people.
Part of what gives landlords a poor reputation is not reinvesting profits back into the property. When a landlord pockets all of the revenue from a property and leaves their residents paying higher rents for the same aging living space, tenants can rightfully feel cheated.
A better way to manage a property and foster positive relationships with residents is to invest in the property continuously. As you raise rents, communicate what their additional rent will go towards and why they should not resent setting aside some extra money in the coming months. When residents have a tangible increase in their quality of life, the rising rents seem much more justified.
Not only does reinvesting benefit tenants, but it also benefits the landlords. Addressing CapEx requirements before they escalate, updating the home to modern standards, and encouraging tenants to keep the property in good shape all help its market value.
Therefore, property profits can and should benefit both landlords and their tenants to help foster better relationships. For more information and discussion on the proper allocation of profits, be sure to listen to the rest of the podcast.
Keeping tenants satisfied should be one of the highest priorities for any landlord. The happier renters are, the better they will treat the property, the more likely they will be to pay rent, and the better their all-important reviews will be. After all, tenants are the reason that landlords can exist, so treating them well is only natural.
The first step towards increasing tenant satisfaction seems obvious, but many landlords still neglect it—listen to the tenants! If a landlord isn't consistently checking online reviews on their properties, chances are that they are missing out on valuable feedback. Looking through and responding to both negative and positive online reviews is one of the best ways to make tenants feel heard and bolster your online presence.
In addition to online reviews, sending periodic maintenance surveys is another easy way to get a firsthand account of how tenants feel about their living situation. If you can learn about and head off complaints before they ever reach online forums, that's a win for your reputation and your tenants' quality of life.
Employees are an essential part of any organization. As the lifeblood of the company, employee quality directly relates to the performance of the organization. Therefore, finding and retaining the right employees should be a top priority of any high-performing organization.
With that in mind, finding the right employees in the first place is far from an easy task. In general, evaluate potential hires on three elements: aptitude, attitude, and integrity.
Aptitude is self-explanatory; it signifies whether or not someone has the mental capacity to excel in a role. Often, job-specific technical questions can rule out those who are not ready for a part vs. those who are.
Perhaps even more important than aptitude, attitude is an essential part of what makes a high-performing employee. It's been said a million times, but there is no substitute for hard work. An employee who may have slightly less aptitude but a much better attitude will often end up outperforming their poor attitude counterparts.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all, is integrity. Hiring employees who do the right thing when nobody is looking is paramount to building a high-performing work culture. If you cannot count on employees to do the right thing behind closed doors, trusting them with clients and your business is deeply unwise.
Click here for best practices to find and retain employees that exhibit aptitude, attitude, and integrity.
While the above offered a summary of some of the topics covered in episode 1, the real value comes from listening to or watching the podcast in full. If you want to learn more about how profits can benefit residents and their landlords, among several other relevant topics, click here to listen or click here to watch the episode. Real Returns can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other streaming platforms.