Week 1 of working full-time at my own business is DOWN! Last week I walked away from a 32-year career after 10 years of hemming and hawing and taking baby steps, going part-time, etc. I finally did it. I had my anxiety attack that first night, got over it, and went straight to work.
And on Thursday I cut off all my hair.
And on Thursday I cut off all my hair.
Just for fun I Googled what it means when a woman cuts her hair. I found quite a few offensive, sexist guesses that I'm sexually frustrated and my marriage is on the rocks. Actually I think Steve likes the access to the back of my neck, but I won't gross you out with TMI.
I did find this one wonderful, inspirational essay by freelance writer Zara Barrie. Others must also find it pretty awesome because it's posted on a lot of different websites (go Zara!) but I'll link to the one on Elite Daily. By far my favorite quote, “There are few things more life-affirming than a girl proclaiming to the universe SHE is going to finally do whatever the f*ck she wants.”
Read more: http://elitedaily.com/women/girls-cut-hair-cut-off-more/1039658/
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Self-employed: The First Week
I am proud of three major accomplishments this week: two of our empty apartments have been rented. And the mercantile taxes have been submitted before the deadline (all of my other tax filings will be late, but we're focusing only on successes here!)
How to rent empty apartments – one approach
We have been dealing with several empty apartments for months. We haven't been fully rented since before we took back self-management of the properties. We had some bad tenants that caused some serious damage, and many units needed to be refurbished. I was busy working my other job. Most of my focus was on managing the finances of our rapidly expanding business. Rentals are not bringing in the bulk of our income this year – our limited focus had to be on what was bringing it in, which was the flips, the wholesales and the construction jobs for other investors. Because of my outside commitments, Steve was left with the brunt of it. And I can tell you after just one week of focusing on property management – tenants require a LOT of psychic energy! Read more about that in my post from two weeks ago: http://thisgingerjustsnapped.weebly.com/blog/the-two-hardest-jobs-in-real-estate
The result was, the empty apartments got pushed to the background. We focused on keeping our current tenants happy and keeping collections up. We had a few nasty evictions on top of the empties. It seemed once we got one place renovated and rented, we'd get another trashed-out empty. Winter is a crappy time to try to rent apartments, too. Nobody wants to move.
So all this time, Steve and I held each other’s hands and just breathed. We spent time renovating the units, particularly the higher rent ones. When I walked through to survey the damage after one eviction I was disheartened by the mismatched appliances and the 1950s sink and cupboards. This kitchen had to go. Actually, all the kitchens had to go! I knew there would be at least two more evictions coming up in this building alone, and one where the good tenants were leaving to buy a house.
We'd be OK through the winter. There was enough money coming in from other sources. By springtime, when everyone is looking to move, these places that looked like shitholes would be gorgeous!
We ran ads on the free sites like Craigslist, Zillow, Hotpads and Trulia. The response was impressive, but there were three factors working against us:
1- We got so many responses we couldn't keep up with replying to them all
2- There were a large number of incredibly unqualified applicants
3- When we did find an applicant qualified enough to schedule a showing, it became a scramble to find the time to even do a showing. And they often wouldn't even show up!
This, folks, is just the way it is with rentals. You put out an ad. 500 people will call. You'll be able to speak with 300 of them (the other 200 won't pick up their phone, or you'll call and get a voicemail box that isn't set up yet!) Of those 300 people you actually talk to, 100 will be qualified to rent the apartment. The biggest issue is income – we require income to be at least 3 times the rent. So if it's a $500/month one bedroom, income needs to be $1500/month. We're not crazy about taking Section 8, but we will if they have a voucher for the number of bedrooms they're looking for. Of the 100 people who are qualified for showings, only 50 will show up for said showing. Of those 50, 25 will find fault with the apartment – it's too small, there's no yard, the landlord isn't paying all the utilities, it's on the second floor and not the first, they don't like the neighborhood, whatever. Of the 25 who like the apartment, 10 will take your applications and you'll never see them again. 10 will take your applications with them because they don't have the $25 on them for the background check, but they'll call you with it later. The other 5 will fill them out in front of you and give you the money. Of the 5 to 15 applications you get back, a third of them will have something funky on the background check, like a past eviction they forgot to mention.
It's a numbers game. You have to sift through 500 phone calls to get to the 10 people you'd actually want as tenants for your unit. That's why I've set aside two uninterrupted hours each day for six days just to deal with rentals. It's a process I've heard called “Deep Work” and it's how I'm going to do the many different jobs to make this business succeed.
Our Ad-Hoc Rental Real Estate Team
There is no “I” in team, and you need a team to rent this many empty apartments! While I was still working, Steve enlisted some help. We were blessed with Mark, a Penn State business student who wanted to be our intern, because he “roots for the underdog.” Steve set him up to deal with the volume of calls coming in on our Google Voice number and the e-mail responses. Mark came up with an out-of-the-box idea to cut through the backlog. He typed up a mass response and sent it via text and e-mail to every inquiry. A little impersonal, but much better than no response at all! Some people responded to the form letter, which listed details about the apartments, what utilities were included, our background check and fees, and income requirements. That scared off all the unqualifieds (and probably some of the qualifieds, but oh well.) Mark did get a few responses and set up showings. Our empty half-doubles rented pretty quickly. Apartments in a multi-unit building are always more of a hard sell.
Sherri is a fellow wholesaler and she wanted to help out if only to get Steve more focused on wholesaling again! She started making more personal replies to the voicemails.
Steve set up an online calendar with Setmore.com, a free site I've mentioned before in this blog. We'd block our availability to show apartments in Setmore and give tenants the option to schedule their own showings by sending them an e-mail link.
With my other job finally out of the way, I was able to jump in this week. The crude semi-automated system Steve had set up had merits. I simply improved upon it.
The first thing I did was figure out who was available to show apartments and when. I was, during my two-hour blocks during the midday. Steve was, late afternoon and early evening. Mark was, when he wasn't busy with class work. And our friend Illana was after her shift driving the school bus. Most afternoons last week she was painting our empty units over at West River St., so any showings there between 3 & 7pm I'd give to her. I set up all those available slots in Setmore.
The next thing was handling the phone calls. We were pretty well caught up, thanks to Mark and Sherri. Sherri would usually do her calls in the morning. I answered them live during the day. And I asked Mark to take the evening shift – when most working people would be available. We'd put the appointments in Setmore or else the prospect would schedule themselves with the link we gave them. Every afternoon at 3pm I touch base with Illana and let her know if someone would be coming over to West River – sometimes she can't answer her cell when she's painting, and she doesn't do Computer.
And you know what? This crude, ad-hoc system actually worked! As of this writing, two apartments have been rented and Barney St. is once again full. We have strong interest in our high rent apartments at West River – the one that's ready now and the two we haven't even advertised yet. Once those are rented, we are full.
Maybe we'll have to acquire more rentals then?
OW! (Biting tongue)
I did find this one wonderful, inspirational essay by freelance writer Zara Barrie. Others must also find it pretty awesome because it's posted on a lot of different websites (go Zara!) but I'll link to the one on Elite Daily. By far my favorite quote, “There are few things more life-affirming than a girl proclaiming to the universe SHE is going to finally do whatever the f*ck she wants.”
Read more: http://elitedaily.com/women/girls-cut-hair-cut-off-more/1039658/
Follow us on Instagram | Elite Daily on Facebook
Self-employed: The First Week
I am proud of three major accomplishments this week: two of our empty apartments have been rented. And the mercantile taxes have been submitted before the deadline (all of my other tax filings will be late, but we're focusing only on successes here!)
How to rent empty apartments – one approach
We have been dealing with several empty apartments for months. We haven't been fully rented since before we took back self-management of the properties. We had some bad tenants that caused some serious damage, and many units needed to be refurbished. I was busy working my other job. Most of my focus was on managing the finances of our rapidly expanding business. Rentals are not bringing in the bulk of our income this year – our limited focus had to be on what was bringing it in, which was the flips, the wholesales and the construction jobs for other investors. Because of my outside commitments, Steve was left with the brunt of it. And I can tell you after just one week of focusing on property management – tenants require a LOT of psychic energy! Read more about that in my post from two weeks ago: http://thisgingerjustsnapped.weebly.com/blog/the-two-hardest-jobs-in-real-estate
The result was, the empty apartments got pushed to the background. We focused on keeping our current tenants happy and keeping collections up. We had a few nasty evictions on top of the empties. It seemed once we got one place renovated and rented, we'd get another trashed-out empty. Winter is a crappy time to try to rent apartments, too. Nobody wants to move.
So all this time, Steve and I held each other’s hands and just breathed. We spent time renovating the units, particularly the higher rent ones. When I walked through to survey the damage after one eviction I was disheartened by the mismatched appliances and the 1950s sink and cupboards. This kitchen had to go. Actually, all the kitchens had to go! I knew there would be at least two more evictions coming up in this building alone, and one where the good tenants were leaving to buy a house.
We'd be OK through the winter. There was enough money coming in from other sources. By springtime, when everyone is looking to move, these places that looked like shitholes would be gorgeous!
We ran ads on the free sites like Craigslist, Zillow, Hotpads and Trulia. The response was impressive, but there were three factors working against us:
1- We got so many responses we couldn't keep up with replying to them all
2- There were a large number of incredibly unqualified applicants
3- When we did find an applicant qualified enough to schedule a showing, it became a scramble to find the time to even do a showing. And they often wouldn't even show up!
This, folks, is just the way it is with rentals. You put out an ad. 500 people will call. You'll be able to speak with 300 of them (the other 200 won't pick up their phone, or you'll call and get a voicemail box that isn't set up yet!) Of those 300 people you actually talk to, 100 will be qualified to rent the apartment. The biggest issue is income – we require income to be at least 3 times the rent. So if it's a $500/month one bedroom, income needs to be $1500/month. We're not crazy about taking Section 8, but we will if they have a voucher for the number of bedrooms they're looking for. Of the 100 people who are qualified for showings, only 50 will show up for said showing. Of those 50, 25 will find fault with the apartment – it's too small, there's no yard, the landlord isn't paying all the utilities, it's on the second floor and not the first, they don't like the neighborhood, whatever. Of the 25 who like the apartment, 10 will take your applications and you'll never see them again. 10 will take your applications with them because they don't have the $25 on them for the background check, but they'll call you with it later. The other 5 will fill them out in front of you and give you the money. Of the 5 to 15 applications you get back, a third of them will have something funky on the background check, like a past eviction they forgot to mention.
It's a numbers game. You have to sift through 500 phone calls to get to the 10 people you'd actually want as tenants for your unit. That's why I've set aside two uninterrupted hours each day for six days just to deal with rentals. It's a process I've heard called “Deep Work” and it's how I'm going to do the many different jobs to make this business succeed.
Our Ad-Hoc Rental Real Estate Team
There is no “I” in team, and you need a team to rent this many empty apartments! While I was still working, Steve enlisted some help. We were blessed with Mark, a Penn State business student who wanted to be our intern, because he “roots for the underdog.” Steve set him up to deal with the volume of calls coming in on our Google Voice number and the e-mail responses. Mark came up with an out-of-the-box idea to cut through the backlog. He typed up a mass response and sent it via text and e-mail to every inquiry. A little impersonal, but much better than no response at all! Some people responded to the form letter, which listed details about the apartments, what utilities were included, our background check and fees, and income requirements. That scared off all the unqualifieds (and probably some of the qualifieds, but oh well.) Mark did get a few responses and set up showings. Our empty half-doubles rented pretty quickly. Apartments in a multi-unit building are always more of a hard sell.
Sherri is a fellow wholesaler and she wanted to help out if only to get Steve more focused on wholesaling again! She started making more personal replies to the voicemails.
Steve set up an online calendar with Setmore.com, a free site I've mentioned before in this blog. We'd block our availability to show apartments in Setmore and give tenants the option to schedule their own showings by sending them an e-mail link.
With my other job finally out of the way, I was able to jump in this week. The crude semi-automated system Steve had set up had merits. I simply improved upon it.
The first thing I did was figure out who was available to show apartments and when. I was, during my two-hour blocks during the midday. Steve was, late afternoon and early evening. Mark was, when he wasn't busy with class work. And our friend Illana was after her shift driving the school bus. Most afternoons last week she was painting our empty units over at West River St., so any showings there between 3 & 7pm I'd give to her. I set up all those available slots in Setmore.
The next thing was handling the phone calls. We were pretty well caught up, thanks to Mark and Sherri. Sherri would usually do her calls in the morning. I answered them live during the day. And I asked Mark to take the evening shift – when most working people would be available. We'd put the appointments in Setmore or else the prospect would schedule themselves with the link we gave them. Every afternoon at 3pm I touch base with Illana and let her know if someone would be coming over to West River – sometimes she can't answer her cell when she's painting, and she doesn't do Computer.
And you know what? This crude, ad-hoc system actually worked! As of this writing, two apartments have been rented and Barney St. is once again full. We have strong interest in our high rent apartments at West River – the one that's ready now and the two we haven't even advertised yet. Once those are rented, we are full.
Maybe we'll have to acquire more rentals then?
OW! (Biting tongue)