Why Property Management Companies are Vital for Real Estate Investors
On this episode of Next Level American Dream, Abigail and Sean are joined by Jared Kott. Every Real Estate Investor at some point has considered going forward without a property management company or trying to reduce the costs of property management companies. Today, Jared Kott has been very kind to provide us with his expertise and insight into how the investor-property manager relationship works best and can be leveraged to make your investments stronger.
Key Topics
What are the roles and responsibilities of a property management company?
What makes a successful property management company?
What do you look for in a property management company as an investor?
Connect with Jared:
-
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
investor, people, property management company, property manager, management, tenants, property, Jared, unit, building, assets, business, terms, area, property management, company, deal, relationship, Chicago, managing
SPEAKERS
Jared Kott, Sean Thomson, Abigail Thomson
Abigail Thomson 00:00
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean, will discuss how you can take your American Dream to the next level through real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish our goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American Dream. Here's another episode of Next Level American Dream.
Sean Thomson 00:33
On today's episode next level American dream I had a great conversation with Jared caught we discussed the importance of property management and how to make the most of that relationship between investor and management company. Before starting his management company Jared built a successful single family real estate investment business and out of a need in his own business for a better management solution for his portfolio. Jared started third coast partners management company, Jared is a very outgoing and easy to get to know person, he has taken that strength and created a successful management business in some of the most challenging real estate and Metro Chicago, Jared takes a community first approach to the operation of third coast partners and is surely going to see his success grow even further in the future. Hi, Jared, welcome to the next level American Dream podcast. Thanks for being on the show.
Jared Kott 01:14
Sean, thanks so much for having me! I'm thrilled to be here.
Sean Thomson 01:17
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. We haven't talked in a long time. I really enjoyed our time together, you know, whenever we get together events and things like that. So I was excited just to have you on. I'm glad we got a chance to chat a little bit before we got started here too. That was great. Getting caught up. Thanks.
Jared Kott 01:30
Yeah, I'm excited as well.
Sean Thomson 01:33
Well, let's talk about, we want to talk about property management. Today, you've got a successful property management company, you know, you deal with properties in the south side of Chicago, which is a rough area. And it takes a special person to do kind of business that way. And I think business is really solid, and you do a good job with it. So I wanted to talk to you about the relationship of property management and the investor that you work with, and things like that. So, but I want to talk first, just tell the listeners a little bit about your journey from, you know, kind of where you ended how you ended up in property management.
Jared Kott 02:01
Sure. Um, thanks for the great intro. Yeah, property manager, it's one of those things where, you know, I don't think anybody you know, when they're a little kid is like, I'm gonna wake up your property manager one day, that's my dream. But I found myself here. And then how I found myself here was, I was an investor for in the same areas that we manage now. And somewhere between, you know, unit counts of 1030, I realized, like, I need to make a choice, I can't continue to be investor and be the property manager. So what got me here was this, I went out and I went out, and they interviewed, probably three to five Southside property management groups or in folks. And this is why I didn't get the response time that I wanted, I didn't have the trust in the assets that I built. And it just, I didn't, I just didn't overall feel comfortable. So at that point, this is where I'm talking right now about 2014. I put up I hit the pause button and said, you know, what, if we're going to continue to grow this, both on the asset side, in the management side, we're gonna have to do this internally, ourselves. So that's how I got here. It was investing first, and not having the competence of other property managers to take care of those assets.
Sean Thomson 03:18
So they didn't seem to have they didn't seem to have what you wanted in terms of property management. And like your interest at heart, so you just wanted to do it yourself.
Jared Kott 03:29
Yeah, and it wasn't, believe me, it wasn't that I wanted, like full control, I just wanted to make sure that the assets were going to be maintained for and the tenants which we very much do as customers, we're going to be taken care of. So, you know, we said, That's it, we've got to start this up. And frankly, we were already doing that, right. Like, we had guys in the field that were, you know, changing wax rings on toilets and relighting water tanks and all those basic things and landscapers. But it was do we want to, we want to continue with scale. And you know, so right now in the office of, um, it's basically two offices, there's a holding company in the management company, and they're, they're two distinctly different things. And we've been, we've been doing third party management actively for about the last 18 to 24 months, with a portfolio now of just over 300 units on the south side of Chicago. Our territory is it, it's large, but it's not in terms of the like, the metrics of Chicago, Chicago is a gigantic territory, in the south side alone is a gigantic territory, but those things change block by block. So, you know, we we basically go we cover like a seven by seven mile radius, and we turn a lot of people away because what we want to do is, we want to make sure that we can provide value in those areas, meaning, you know, if something breaks, you want to Be able to get guys there that day. Right? We don't want to be crossing town as we'll get you in a couple days. So that's kind of how our metrics have been set up. And there's a huge demand, as I'm sure there is all across the country, because it's a low margin business. It's thankless, you know, in all sorts of crazy things happen that, you know, unless you're in this business day in and day out, you may not even think what happened. I mean, in the last, in the last 30 days, we've had a small portfolio of, you know, 300 units, we've had three deaths unrelated to COVID. One was a suicide one was a old age, and one is just kind of missing. But you know, things like that happen in management. And, and we want to, we want to be able to take care of those problems when they come up both large and small. I think a lot of times investors just think, yeah, just just collect the rent and send me the seminar money. Well, if that if it was that easy, everybody would be doing this.
Sean Thomson 05:54
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit since that's kind of the next question that I want to go into is, and you started to touch on it, they're kind of some of the things that you guys tackle? What is the role of a property manager? What should an investor expect their property manager to do for their property? You know, and multifamily where I'm at, there's an on site property manager that manages the day to day operations, then there's an overseeing company that manages sort of the culture of the property management, right? Yep. Let's start with just kind of the the, what is a property management company expect? Or should an investor expect from them?
Jared Kott 06:29
Sure. Well, I think some of the things you want to look for is like, Where is that management group? currently managing? Right? So and how many assets are under management? So let's say that you syndicate a deal, and it's 100 units? Well, you may find a great manager, but if they're, if their largest unit is a 10, unit, you're not really comparing apples to apples. Right? So I first thing I was on make sure I would make sure is that you're actually finding management companies that are actually managing the assets that you're looking to manage? And then how many do they have in a somewhat concentrated area, or what we call zones is really good. Because the more the more activity that people have in certain areas, the more contractors they're going to have, the more relationships they're going to have, the more understanding they're going to have a local laws. Now those are those are really important things. I always I'm things that I get asked a lot are what's what's your collection rate? How do you handle evictions? What are things in terms of local laws, we should look at, you know, and all of these things vary by, by, you know, county by county and city by city and state by state. So they've got to be aware of these things for entering in.
Sean Thomson 07:46
So what are some of the so I guess, I guess more on technical level you guys handle. So once you guys handle I guess let's start from the beginning. a tenant just let's say you have a property and we need to get a tenant in there. What would you guys handle? would you handle the phone calls? The advertising? All that stuff? Yeah. So we would I give you an example, this morning, I got a and this is a relationship based this isn't typically how our system works. But it was a text message from a broker that we do a lot of business with. And he says, Hey, I'm selling building, I need any two vacancies filled at this address to something you can handle a text back. Yes.
Jared Kott 08:21
So we have a marketing team here. The first thing that we're going to do is get access to the right. We don't want to put our sign on a building and participate in stuff that's not at the caliber or the level that we want it to be. We're not slumlords here, we do work in distressed areas. But we don't we don't believe in that. So first thing we're going to do is say, is it a fit, send us a lockbox code, we'll get somebody over and check it out, we'll give you in this scenario, we'll give them kind of like a free inspection because we want to see what's going on, snap some pictures, put it in a dropbox folder, they'll take a look, assuming everything checks out, we'll do the marketing, we'll feel the calls. And when I say marketing, that stuff is syndicated. I think now we have like, you know, 20 sites that it goes to, we have a full full time call center just for leasing that takes those calls. Then we do the inspection, the screening, so the screen is going to be background checks, which are going to include criminal, they're going to include past evictions, which is a little bit different thing that we're doing now is we teamed up with a local attorney here that has a group that like data scrapes and stuff that may not that may be a lag time. So if you know if I was evicted 60 days ago, it may not show up on a report. So this is like this is real time data that you've seen. So we're gonna cover those evictions. And then and then we do we do in person interviews. And he asked everybody, including COVID for a man Sit down. These are the expectations and a lot of people may not think that that's scalable, but what we believe is we have to go Their relationship in the areas that we are for this for this to work out successfully on both sides. So that's when the expectations are set.
Sean Thomson 10:08
Yeah, you're controlling people's homes. So on two levels, you're controlling an investor's home, but then you're also controlling a home that someone's expecting to live in, and raise their family in and be part of, you know, part of their community. And, and you want to have that relationship. I think that's critical and important. So that's it. I think that's a good, good move there. And then so once you get a tenant once you've got a tenant in the property, what sort of things are you doing in terms of managing responsibilities during that time period that they're living in there?
Jared Kott 10:36
Yeah, great question. So want before move in. And I learned I've, again, I told you the beginning, like I'm an investor before I have a property manager in terms of the hats. So I've made all these mistakes first, and I'll answer the question, kind of with a quick story, you know, I used to just get really excited, I'd run a credit check, the credit was good, I didn't run background checks, I'd move them in, and then give my cell phone number, which is horrible. And then people would call and say, Well, you know, my sink is loose, and this is leaking, and the heats not working, and all these little things, takes up a lot of time. And then what happens on that respect, drops immediately, someone someone wants to save affordable, clean places, you just said to raise their family coming, they don't want problems. So the first thing we're going to do before they move in, is get get eyes on a quick walkthrough, and then we have a look at all but it's probably a 10 to 15, you know, check point checklist to look at, make sure that hot water is working, make sure it's spotless, when somebody comes in, make sure that the keys are redone, make sure the thermostats are working. And again, I'm not a technical field guy, I'm not out there like swinging hammers, and you know, moving all these thermostats and things around like that. But I've learned these things from my own mistakes. And now we just kind of recreated systems on things that are repeatable, and hire people to do that, that are much better than myself at them.
Sean Thomson 12:06
Yeah, so you're thinking the setting, the standard is critically in the front side of this relationship is very important.
Jared Kott 12:14
If it's broken in the beginning, it's really difficult to earn that trust back. Yeah. And if we, if we get into the psychology of renters, there's a lot of people that rent, because they don't want to deal with all that stuff. I don't want you know, it's like I rent giving you example, I rent because I don't want to fix stuff, right? Which means I don't want to move into a place and then have you have contractors be in and out. Because I moved into places and ready, it's got to be ready from day one on the job. And if you get that, you know, the bar is raised the expectations set. And, you know, it's it's also takes away any leverage if you know, if a tenant decides to slow pay or non pay and things like that, it's like, you know, we, we set this up from the beginning, you know, we provide you a safe, affordable place to live, everything was cool. And in return, we need you to pay on time so we can pay our bills, and, you know, move on. So it sounds it sounds really simple. And it is until you know until you begin to scale and say well, how do we how do we manage all these? How do we keep these these buildings in good conditions and the tenants happy but I think it's the 8020 rule is what I've seen, you know, most people go in and we do our job on the front end, they do their job. And, you know, for the most part it works out. But you know, there's still some stories where it doesn't. And that's okay, that's part of the business. And I think also investors need to know that you can hire the greatest property manager in the world. But if you're taking over a building, that's, that's, let's say, mismanaged. From a communication standpoint, maybe core value standpoint, and the building itself is I'll say it's a value add play, and you're gonna go in and clean it up. I think you need to really clean those buildings out before you can bring people in because the the expectations are just not going to match up. They're not going to match up. You can't, you can't you can't start over with a bad product. And expect expect people to believe you. You've got to show them so
Sean Thomson 14:19
yeah, that's one of my fundamentals. What you're talking about now is one of my fundamentals is that I look at all my rentals as all my properties as someone's home, right tonight, I think of everything in terms of I want to put something out there a product out there that people can be proud of and feel safe in and happy to raise their family and so it may not be the best place in the world to live. You know, this, these are these are working families. You know, there's no gold toilets kind of thing, but it's a nice safe place to live. And, you know, everything I do for my tenants is I make sure if they have a problem that I'm on it immediately, you know, so I don't It's already hard enough to get someone out there to fix a toilet or to fix an HPC system, it can take a day to do that, just to get someone to show up, right? It can take half a day just to find someone to that's qualified to come out and fix an HPC to get to even get it scheduled. Right. So, you know, so those things, if you're not moving on those quickly, and getting those things handled, you know, your tenants just, it's just their quality of life is going down the whole time, right. And you don't want that that's, that's, so if your tenant is happy, and you're providing, like I said, again, a safe place, they can be happy raising your family in and if that's your goal all the time you think and you keep that consistent through the problems and everything that i think that's that's going to keep you safe is. And I think in terms of what I would want from my property management company, and this is what I expect usually is you want them to have that same mindset, you want them to think of the property and the tenant is one thing, right? And they need to they need to think of it as this is someone's home, this is not an asset, that that I worry about the asset and the investment, they need to think of it in terms of this is someone's home, and I want to make sure that this home is a happy place for them to live.
Jared Kott 16:12
I 100% agree. And I think that I think that's a that's a tremendous model. I mean, you're thinking about you're creating win wins. One of the examples I gave recently to an investor, um, he didn't want to, it costs money to fix things up. Right. And sometimes it's like, you know, how can I continue to spend this money? You know, it's like, I just want the money in return back? Well, the example that I gave is like, Well, think about the last time you stayed in a hotel. Right? When you walk when you put that key in the hotel door, and you walked in? What is the toilet was dirty? Right? What if this is your first impression? You're going to stay there for the night? What if and I know this is a little different? But what if the sheets weren't clean? What if it? What if the door didn't shut? Right? What if the lock wasn't there, you didn't feel comfortable? The wherever that you know that Phantom hotel example I'm giving you that brand is now diminished. Because of that one person that didn't go the extra mile and fix that. On the flip side, when I like to stay at Marriott's. When I travel, they're consistent. And that's why I stay there. They're reasonable, they're consistent, I put the key and I know what I'm going to get. That's that's really if investors began to think that way about multifamily. I, you know, you'd have raving, you'd have raving customers, which are the tenants and you want them to stay a long time.
Sean Thomson 17:36
Retention, right, you get retention, that way, people are happy, they feel safe. You're not turning tenants over every every six months or a year. retention is a good it's profitable to be to have retention, new tenants. And you know, that money that you spend on HPC, or, you know, small problems. You know, you just it's just part of doing business, you got to think of it in terms of as an investor anyway. It's just how it works. Right? And you know, eventually, eventually the problems are going to stop, you're going to fix everything, right? Right. No, you know, even if you buy a property that's a little beat up and the HPA sees a little bit old, the roof is a little bit older pipes a little bit older toilets are old, you know, eventually, if you fix all of them, they're all going to be new again. Right? So you just got it at some point, at some point that investment is going to, you know, if you're in it for the long haul, if you're in it for the long term, those investments are going to work themselves out. Right. So maybe a terrible for the first two, three years as an investor, but you know, your five is start to turn, you know, buy your 10 It's a great property. Right. So you got to think of those terms. I think a lot of people they get so focused on what, how much am I making this quarter or losing this quarter or making on the NGO?
Jared Kott 18:46
You can think the short game.
Sean Thomson 18:48
Right? Yeah, keep your principles in place and have fundamental concerns for your tenants, and then the money will work itself out, you know, not, you got to watch that. But you know it, you got to have good principles and bring value, I think to the situation. But anyway, let's let's talk about so if I'm looking for a property management company, you mentioned you touched on it a little bit, some good things to look for, are they doing business in the area that you're in? Do they understand that that type of assets, so you've got bc assets, different types of asset classes, you've got different size assets, you know, hundred plus doors, like you said, 10 and 12 unit doors. So talk about if I'm, let's say I'm buying 100 plus units at a time, I should be looking for property management companies that that are in that specialization. Is that and does that that kind of what you would think?
Jared Kott 19:43
That would be my recommendation. It doesn't have to be exact right. But you probably wouldn't want to talk to a property management group that had that's, you know, managing simple residential, you know, single family homes two, three and four unit buildings is much different, you know, compared to To like a complex, right, you're, and here's the other thing, like, the, the ideas are the same, but the mechanics behind it are much different, right, you're gonna have, you can't have the same contractor that's working on a simple hpac furnace, he's not gonna work on the boiler, a 100 unit building, right, those things change. So I think just you want to kind of get it similar doesn't have to be exam, but in most management companies aren't gonna take on anything, right, the guys that are playing in the one through four space probably aren't going to be taken on the fifth unit buildings as well, they've kind of got their niche. And that's where they play, and that's what they're good at.
Sean Thomson 20:36
So when I'm looking for a property management company, it's a good idea for me to have a really strong understanding of the asset class that I'm dealing with. So units, the type of property, the locations, and if you have that fundamental, then you would go out and find a property management company that is operating in those in that produce that sort of asset class. So beyond beyond that, what am I looking for? Is it sort of a culture match, like I have that philosophy of this is somebody's home, I'm going to treat it like somebody's home, it no matter what the cost is, I'm going to pay for repairs, or whatever it is, I have that I have that as a as a core principle in my business and how to bring value. So it so are you as when I'm interviewing property management companies? Am I looking for those things? beyond just the asset? once we've got that established?
Jared Kott 21:24
Yeah, of course, you should. And I think that that's what makes great long term relationships, right? In my view, that it's, it's like, we've got to mesh, the investor in the property manager, property management company have got to mesh together in terms of those values. Otherwise, you're going to clash from the beginning. Right? If, if I'm the management company, you're the investor. And you're like, I'm sorry, I just I don't want to, I just don't want to fix these things, what your, your values are off? Right? And it's just, it's not gonna align. But if you have those discussions up front, you know, we typically ask questions to the investor. We're onboarding, smaller, 20 unit this week, and one of the some of the questions that I asked him were, you know, what, what would be your thoughts on if, if you had to replace during the winter? If we realize, like, you know, all your windows are bad, because they don't look great. And he's like, they need to be replaced, and they need to be replaced. But yeah, I'd like to do that. So, you know, those are just little signs, like, that's align, right? That's completely aligned. If somebody says, Well, I, you know, I, I don't think the windows need to replace, and I think we can probably get another 10 years out of it. Well, that's, that's not mine, right? Because we're gonna have to deal with the problems, we can't do what we say we're going to do, we can't provide that value of customer, which is them. And then we get the constant turnover. And then, furthermore, I think, I think many times investors believe some investors believe that they can buy a really subpar building, keep everything the same, without upgrades, push rents up as long as they have a good manager. And, you know, I don't believe that can be true, I think that there needs to be, you know, on value add big plays like that. The Property Management Group is like a partner per se in this, like, their vision and your vision needs to be aligned. Can they handle these repairs? Can they can they get these things done? I mean, these are, these are big tasks that that have to be worked on and discussed, prior to entering the relationship, because there's nothing worse. And I've done it myself on both sides, where I just thought everybody thought the way that I thought and then now we're under contract and sign stuff. And, you know, we go live. And it's like, we've got to do these things. And so we didn't discuss that. And now tenants are upset, people are moving and we look bad, nobody's happy. The tenants aren't happy, which is the customer, the investors not happy. So get get that aligned in the beginning and ask, just like you were talking now, these are the same questions that should be asked any property manager across the country that's successfully managing assets?
Sean Thomson 24:07
Yeah, so that's good. So I think once we determined that the property management company is doing the asset class that we're looking for in terms of our investments, we want to make sure that our culture's are aligned, our principles are aligned in how we want to conduct business for our tenants, and make sure that the investor is willing to pay the money to fix things and make sure that the property management company is is the type of property management company that's proactive and having those things taken care of. Right, right. Or whatever your philosophy is, in terms of core values and culture that you want to that you want to have with your properties. Let's let's talk about some of those. I think that would be if you could take care of those few things and interviewing a property management company. I think that would be a good start with everybody. Let's talk about some of the things that maybe you see as AI, you've talked about it several of now, but maybe some of those things that you would see that say, Hey, we just can't we're not gonna be able to work together. We probably you know, we probably Go into this relationship. Or there's some red flags that you look for when you're talking to an investor that says, hey, this guy's not gonna work for us.
Jared Kott 25:08
Yeah, what I'm going to do is I'm going to flip that question and go from the management side. So the questions that investors would ask the management company, or one of the things that I think is just really cut and dry, is he reached out to a management company, you have that initial conversation. Ask them see what's what's your nearest asset from? You know, this point. So I'm looking at, I'm looking at an asset at 123 Main Street, do you have anything in the area? Yeah, we have one down the street, walk around them, walk around that complex, hang out there. And don't just drive by, like, you know, a lot of people I don't I don't believe do enough due diligence on the asset or like, I drove by everything was cool. Well, I what we like to do is when we take over a building, if I'm in the area, I love it. This is one of the things I add, it's probably not the best use of my time to Absolutely. Go there. A park there. I'm completely honest. And I'll see excuse me, you live here in the Tennessee Yeah, you get a little spooked. I see. I didn't mean to get. I'm a local guy, management company. And we're thinking about possibly taking this off for management. Is that something we should be doing? Or is this building like in disarray? How is it fun, and they will tell you, as they will tell you everything, they'll say on the elevator, the thing is, this is junky, I can never get any hot water pressure, I'm on third floor there's Rodin's or this or they say, I've lived here 15 years and everything's great. That's how you're gonna know. Right? A management company. I don't know I'm in this I'm in the I'm in the world of it. I don't want to speak bad at all about about the industry. But I think a lot of people take take on these as like a, you know, a sales contract. Good. Have you gotten in the door? Now, let's just do what we do. I mean, you investors got to do their due diligence. They happen. And you go that next level, and whether it's the actual investor, or they, you know, get somebody out there to answer those questions directly to the tenants. I i've never, ever I've been wrong with my gut a few times. But I've never been steered wrong by 10.
Sean Thomson 27:10
It's funny you say that, you know, brokers and management companies, they hate it when you do that, right? Yeah, me as the investor, I always do that. It's the funniest thing, I do it on the stealth because I don't want anybody keep a bad state. But I'll just wait for all kind of wait and see if tenants rolling around and I'll see to say, Hey, I'm looking for an apartment in this area. But you like living here? You know? Yeah, they just they'll just tell you everything, you know?
Jared Kott 27:35
But, keep doing that. That's an outstanding tip. Not enough people do you know, with investing in management, then? Yeah. So has that strategy lead you to success?
Sean Thomson 27:51
Well, you know, what happens is, I just have more information than and people are presenting to me and I have I have it's more it's a more honest portrait than I'm getting from, from brokers and from management companies, you know, when I'm trying to acquire a new asset, right, so brokers are always looking for the best. They're trying to put the best picture on this thing and the sort of management company to make it look good. But the tenants they have no, they know they're not winning anything by telling me a good story, right? So that you get you get sort of like the unvarnished truth and I don't know if it's helpful or not, you know, I might still buy a property that they did that the tenant hates, but I'm gonna fix those problems for sure. When I get the property right. There you go. You know, but it's it's fun to do I have the same thing. That's funny, but but brokers and management companies, they hate it. So I don't tell him I'm doing it. But I just, I do it on the stealth, you know.
Jared Kott 28:40
That's great. That's an awesome, Sean. I love it.
Sean Thomson 28:43
Yeah, it's fun. For plus you get to meet interesting people every now and then. So. Oh, yeah, it's good. So, let's talk about so beyond that, I guess. So once you've got an established relationship with a management company, they're sort of managing everything taking care of repairs, that sort of thing. I guess it was the relationship kind of go from there is that is it just a matter of maintaining that to that level that status met that quality?
Jared Kott 29:07
Yeah, so there's, I mean, there's all sorts of different parts of it as well, I'll tell you about what we'd like to do personally is once once we get the foundation built, right so that the core values are there, we're on the same page. rents are coming in everybody's getting paid and trust is getting stronger and stronger and stronger. We We also want to be the part of the deal source, right? We want to help you get as as your podcasts is that what's the next level for you? Right? And can we help you through our content? A lot of people and I'm going to give the listeners a really good tip here is you know, especially now right the the market lease in Chicago, the markets at all about all time highs, which screaming deals are hard to come by. Everybody's looking at MLS doing their mailers. You know what I do, I call my friends at the management company. I'm like, who's who's seen a lot of pain right now that wants to sell. Now, we're not looking to like, rip anybody off. But if I've been there, I've had billions on like, I just want out of this thing. They're a great deal sources. So what we'd like to do is it's an ecosystem. I mean, we've got now 40-50 owners, sometimes people want to trade some guys got a six unit, and he's like, Listen, I want to sell this 1031 exchange it, can you line me up anything? Is there anything out there? 20-24 unit? Yep. Go to the 20-24 unit guy. See, we can move stuff around. So I think that, I don't know, if all management companies do that I would I like to assume that they would or did do because property name, it's a great ecosystem to find deals, great ecosystem. I mean, there's, there's all sorts of investors, there's partnerships that can be recreated. So I mean, we try to tailor it to who's who's really got, who's got the vision to go to the next level, who can we help get there, and who also are some folks in the portfolio that may be getting tired and want to cash out? Right, so that's what we'd like to kind of connect internally within that ecosystem and work together. So everybody thrives.
Sean Thomson 31:15
You know, and properties trade for all sorts of reasons, not, it's not always someone who's failing, right, it could be someone who's succeeding, and wants to do better, right. So like you said, they may have a six unit, but now they're buying 200 plus doors at a time. And they're like, I just don't want to deal with the sixth unit anymore. So that may be a good place for you are for someone, one of your customers that you're dealing with, or your investors that you're dealing with. So it's a lot of times, buildings or properties will trade for various reasons, you know, there might be you know, dad died, and the family just doesn't want to deal with it or, but they're very successful properties, right? They may be making tons of money and have a ton of value add upside to them and, and things like that. So yeah, property management have a good relationship with your property manager could go a long way, in terms of acquiring new successful assets to I didn't think of that, but that's a good, that's a good point. Thanks for coming on the show. By the way, that was a great talking to you. But, I always ask everybody, you know, the name of the podcast is Next Level American Dream, right? So we like to talk to people about what their American Dream is, and then kind of what they're doing to take it to the next level. So if you don't mind, just share with everybody kind of what your American Dream is. And then if you think what you're kind of doing to that may help somebody else, take it, take your dream to the next level.
Jared Kott 32:28
Sure. I love that what an awesome way to end up super podcast. Ah, so so my American Dream is to be able to spend quality time with my loved ones. And that includes family, friends, my business, everybody. In my business, I look at like a family, I like being able to have choices. I like being able to make decisions and have freedom. I recently renewed my passport, as you know, I've been getting some stamps on that. So I want to travel some more. And with the technology, like we're doing right now, through through resumes, it's been very clear in the last four or five months that, you know, as long as we have good boots on the ground, we have good processes, when in place, we can do a lot of business from anywhere in the world. So that's kind of how I see it right now. But if you if you have me on in the year early, I'm sure it'll change like my visions always kind of evolving. And what am I doing to get there? Doing the same stuff, man, my first met you and why I constantly work on mindset. I read a lot, which I'm not, you know, I'm a C student at best. Like I really hated school. So I forced my I don't like discipline by no discipline is really what I need. So I forced myself to do it. I read 10 pages a day, every day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, whatever Sunday mornings, I read every day, 10 pages, that helps me. And then I do what one other thing that's really helped me as I learned through Tony Robbins, which is an exercise called priming, you can look that up just exactly panning out priming, basically all meditation with some vision. So that's, that's what's kind of helped me there mentally. And I believe real estate in and much of life is a context for meaning. I can't do this stuff alone. I've got to talk to guys like you, I've got to reach out I've got to be connecting people with people that I know. So I like to be a connector. It makes me feel good. And I like to help other people. So that's that's kind of its kind of nutshell.
Sean Thomson 34:27
So I think your next level task for you, or that seems to be successful for you is just adjusting mindset. And like you said, priming is a big part of that. You're getting yourself sort of centered and ready for the day. And then education sort of continually learning about your business about other things in life that can help you be successful. And then the third one you said was your network, so improving your network and making sure that you're you're taking care of the relationships that around you. Is that right? That's right. Okay, perfect. Yeah, those are common themes. I talked to a lot of people about what they're doing today. to level up, and it's the same with me too. You know, it's it's your your health is taking care of you relationships are taking care of, you know, all those things are important. So that's good. Well, Jared, so talk to people or tell people a little bit about how they can reach you or get in touch with you. If they've got some properties for sure. In this in the Chicago area, they might want to contact you about management, things like that. So how can people reach out to you?
Jared Kott 35:21
Yeah, I'll give you two ways. The first one is easiest. This is my desk phone right here. I'm here all the time. I'll give you my number. It's easier if you call, but you can text it'll just doesn't go to my cell phone. So it's (312) 447-2349. Or you can shoot me an email at jared.kott@marblestongpg.com
Sean Thomson 35:58
Awesome. You have a web page too?
Jared Kott 36:02
Yeah, you can check us out online at www.mpghousing.com. You can reach out directly through that site as well.
Sean Thomson 36:12
Yeah. Okay. Awesome.
Jared Kott 36:14
I love to chat with people. Sean, I'll tell you I'm a I'm a people person. So if you got some questions about Chicago, I'd love to help you. If you know if you call me about Massachusetts, or Texas, or Vermont, or anywhere else, I'm probably going to just say I don't know because I don't I only work in like a seven by seven radius here. I can share with you what I have. It's all good.
Sean Thomson 36:34
Yeah, anybody's looking for Southside Chicago information, properties and stuff, you're the guy. So that's for sure. Good.
Jared Kott 36:41
Thanks, Sean.
Sean Thomson 36:42
Well, thanks, Jared. I really appreciate you coming on. It was great getting caught up with you again, I haven't seen in a long time. So I just the podcast was a was an excuse to get in getting to hang out with you again. So it was fun. I really appreciate you coming on.
Jared Kott 36:55
Let's do it more often shall keep up the great work. Okay?
Sean Thomson 36:58
Yeah, for sure. Sounds good. Thanks, Jared.
Abigail Thomson 37:02
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level American Dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today, want to contact a team directly, or interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room, head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com. Before you go, please leave a review! Your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy.