COACHES CORNER
Think Realty Coaches
Panel in Print: How Creative Thinking Changes Your Perspective
“IF I’M SO GOOD AT THE ENFORCING YOUR LEASING RULES THAT YOUR BUILDING IS COMPLETELY VACANT, I’VE DONE MY JOB IN ONE SENSE BUT I’VE BEEN VERY DISLOYAL TO YOUR ACTUAL GOALS AS A LANDLORD. IF THAT BUILDING IS EMPTY, I’VE FAILED COMPLETELY!”
information, they frequently can take things to a different level and work with their hearts as well as their heads. “For example, I spoke with an investor last week who has a tenant who is falling behind on rent due an injury that is keeping her
that day that she had already reached out to several organizations and ap- peared to be establishing a solution. “This is a perfect of example of keeping your heart and your head in the game for the best situation for everyone and everything, including your bottom line, involved in a nega- tive rental situation.” LINDA LIBERATORE ON “LOYALTY” “At the end of the day, a good real estate investor is loyal. That’s not something most landlords think of themselves as being. In fact, most of them often feel badly when they simply follow up on rent or ask for it, much less file an eviction or delin- quency notice. They are, though: loyal to their businesses, families, and to all the people that their investing sup- ports, including charities, contractors, employees, and all the other people that get paid directly or indirectly as a result of those rentals. “People confuse being efficient, which maximizes cash flow in a rental situation, with being heartless, but if you do things right you help people stay in residence and you keep your building occupied. “Being loyal means paying at- tention, looking for solutions that actually help everyone involved, and keeping your investing interests at the forefront so that you can continue to support your family, your communi- ty, and your residents. The best way to do this is to get a very clear view of how your investing systems and strategies work so that you can always watch for problems and get ahead of them with good solutions.” •
R
eal estate investors tend to be among the most innovative
an integral role in individual investors’ financial success by exposing new op- portunities in competitive markets. In this month’s Panel in Print, Think
Realty Coaches talk about innovative methods and concepts that give them an edge in their favorite markets. •
strategists in business, and that’s a good thing. Creative real estate strategy plays
LINDA LIBERATORE: Maintaining Control Without “Losing It” “A client with a portfolio of rental properties in Georgia lives in California. She is constantly expanding that portfolio and monitoring its performance, which is typical of landlords who may try turnkey investing and find they do not care for the lack of direct interaction with their properties. She systematized the maintenance needs of those properties so that they are all on the same basic schedule for, say, furnace cleaning, and then she has a team in Atlanta that she trusts to handle that process and notify her of any red flags in her units. “She’s able to keep a very close eye on her investments this way even though she is not located on the same coast. She has time to think about where and in what she wants to invest next while still maintaining that direct control that she values.”
out of work. The landlord does not want to evict her, but she has already missed a payment and she is not likely to suddenly come up with a double payment in her current situation. We have to find a solution so that proper- ty does not stop cash-flowing but we also do not want to upset the tenant. She’s having a tough time already, and, furthermore, angry tenants may destroy property after they leave. “Fortunately, there are a number of charitable organizations who help people in this resident’s exact situa- tion, but they have to have an evic- tion notice to prove that the issue is a real one. Knowing this, I called the resident, touched base on the rent situation, then delivered the news about the local charities (which I have listed for her, of course) and told her in a kind, hopeful way that I would deliver her legal notice that she has fallen behind on rent along with the list of charities. “She understood it was a necessity for her landlord and for her to keep the process moving, and I heard later
a singular lack of this type of service for a landlord who wishes to continue managing their own properties rather than hiring a full-service property management company. “A lot of them try to use software that is designed for institutional real estate investment companies, but that is not to scale for the landlord with 5 to 50 or even several hundred properties,” Libera- tore explained. They try to make these management systems intended to handle 3,000 properties handle 30, and while all the information is there it’s a huge financial drain and the system just is not the right scale. You’re trying to run your personal investment port- folio with a software beast.” Liberatore founded Secure Pay One in 2010 to formally offer her consult- ing services to clients. Most of her business comes from landlords han- dling between five and a few hundred properties who are hoping to imple- ment solutions to help them deal with “slow-pay residents” who clog cash flow and prevent business expansion. LINDA LIBERATORE ON “PUTTING YOUR HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE” “One of the biggest issues that DIY landlords face is that they find themselves handling their residents with their hearts instead of their heads. In reality, if they have all the
BEN RAO: Beyond Just Fixing and Flipping “It’s great when you run into an opportunity to do a deal that can be structured or repurposed to really create massive value. “For example, maybe your community lacks an entrepreneurial incubator. These facilities provide co-working and event space to support local entrepreneurs; they support the local small-business community. I found a great commercial space to convert in my community, an old Post Office. Not only will I end up getting funding from the city and probably a tax abatement when I’m done, but I’m repurposing space that was not getting used, adding serious value to the property, and preserving a piece of our local history.
SONIA BOOKER: Seeing the Full Potential “When most people invest in real estate, they think in terms of their short-term goals. They say, ‘I’m doing this to put my child through college.’” Really, they need to be thinking in terms of big-picture goals: What kind of income-generating property do I need to obtain in order to ac- complish my specific purpose? If what you want is to put a child through college, how much does that mean you’ll need each year in real estate-related income? What happens to that income after the child graduates? There’s a much bigger story than just paying tuition for four years! “Once an investor gets really clear about their real estate goals, they can identify the strategies and potential deals that will perfectly fit their needs and focus just in those areas. When that hap- pens, you become more motivated and you are really problem-solving for yourself and making a difference in the financial future of your family.”
COACHING PROGRAM Linda Liberatore’s first course, Buy-and-Hold Strategy, is available at thinkrealty.com/investor-education/coaches .
14 | think realty magazine :: december 2017
thinkrealty . com | 15
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