October 26, 2021

1. Josh Murphy, Director of Multifamily at Rose Associates, on fast tracking your career by taking on as much responsibility as possible

The Apartment Rebels Podcast
The Apartment Rebels Podcast
1. Josh Murphy, Director of Multifamily at Rose Associates, on fast tracking your career by taking on as much responsibility as possible
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Show Notes

The Apartment Rebels Podcast
The Apartment Rebels Podcast
1. Josh Murphy, Director of Multifamily at Rose Associates, on fast tracking your career by taking on as much responsibility as possible
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On this episode Jude interviews Josh Murphy, Director of Multifamily at Rose Associates, who talks us through his unexpected career path and how he managed to set himself up through hard-work and adaptability and how you can do it too.

Here’s the show transcript in case you’re a visual learner, or just hate podcasts…

Speaker 1 00:00:31 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of flamingos, resident engagement and experience podcast. The guest today is Josh Murphy, and I’m really excited to have him on because here’s like, I’ll say what stood out to me when I, your LinkedIn profile popped up was how quickly you have reason in the multifamily industry. And I think it’s really going to be very beneficial to a lot of people to hear about how you approach your career development, uh, what got you into property management and then what do you actually like do, and then kind of talk about other things, including a resident engagement experience and your overall view about the property management industry, where it is going. So let’s start on the courier side. So you’ve been in the industry for about 15 years and you started in leasing. So come on up, let’s learn a little bit more about you.
Speaker 1 00:01:30 Yeah. So I started in the industry, like you said, about 15 or so years ago, I’m originally from Texas, um, born and raised. I am now in New York city, but really how I started, I would say a lot of people say that they fell into property management. That’s stumbled upon. I can probably say that that did not happen for me when I was a kid. I would want to, yeah. I would want to go see like model homes and stuff about all the time. So real estate has always been really loud. I can say you are the first person I have spoken to about this. That said they actually planned to be a real estate. Like legitimately the first I love real estate. I, for some reason I actually started doing real estate selling hours and things like that when I was like 18, 19 or so for some reason I navigated towards the property management side of it and it just stuck everything about it.
Speaker 1 00:02:31 Just stuck for some crazy reason. So yeah, I didn’t just stumble upon it. Hard times came on doing real estate and it was like seven or so with the market crash. So I was like, I need some more consistent income. So the building I was living in, they obviously manage other buildings in San Antonio where I’m from. And I went to the office to pay my rent one day and they were like, you would be great as a leader. I was like, I know, I know I’ve submitted my resume. I got the job. And really that’s how I started as a leasing agent. It was, it was good. It was so much fun. It was so different than real estate and selling houses because you deal with these people. Now we call them residents. But you deal with these people all day, every day you work, where they live. It’s just weird dichotomy of like professional and personal at the same time. So that’s how I started. Um, it’s funny. I started with this one company and then about a month and a half later, a new company, big national company came in to like purchase. Wow. I was nervous. Yeah. I was nervous to not have a job.
Speaker 1 00:03:46 And now this whole thing is going.
Speaker 1 00:03:52 So it’s funny. Cause the old company who was managing the building and they didn’t want to keep any of the current staff. So they’re like, what’s the new college like sure. Take them that. I remember my new boss coming on and it’s funny because she and I, we worked together for 10 years after that, but she told me she’s like the company didn’t really want to keep you guys. I see something with you guys. You’re got to do great things. I’m going to move. She moved me to another building, all that good stuff, but that’s kind of how I started as a leasing agent in San Antonio. I eventually worked my way up to leasing manager, which again, it’s just a glorified leasing agent, but still a good, a good transition into more of a leadership role, which is necessary for those that want to be on an upward trajectory. So yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:43 Oh yes, no, sorry to interrupt real quick. So in terms of one thing, that’s always interesting to me. So I assume you live, you kept living on site when you did get the job. Like what are your views on living on site where you kind of live where you work? And I say that now for a lot of people out there that are not in real estate, um, that where the pandemic has kind of forced everyone to work lit workout as sleep, where you are for real estate, uh, for property managers. It’s a pretty common thing that I’ve noticed that a lot of property managers, uh, do live onsite. So what are your views on that, on how was that?
Speaker 1 00:05:22 Um, it started off very well and I’ve lived on site cause I got to rent this kind of think that’s, that’s kind of the consensus with a lot of people in the industry is you live on site, you get a discount. Commute’s really easy obviously to the office. But I knew after a certain amount of time after I had moved up, the ladder emotions still lived on site. When a resident came to my door, knocked on my door, they found some bodies keys in the parking lot When we had put it in the red drop we’ll deal with this tomorrow nine o’clock at night. So if it works financially, living on site is that, that’s what you’re looking for is for some relief with rent and your company and ownership offers discount, then Hey, I’m, I’m, I’m all for it. But me personally, after that moment where people were knocking on my door, I was like,
Speaker 2 00:06:26 And then, so when you did get promoted, once a for instance, did you see between being a leasing agent and being at least in the manager? I know you mentioned that there really isn’t that much of a difference, but I assume there is a little bit more leadership, uh, potential or leadership responsibilities.
Speaker 1 00:06:43 Yeah, there isn’t much of a difference. But then again, there is because of the leasing agent and I was, you know, I was peers. I was essentially friends with all of leasing counterparts. So we would just, you know, kind of just run the gamut and joke and do all of our stuff. And then when I got promoted to a leasing manager, it was with that same team. So kind of having to shift the mindset of, Hey, I’m your peer to now I’m your supervisor. It’s it’s different. But I think that’s one thing that’s not taught. I think that’s one thing that people just inherently know is leadership skills and leadership ability. There are some things you can learn, but that’s the biggest difference is separating yourself from like hanging out, after work, drinking with your leasing agent friends. Now you’re the supervisor. You can do all that. So that’s the biggest shift. And then delegation that’s when I learned how to start delegating as a manager, I was overseeing three other people. So I can’t do the job of three people plus my own jobs, getting tasks down and then following up with those people to make sure the work’s been done. That’s that was the biggest difference from leasing agents, leasing managers.
Speaker 2 00:07:53 Got it. Then that does point in time. Was the promotion a surprise to you or was it something that you were actively working towards? So you got a plan. I’m a leasing agent today in a year, two years, whatever it is, I want to be the leasing manager. And if so, like how did you kind of plan that out? Well, think about it.
Speaker 1 00:08:11 Yeah, I think at that time, I wasn’t really setting goals. As far as like this year, I’m going to be listed next. I knew where I wanted to be. I was never thinking about being a leasing manager. I knew that was the step, but my goal was always to be a property manager, even as leasing. I was like, I want to be a property manager, whatever that looks like. And that pathway that’s I’ll do. So the leasing manager promotion, it wasn’t a surprise to me. Um, one step, but I knew I had some make in order to get to that property manager.
Speaker 2 00:08:45 Got it. And then is that typically the case where it’s, who gets it a property manager level, you do have to go through that direct path, whether it’s to leasing, leasing manager, assistant property manager and property manager, is that the typical path or if someone out of college or use of the industry wants to go from, to be the property manager, like what path do you recommend?
Speaker 1 00:09:11 Yeah, it’s not necessarily that path. I think it depends on the company that you’re with the size of the company positions that they have typically you’ll go from leasing agent to assistant manager, to property manager. I’ve seen many people, my best friend, actually a future business partner went from leasing agents to leasing manager skipped over. Is this the manager? What’s the property. So I think it just all depends on your skillset. A lot of people who are leasing agents and leasing managers are people, people, we, we, we enjoy interacting with people when you get to that assistant community manager role. You’re the bad guy you’re now sitting down on a computer, say, you’re renting. If you’re dominant, all that kind of stuff, that’s not for everyone. So it might be typical, but it’s not for everyone. You got it.
Speaker 2 00:10:00 But do you feel like that is necessary? Like do you become a better property manager by going through that path or are they just like multiple ways?
Speaker 1 00:10:08 I do think, I do think it’s been official to have that assistant manager responsibility at least for six months, just to kind of get in and learn the position, see what goes on because to be a good leader, you have to be able to know what the people below you are going through. Don’t have that experience ever. You’re not going to be able to relate and coach and offer advice if you had no experience with it. So yeah, I would say for those looking for that path to a property manager beyond it’s beneficial to have the assistant manager duties, whatever that looks like, but have assistant manager duties and title at some point in that path.
Speaker 2 00:10:50 Got it. And then, so that’s kinda where after you became the property manager, you were there for a few years and then make the, made the jump to Odin. And that’s where you, when you became a senior.
Speaker 1 00:11:02 Yeah, I was an assistant manager for like eight months. I did not enjoy being an assistant manager, to be honest. I wasn’t very good at being an assistant manager again, that was part of the path that I knew I had to take to become a property manager. So became the property manager. Um, a lot of transitioning happened with company sales and things like that. Went on to a company called Odin. He used, there was a management division for about four or five years or so. Um, that just started after gray star acquired Riverstone residential group for those in the industry. They probably know all of this information so I can say, but yeah, I went to Otis use as more of a senior property manager was the first property manager really on a third party deal. The owner didn’t manage, it was managed for a different ownership group.
Speaker 1 00:12:04 I had worked with in the past with my prior company. So I was the first manager that was hired for overviews. My employee number was four. So that’s how I started. But again, it’s relations relationship building the person who picked me as a leasing agent, brand new it’s a movement to that’s different property. She was the one who was president of property management without Hughes build that rapport, built that relationship for a number of years. And she was like, I’m going to this roles. I want you to come with me. I was like, yeah, sure. Of course that’s again on my path to do so. She picked me, um, as more of a senior manager. And then I did that for a few years. I think that was probably about a year and a half or so. Business grew of Hughes grew with third party management with new construction stuff. And then I got promoted to regional manager. No,
Speaker 2 00:13:03 Um, that’s where we were. I want to go into some more details. So what’s the change between going from a site team member as a property manager and then making that jump to regional. And then what does that look like? How do you do it? How can everyone else do?
Speaker 1 00:13:22 Um, I’m just going to be transparent and honest. That was one of the hardest transitions that I made. To be honest, going from onsite as a property manager, you’re kind of the leader of the pack for your community. You’re building whatever you want to call it. And then you’d go into this new role as a regional manager, completely offsite. You don’t know everything that’s going on. At least at one site, you have four or five sites now. And I think that’s one position that companies don’t really train for. You can get trained to be an assistant manager. You can get trained to be a property manager. There’s a lot of skillsets that are needed to be a regional manager. And that’s more focused on the bigger picture of things. I remember one of my former coworkers a long time ago, she was talking to me and she was like, the regional manager is essentially the summary, like the property manager, the detail of everything and of the building.
Speaker 1 00:14:23 And that goes up to the regional and the regional manager is more of a summary to deliver that to her. They have to deliver that too. So I think one, one thing and one really nugget of advice I could give for those looking to go from a property manager. It’s your regional manager really is to take on as much responsibility as you can, as a property manager, be comfortable in that role and really know your property like the back of your hand, and then take on assisting another property with whatever they help with. I think that’s the biggest thing that you have to learn is how to know what’s going on at your own property. And then kind of pick some things from other properties where you can help things like that. Another big area going from property manager to regional manager is financials. If you’re not a numbers person, being a region manager is not going to be for you a hundred percent not going to be for you. You have to know your financials. You have to know budgeting. You have to kind of enjoyed accounting a little bit and just expect that and have high level conversations.
Speaker 2 00:15:28 Yeah. And then in terms of, um, for current property manager right now, one of the things you mentioned is really it’s. I think it’s like a classic advice is take on the role, uh, that you are looking to do in a year, whatever it is. So you mentioned that part of that for property manager would be taken up and responsibilities at a, not a property, but how do you actually do it without, I don’t know, stepping on toes without really coming off as too presumptuous.
Speaker 1 00:15:58 Yeah. Well, I’m not saying like, just go to somebody’s property,
Speaker 1 00:16:05 The way to go about it. Communication with your supervisor, obviously supervisor as a property manager, your supervisor is likely going to be either your district manager or your regional manager, make it known to that person. Hey, I want to move up. I want to be in your position. I want to just really express your goals and be honest with your goals. You’re not here to take somebody else’s job. You’re here to learn to really develop your own skillset. So if you have that communication with your supervisor, one that was paying them. So it kind of puts you on their radar, but then also really assess where you are in your current role and say, Hey, if you want to be a district manager slash regional manager, here’s the things I think you should work on. I’m going to help you work on these things and this will help you segue. And so that more supervisory role, don’t just like guns, ablazing, go into somebody else’s problem. I’m going to be your new boss. Don’t do that. You will make a lot of enemies that way.
Speaker 2 00:17:02 I have a lot of toes. And then, so what are some concrete projects that someone could do or some concrete things they can do as you take on those additional responsibilities?
Speaker 1 00:17:14 What do you mean concrete, like the property manager role or would you be,
Speaker 2 00:17:18 Um, as you kind of look at taking on additional responsibility at another property? So like what would be like some concrete examples? Is it helping them with financials? Is it, uh, looking at, um, the resident issues? Like what does that actually look like as he looked to kind of test out the, um, regional role?
Speaker 1 00:17:38 Yeah, not really resonant issues. I would say, unless that’s the biggest need for that property sister property, whatever it might be. I would, for me, it’s reaching out to the manager, seeing what they need assistance with, whether it’s, you know, they’re not financials or they struggle with finances, a little bit lending to that person. If they need staffing help, that’s a big thing. Staffing helps. So then your staffing, and then that’ll some more dialogue with you and this other manager, but concrete things as one, just have the wherewithal to kind of see where somebody needs help. And then also reach out and say, Hey, if somebody needs me help with this, that or the other, and more than likely people are going to reach out and that’s, that’s where you can assess. And that’s, that’s, what’s going to grow your relationships and what’s going to grow your knowledge base.
Speaker 2 00:18:26 And then for someone
Speaker 1 00:18:27 That was in Texas, like this is what happened in Texas. I went to restart that. I moved to New York. We can get into that in a little bit.
Speaker 2 00:18:33 We love to hear him walk that as well, too. And then on the financial side, then how does someone go about really becoming great at the financial side of things,
Speaker 1 00:18:44 Find somebody who is very good at financials, find a supervisor who is, who loves financials, who is good at financials, who is willing to teach their ways of doing financials. Every owner’s just through, but it’s different about going through financials and various notes and things like that. Every management company is different the way I, I learned as an assistant manager, really how to do financials that’s because my supervisor was on that same path of wanting to move up VP. She’s now an asset manager for the company that I used to work with back in Texas, she was on that project. I remember one time she sat me down and shoot, and I told her again, I communicated and said, Hey, I want to learn this. I want to move goal. She sat me down and she was like, do you want to stay late one night and work on financials?
Speaker 1 00:19:31 And I did. That’s what I did. We closed the office at six o’clock. We’re working on financials till 8 30, 9 o’clock at night working many hours mean you’ve got to put in a little bit of effort and a little bit of time to perfect your craft. So she sat me down, we went over a whole financial packet. I had no idea what she was talking about, but it was to see what she does, kind of get familiar with that. And I said that a couple more times. And then when I became a property manager, I was more comfortable with it. She became my supervisor. She was a regional manager and I was a property manager. I submitted one of my financials to her and she told me, she was like, this is one of the best financials I have from a new property manager. And my response was what you taught me. I think you always want to be around people who are better than you. I’m not saying that in like a, like a superficial way, but somebody who’s known who knows more than, you know, somebody who’s in a higher position than you are. I think that’s also what helped me. I always gravitated towards people who were not in my position. I was gravitated towards the assistant managers, the property managers region managers. You always have to look forward and look up.
Speaker 2 00:20:55 Got it. Uh, Nancy, you mentioned that, uh, the transition from the property manager to regional was probably the hardest transition that you’ve done. So what made it so difficult?
Speaker 1 00:21:07 Um, I wasn’t really trained on how to be a regional manager. That was what the startup company I was with a startup management company. I was brought in because I knew what I knew. But in the end you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s like when you’re thrown into this position of a regional manager, something that you’ve wanted for so long, and it’s kind of just like, boom, here you go. You kind of have to figure it out. You kind of, it’s a lot of trial and error, lots of error. And I was a regional manager and I think that’s the thing. People forget. They want to do it perfectly. At the very beginning, you’re going to make mistakes, please make mistakes. So you can learn from those mistakes and learn how to get better from those things. But that’s the reason why, um, it was a hard transition because I wasn’t properly trained, I would say, to become a regional manager. And that’s why I can speak the way I’m speaking, because I know the importance of taking on a lot more responsibility, asking for the training, finding the training, finding those people that can train you. And that’s the most important thing.
Speaker 2 00:22:04 Got it. And then as you know, any companies that do a really great job with training property managers who go into the regional role, oh, how would you, if you had to really structure a way of doing that, like how would you go about it?
Speaker 1 00:22:19 So is it simply the ones that have
Speaker 2 00:22:22 No, you go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:22:24 I was going to say wired to buy other companies, those companies, but they’re all now gray star. You know what? Gray starts kind of like no Walmart or property management. I don’t want to like talk badly about it, but like great snack is everywhere. Their model is great. Everything is good. And they’re expanding. I just read something that they’re going to Australia now, but like Greystar is just so massive. But anyway, companies are good with training property managers. You know, when I was with Alliance residential, that was just recently acquired by grace. It was a really good company for training. I think we had platforms for training. We had mentors, we had peer coaches, things like that. It was a really, it was a really good company for training. And I would say that’s trickled over to grace or the benefit of Greystar having acquired all these companies is they take the best parts of these companies.
Speaker 1 00:23:34 Riverstone residential group. The first company I was ever with was Riversand was around now. I’d still be with Riverside. I know that for a fact, the things about Riverstone was the training. It was the people, it was the systems and grace are adapt. Some of those things, same thing with Alliance, they adapted some of the software and the systems and the training. So Greystar, yeah, Greystar is a good company to be in the property manager role. And so learn from a lot of different people at different levels. It varies by market. I, I I’ve seen Greystar in Florida. I’ve seen Greystar in Texas. I’ve seen Greystar in New York and in New Jersey and they’re all a little bit different, but Greystar is a really good company to, to learn the manager role. My current company, rose associates up here in New York city is also really good. As far as training goes, it’s a smaller company. It’s more established, but it’s still smaller. I think they have a really good platform. Um, Courtland. I have a really good friend who works for Cortland down in Texas and their training platform is also very good. Um, don’t know much about Lincoln’s training, but yeah, I would think those companies are really, really good for training for property managers. It,
Speaker 2 00:24:51 And then, so how did you make the move from, uh, ordinance to gray starts Alliance and now two rose?
Speaker 1 00:25:00 So the move from Odin to Greystar was also moved from Texas to New York was necessary. I think growth. And for my advancement, I had built such a great life and career in Texas. If anybody were to see me in Texas and know what I was doing and see kind of where I was going to be like, why don’t you just New York? In my opinion, New York is the greatest city in the country to do really super difficult. It’s so hard. I think new Yorkers make it harder on themselves, but government in New York makes it hard to do business, but if you can manage to get through all like the shit of it all, then you can really make it anywhere. So I went from Odin Hughes to gray star, which was Texas to New York. And I did that because of networking. I did that because relationships, I had actually messaged somebody I had worked with, with, at Riverstone who had went to Greystar just to kind of see if they knew somebody in the Northeast and the New York market peers.
Speaker 1 00:26:10 I was always coming to New York to visit probably four or five times a year. And I was like, this is the place for me. So, um, I messaged this person and he connected me with a talent person up in New York for like the Northeast with Greystar. You know, I communicated with them for a little bit of time. I made a couple of trips up to New York. I had a couple of interviews with a couple of different companies and I actually got an offer for a position in Chelsea Manhattan, which is right from the town. Um, and it wasn’t quite the right fit. I wanted to be in New York very, very badly, but I wasn’t just for anything. So I signed the offer.
Speaker 1 00:26:48 Yeah. I declined the offer, which looking back and just like there was a smart move and maybe not the best thing about the time, you know, keeping lines of communication open a year, goes down the line in Texas. I am not promoted to a regional manager. I’m doing all of these things. And I kept a lot of the communication open and there was just one week that I was like, I need to be in New York. I’m feel like I’m missing something. And I reached out to one of my contacts that I had made, and she’s not my boss currently with rose associates as luck would have it. Um, and I reached out and she was like, oh my God, I’m so glad you reached out. We’ve got this, this and this coming available. If you’re ready to make the move, let me know. I had a couple of interviews.
Speaker 1 00:27:28 I didn’t need to fly back up to New York, but had a couple more interviews. And I got the position from the time I had met her first. But by the time I reached out from the first time I reached out to her, I think it was April of 2018 to the time I actually moved to New York city. It was a month and a half. Like I’m moving my entire last. I moved. Wow. That was quick. I moved my house. I moved my dog up to New York city, which was great. I drove. And then I’m here in New York city with gray star and another pretty difficult transition. You’re in a completely different market. Nobody trains you to go from property manager to regional manager. Nobody definitely trains you to go from one market to the next and completely opposing markets that are Austin, Texas to Manhattan, New York city. So to get to New York city, I had to take a step back, take a step back from a regional to property manager.
Speaker 2 00:28:28 And that’s certainly something I’m very curious about, uh, like when you do move from one market to the next, like, what were some of those like, uh, big differences that you see you saw? I know you mentioned that New York laws very, very different, but when you move in there in the industry, when you move from state to state or city to city, like what are some of those like big things that you see that would really impact the ability to do your job or just like overall success?
Speaker 1 00:28:58 Um, the, one of the biggest things is knowing the laws with real estate. It’s all about laws. You have to know the law, you have to know what’s going on in your specific market. So that’s a big challenge is not knowing the laws from one place to the other. My career started in Texas. I knew Texas law. Like the back of my hand, I could essentially quote the entire TA lease 10, 11, 12 years. He only comes to New York city. Everything’s just so much different. Not knowing the laws is one big thing, not knowing the market. Isn’t another thing. There’s any The different,
Speaker 3 00:30:05 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:30:18 You don’t know your immediate competition in the area you’re going to fall flat on your face. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:30:25 So what’s the best way of actually going about learning the comms? Is it just like visiting? Is it looking for
Speaker 1 00:30:32 Yeah. You can secret shop and then learn that way. Whenever you can. It’s to go into the building, that’s a whole different dynamic, but yeah, go into the, That’s very beneficial as well. Going to a restaurant, going to brunch, going to a movie, just doing life in that area will, will set you apart by leaps and bounds.
Speaker 2 00:31:18 Gotcha. So is that more for the leasing for at least in Asia and that’s really looking to have a good conversation with where residents is that
Speaker 1 00:31:25 Nope. about what’s going on around you. You’re not going to be as successful in good property manager.
Speaker 2 00:31:36 Um, and then how was that transition to rose? And I’m curious to know, like for you, um, you’re listed as a portfolio manager and then now the director for multifamily, like what does that actually mean? And then how is it all your experiences, uh, lead to this?
Speaker 1 00:31:55 Yeah. So after Greystar went to Alliance, Texas to New York, I took a step back to go from regional manager to property manager. Then eight months with gray star. I moved my way back up to regional manager with Alliance residential, as we said earlier, um, gray star acquired Alliance. Um, and then essentially I kind of took a little bit of a step back again, going from Alliance to rose as a portfolio manager, um, which was good. I think that was fine. And gave me a little bit of a break after a crazy it wasn’t 2020. So after a crazy year, and then with rose portfolio manager up to director, really the difference between portfolio manager role with rose associates and the director role is a lot more oversight. You have a lot more units, a lot more buildings under the rector that I’m supervising compared to portfolio manager, portfolio manager. I had one client, I had two buildings. It was about those less than 600 units between the two. Um, so that was, that was, for me, that was easy. I would, I had managed up to 1700 units when I was in Texas. So going, going from that a hundred, I was like, sure, not a big deal, but I think that’s the biggest difference for me is just having a lot more oversight and a lot of client contact, a lot more executive contact, um, being a director multifamily with rose.
Speaker 2 00:33:27 And then, so I guess what’s made the biggest difference so far. Um, you’ve kind of touched on a few different themes. So one is really being proactive in Korea management to be open, to try to find things out, whether it’s moving from one city to the next or, uh, taking a step back in one role. And then you also touched on the importance of relationships. So if you had to give advice, what would you say are some of those key important things that everyone absolutely has to do that I’ve made the biggest difference for you?
Speaker 1 00:34:00 One is flexibility. I think that’s been a very big thing for me is flexibility. I’ve had the means to be flexible. I’ve worked in different markets when I was in Texas, I was in so many different markets, just, um, I was utilized in Chicago for some due diligence and some audits. I was utilized in Oklahoma. I lived in Dallas for a quick minute because I was flexible. And that’s what I knew I had to be flexible with. That comes, um, relationship building. I think it’s important to continue having the relationships no matter what position you’re in, whether it’s with leasing agent with, if it’s with the maintenance team. Um, no matter what position you’re in relationships are the most, the single most important thing. Um, and then just know where you want to go be intentional about where you want to go and know what your limits are and know what your skillset is right now.
Speaker 1 00:35:00 I’m working on, um, starting my own management company right over residential. I’ve already got everything in place for that, with my business partner that I was talking about earlier, I’ve got everything set up for rental, residential, but I also came a long way from, as a leasing agent was going to be like, I’m going to start a management company for sure, but I know how that was going to work. So you have to know your skillset, have to know what you’re good at and accept that. And really have mentors that can help you along path. Relationships are one thing, having a mentor or two mentors or three mentors that is definitely a necessity because you can bounce ideas off of people. You can just really, they know you so you can really kind of get, You should be in where you think you need to go and where you wants to go. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:36:50 And I loved how you phrased it earlier, which is really surround yourself with people that are at the next level. So people that you really want to emulate and that’s, what’s going to challenge you. Those are the people that are going to act class mentors and those people that are really going to pull you forward. That’s often
Speaker 1 00:37:08 Informative conversation I’ve ever had really with anybody in the industry. And I was like, what happened? He said some very positive things about me as well. Never seen somebody so passionate about property management. She was like, where do you see yourself going? Like in like, what is your goal? And I told her what a million now is like to own a management company to an owner of a management company. And there’s no fear there. It’s not going to be like, I want to take your job kind of thing, what I want for myself. And this is no I can achieve. And that’s what I’m going to be doing. So that surrounding yourself with people who are a little bit better than you, and you can be honest with it, that’s, that’s going to get you very, very far what you know, and who you know is how you get promotions.
Speaker 2 00:37:57 Nice. And then I’ll just add one more thing. It’s also like, it kind of goes in hand. It’s like, who knows you? I was like, think about it this way. When you are not in the room, you want people to know you exist. It’s why every company does advertisements. It’s like, you drink Coke because they haven’t been advertising for a hundred years. So when of your company, you also wants to make sure that people know who you are.
Speaker 1 00:38:20 Yeah. And I’m curious as you network, the more people are going to be talking about you when you’re not in the room, you don’t want to make an impact. Or
Speaker 2 00:38:31 First step is not a good recommendation. And then I’m curious, I love company names. I’m all for ending. So how did you come up with your company name
Speaker 1 00:38:45 Took me a long time, but I wanted something that was like jazzy and cool. You have like the Alliance in Greystar, which is just such a powerful name. And it’s funny. I, I figured it out when I was at home at my parent’s house in Texas, they live in the country. It’s near Medina lake, Texas. They live out there. They’ve got a few acres. There was just there’s this, this tree that is sitting in their backyard that I’ve seen grow. They’ve been there for 20 years at this point. And I’ve just seen it grow so much. And I asked my parents, my dad, I was like, what kind of trees? It’s like, it’s a red Oak. And I was like, I took a picture of that exact tree in my parents’ backyard. I sent it to one of my friends who does like design. Yeah. It’s important to me to have some kind of like connection to it. And to really just have it be meaningful because I could have obviously called it, you know, anything, call it property company didn’t have any meaning behind it. So rent is very meaningful for me. And you know, there’s a lot of things that are going to happen and I’m excited to see where it goes. And I’m excited to see it launched here in the very near future. We’ll just kind of take it from there.
Speaker 2 00:40:13 I just, I love it. You guys, I feel like for good companies, there’s always a story behind it. For some it’s like super random.
Speaker 1 00:40:25 I’m going to plug the website.com.
Speaker 2 00:40:29 I’m going to ask next, like how you pull, learn more information. Perfect.
Speaker 1 00:40:36 Yeah. I’m on social media at red Oak residential.
Speaker 2 00:40:41 Um, so for that one, like what are you going to focus on?
Speaker 1 00:40:45 Uh, what’s really for that one, I’m going to focus on the slogan and the tagline is uncomplicated property management. I think that’s having been with smaller companies, startup companies, and much bigger companies. There’s a lot of fluff that goes on. Um, a lot of systems, a lot of this, a lot of that and forgetting what the basics are. So for me, as it relates to the resident engagement, as it relates to clients, it’s really about uncomplicating, the entire process companies. A lot of times really focused on residents and resident engagement, which is very, very good, but they forget the employee to like log into 19 differences.
Speaker 1 00:41:29 The owner it’s like, oh, owner number one, you have to log in to this, this system. And of course, institutional clients have their own way of doing things. I get it. But property management, isn’t just for institutional clients that goes to like, I, I manage my own property. That’s still my home. That’s still in Texas. You have people that are now a lot more mobile, but I have real estate that they don’t necessarily want to sell. And they don’t know where to begin with anything as far as managing a property, that’s where red Oak comes in. I like to Uncomplicate things and make it very, very simple, bringing any person who wants to be involved in real estate, property ownership, rental properties specifically. So that’s where I come in with my,
Speaker 2 00:42:14 I love that. And I think it’s so important to point that you just made, which is, uh, us an owner, asset manager or VP or whatever it is. Resident experience is really important. But staff experience is just as important. There’s a very legitimate reason why real estate has such a high turnover rate. It’s a stressful job. It is stressful. And if you have your teams having to log into so many systems manage all of this, it does add to the stress as well too. So allow for you to touch a little bit more on that. So when you think about it, like how should companies think about the staff experience on how that relates to resident experience as a whole?
Speaker 1 00:42:59 That is such a loaded question
Speaker 2 00:43:04 I asked.
Speaker 1 00:43:07 Okay. So let’s touch on, let’s touch on a couple of different things. Um, as this talks about the systems, like, as you said, there’s so many systems, these companies, now it’s Octa where it’s like, oh, you have this one place with all your passwords. That’s great. But we still have all these systems. We have. I think it’s really important to hear your employees actually, let me just, let me take you back a little bit. Let’s start with the resident experience. The resident engagement, obviously that is very, very important. That’s super important. Having residents, engaged residents involved as everybody in property management that was, if we don’t have residents, we don’t have jobs. But on the flip side of that, if you don’t have employees, you don’t have a company, you don’t have happy residents. So I think in the end, it comes down to the associate, listening to the associate, not just saying, oh, you’ve got a work life balance coming to work at this company.
Speaker 1 00:43:59 Stop that like, okay, that’s a work-life balance is very important, but even more important. It’s like actually what’s shifting with employees is like not having to be onsite 40 hours. I think the pandemic has taught us that we don’t have to be onsite 40 hours a week, 40 plus hours a week real estate. It doesn’t just happen between 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. People like to stay nine to five. Let’s get real it’s property management from 8:00 AM to six. It doesn’t happen during that time. Cause a lot of people are doing their own jobs. But I think flexibility with associates schedules when they can come in. That’s another thing being a stickler about coming in at nine o’clock in the morning, somebody shows up at 9 0 5 and they’re like, oh, you’re written up. It’s like, come on. We’re all grown. We’re all adults. We all know how to do our job. If you don’t have to do your job when you’re really hiring wrong, the issue, there’s obviously a ton of trainings like gray cell training, things like that. A lot of that is very important and necessary for insurance requirements for management companies, but stacking on all these trainings, all these trainings, all these trainings, that’s taking away time to perfect. The employee’s craft to allow associates to breathe and be comfortable.
Speaker 2 00:45:22 No, I really loved us point about real estate right now. It is very, the classic model really is the nine to five, nine to six. That’s when peop brought on staff. But again,
Speaker 2 00:45:39 But again, most people, like you said are actually at work. I mean pre pandemic. And um, so then what happens the rest of the time? I think it’s really interesting because I recently read, um, about Avalon bay. Uh, they are currently, uh, piloting or testing out a model with one of the communities where it’s completely self-service. So there’s no one on site. Everything is like completely self-service. So you can think about the future of real estate. Is that something you see, uh, really becoming more prevalent and then what other, um, uh, predictions do you have for what, uh, we have to look forward to in the industry?
Speaker 1 00:46:23 Yeah. For property management. I do see that that’s going to be a thing is more of a self service platform and a more self-service model. Obviously still having that human connection and interaction that’s going to be necessary. But you mentioned you, like, you mentioned not being at the office all the time. What are they going to do outside of that? They’re going to live their life, not our life. I think we all forget that work is not our life. We still have doctor’s appointments during the day. All these things that we could probably get done during the day where you’re stuck sitting at your desk, shopping online, if I’m being real time, running your errands back to back to the future property management. Yeah. I would say it’s everything’s virtual. Everything is going to be a lot of things are going to be self-service. It’s going to be, what does the leasing agent need to come in with me into the apartment and show me around this vacant apartment. I’m not going to steal the apartment.
Speaker 1 00:47:24 So having access and self access to these units outside of a typical nine to five Workday. So people can see units on their own schedule on their own time. Not feel like they’re bombarded by somebody overlooking them. Let’s get real, a lot of consumers. And a lot of future residents still see property managers and sales associates. It’s like used car salesman. That’s a thousand percent not what we are. That’s what a lot of these companies are teaching us not to be. But that’s just still the perception that the public may have property management. So going virtual, um, self-service is going to be the new thing. And it’s going to be even more important now in a post COVID world, because I don’t know releasing agents, Ben, I don’t know where it is. Potential clients been on any kind of waiver you can sign. But if somebody is not being honest with you, then you’re not really can matter. Virtual, virtual self-service and simplicity. I think we forget about the basics when it comes to property management, we like a lot of fluff. We like to be the best, the newest, the shiniest, but in the end, it’s like we forget about the customer experience. We forget about kind of that, that one-on-one time again, whether it’s a virtual person we’re learning now, it doesn’t necessarily have to be face to face in person. It’d be done virtually you and I are leaving different cities.
Speaker 1 00:49:00 Perfect. So we appreciate it, Josh, thanks for your time and have a good one. And I’ll talk to you soon, right?
Speaker 4 00:49:08 Um,
Speaker 1 00:54:34 Be there for them and assist them as somebody who would between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM. If you have an early riser, that’s up at four 30 in the morning and it just works better for them. A big thing. Yeah. That works better for the client. We need to be as managers flexible. So what the client’s needs are. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:54:59 Yeah. That went really well. I really liked a lot of the points that you brought up, especially on my staff experience, especially on building relationships, really making those jumps all over the place, that kind of thing for a lot of people that are still starting out in the industry, they don’t really like, know how to think about Deere, uh, the career and all the things that they need to learn. So I think this was super, super valuable, dude. I am excited to just learn more about the company.
Speaker 1 00:55:26 Awesome. Thank you. I’m excited to launch it. I’m excited to really just hit the ground running. It’s going to be, it’s going to be great. It’s going to be
Speaker 2 00:55:33 Really exciting and congrats.
Speaker 1 00:55:36 Thanks. I appreciate it. What else we got is that it, is that everything?
Speaker 2 00:55:39 Yeah, that’s it. So next step is we have a few more that we are doing and then we’ll do the lunch. Want to do the lunch with at least 10 to 15 or so, but not definitely let you know.
Speaker 1 00:55:53 Yeah. Sydney, all this, once you do some editing, do the launch, you could just send me, um, our conversation just to like promote that. So definitely if you need anything from me in the future, let’s keep in touch for sure. You know, definitely totally connects again.
Speaker 2 00:56:12 And then if you do know anyone else that would be a good guest to have. Please let me know. Looking for people that have really made waves in the industry that can really talk on career development and talk on
Speaker 1 00:56:23 Resident experience, staff experience, and then the future of real estate. Uh, those early on to keep that I’ve got somebody who you can talk to is he’s again, I’ve just talked about it in a couple of times in this podcast, my best friend he’s in Texas right now, he works for it’s called presidium. It’s an ownership group and they do development. So let me ping him, see if he’d be interested in that. I think it would be really good to talk to because he’s had a different trajectory than I have. He wasn’t the manager, he was never a regional manager and now he works on the asset management side, completely different. Let me connect with him and CFPB willing to do that. And I’ll do a quick intro probably via LinkedIn. So the both of you guys.