Beyond Rent: Exploring Property Management
00:23:12 · Nik Boone, S1
[00:23:12] S2: Yep. Yep. No. Totally agree. [00:23:14] S1: So when you had mentioned earlier that you've built a really strong business there, but, you know, most of your residents, most of your owners are big fans of Ascend and what you're doing, but not everybody. Right? But to really build a business long term and to continue to grow, reputation really is important. How have you viewed reputation in your local market, and how have you maintained that? What are the things that you're doing to ensure that Ascend has a good image, out in in the market?
00:23:47 · Nik Boone
[00:23:47] S2: Yeah. I mean, we invest a lot into, feedback. So not only Google reviews, but like, BBB and, you know, Facebook or all this other stuff. I'm big on like nonprofits. I sit on the Chamber of Commerce Board, Mercy Hospital Board here locally, Rotary and College Foundations, and like, just kind of spread across all of Bakersfield and Kern County. And so just kind of, you know, I'm at the point now where I get to like give my time back or give my, you know, give resources back and kind of help people that either need business advice or just practical advice or financial help or like just all these other things. And so, a few things we're doing is, we're going to have a day where we go and we fix elderly veteran houses, cause we have integrated in house maintenance, and so, our trucks and cars roll up over town. So we're gonna have a day where, you know, we wanna fix their smoke detector or things that they just can't do because they're elderly but is a habitability issue that have no affiliation with Ascend. We sponsor two to five families of tenants every year for Christmas. We do like turkey giveaways and you know, we do all sorts of stuff to help the community that I credit as giving me everything. So it's something that I'm now saying, Hey, they've given me everything, it's time to get back and do that.
00:25:21 · S1
[00:25:21] S1: Yeah. That's great. And and I think that is one of the things when you run a property manager company that is in a select area. Right? You're not trying to manage homes two or three states away. You've stayed very local. Is you're able to not only give back to the community in the ways that you are, but you're able to to understand the impact, right, that they've had on you, that they have on your staff. And you even mentioned earlier about overstaffing and maybe overpaying in in certain scenarios because you want your staff to have a good work life balance and a good career and all of these things. And that takes a lot of intentionality. Right? That's playing the long game. That's understanding that when you give, maybe someday you do get back, and and there's this give and take. So I think that's great. And especially around the... You talked about, like, kind of helping elderly people and using your maintenance staff, and it's such a win win proposition there. Right? Because not only are these people getting help with the things that they need, but you are allowing your your staff to feel good about the work that they do and how they're giving back while being paid to give back. But then you said your your trucks. Right? Your vehicles are going around town, and you're getting this good PR along the way. And I know that wasn't the motivation of that, but there is this opportunity for everyone to win and everyone to get recognized and everyone to feel good about what they're doing. It's such a clever way to take the resources you have and apply it in really smart way.
00:26:53 · Nik Boone
[00:26:53] S2: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And it's... We've done a lot of it for many years and a lot of it we never posted and haven't. I've been convinced that now we need to start posting it and kind of showcasing it. So there'll probably be a lot more of that this year. But yeah, I mean, it's just, it's something that I've been gifted this ability to have resources and time and education. You know, when I sit on these boards now, I'm looking at financial documents that I have input that others don't and insights that they don't. And I remember the first couple of times I was like, I thought this was common knowledge and it seems like I'm contributing in a way that I hadn't expected to be able to contribute, which is cool and nice. So yeah, now it's been a really... It's been as rewarding as it has been like helpful. So I think it's been mutually beneficial.
00:27:41 · S1
[00:27:41] S1: Yeah. Well, that's a great takeaway there on its own, this idea that everyone has something to contribute. And sometimes what you think is common knowledge or just normal or maybe not that interesting, others really find valuable and are needed. And everyone has something. Right? Everyone has that something to give, and I think that's important. So, obviously, building a strong reputation in your market helps with your growth. Another thing that's really important to growth is retention. And I love talking about retention because I do think that is a common challenge in the market is retaining units, owners, retaining residents. All of these things are really important to continue that that growth cycle that you have in place. So, how have you approached retention? What has been your history? Are you are you good at retention, or is that something you're still, refining?
00:28:32 · Nik Boone
[00:28:32] S2: We are definitely still refining it. I was talking to somebody else about our percentage, and I can't remember it offhand, but I remember complaining like, This is, you know, we're losing this many doors. And they did a quick like, Here's the percentage of retention you have. And they're like, This is twice as good as industry standard. You're retaining a ton of people. I was like, It does not feel that way. It feels like we're constantly, you know, and I would say most of the time, like I would say 80% or more of the time, it's things that we didn't do wrong. They want to sell their house, they want a family member to move back into their house, they, you know, very, very seldom is it, We don't like your company, we want to go with somebody else. It does happen and that's heavily like, my manager, we have this big oversight of like, What's going on? And most of the time we know well in advance like, Oh yeah, this has been going on. But most of the time it's something where, you know, am I going to convince somebody to not sell their investment? Probably not, you know. So we'll do what we can and make it easy, but yeah, it's, we lose roughly seven units per month, so eighty-eighty five units a year, which is a lot. And we're getting roughly fifteen-twenty units a month. So we're positive month over month and we're growing, but I had to dedicate somebody specifically for cancellations because for a long time I was like, Well they're canceling. They don't need top grade service, they're on their way out the door. And so we've changed that and we've like, you know, from start to finish, even if the relationship is strained, like you're getting top notch all the way until we hand you the keys and you're out the door. And we have had people leave, go to other places, and then come back after their contract ends and say, Hey, we're happy to come back. Like, we totally... We didn't have any other experience. Now we do. Please let us back in. And we're like, Yeah, of course. So.