Peter Lohmann's Podcast
00:45:44 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:45:44] S0: Yeah. [00:45:45] S1: So if an owner doesn't wanna keep up with their property, we'll do our best to explain it to them. But if they fizzle out, that's okay. [00:45:53] S0: Okay. The theme I'm really getting from this conversation... I mean, obviously, like, the automation and AI stuff is really exciting, but the other theme I'm pulling out is heavy partnership relationships where a lot of things that a lot of property managers are doing in house, you are relying on third party vendors, trusted partner vendors, like your eviction group, like this turn, contractor, the tenant screening, like, you're you're like, great. You're good at this. I'm gonna deliver the whole thing. In fact, can you also do this? Can you do this? Can you do this, please? Mhmm. And you're happy to pay for it and just get it out of the theoretical four walls that don't actually exist of your business and onto somebody else's area of responsibility. [00:46:42] S1: Yeah. You're exactly right. Even, like, the application screening process, the level of detail that the company I use to follow-up with applications is much more detailed than I would do it on my own. Yeah. So to pay someone to do it, I either paying myself and utilizing my time, which I find to be worth more per hour than what I'm paying them.
00:46:42 · Matt Luke, Peter Lohmann
[00:46:42] S1: Yeah. You're exactly right. Even, like, the application screening process, the level of detail that the company I use to follow-up with applications is much more detailed than I would do it on my own. Yeah. So to pay someone to do it, I either paying myself and utilizing my time, which I find to be worth more per hour than what I'm paying them. [00:47:04] S0: Yeah. Yeah. I think that mindset you just articulated, which is, like, you place a high value on your own time. You place... Like, I'm not gonna ask you to give a number, but my guess is you have an hourly rate in your mind of what your time's worth. 200. Okay. I would argue it's actually much higher than that, like, of zero. And anything that you can accomplish for a lower hourly rate than that, you do it. So, like, for example, tenant screening, you probably estimate it would take you an hour or two to screen a tenant Mhmm. Fully, you know, in a in a detailed way, including time to, you know, do landlord verification and all that stuff. And you're like, well, hey. If this company can do it for $75, that's way cheaper than my time if I were to do it, so I'm gonna do it.
00:47:04 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:47:04] S0: Yeah. Yeah. I think that mindset you just articulated, which is, like, you place a high value on your own time. You place... Like, I'm not gonna ask you to give a number, but my guess is you have an hourly rate in your mind of what your time's worth. 200. Okay. I would argue it's actually much higher than that, like, of zero. And anything that you can accomplish for a lower hourly rate than that, you do it. So, like, for example, tenant screening, you probably estimate it would take you an hour or two to screen a tenant Mhmm. Fully, you know, in a in a detailed way, including time to, you know, do landlord verification and all that stuff. And you're like, well, hey. If this company can do it for $75, that's way cheaper than my time if I were to do it, so I'm gonna do it. [00:47:50] S1: Mhmm. You're exactly right. And the first stage of that when I was growing was the maintenance side. When I was first building real estate, my wife and I did a lot of the cleaning and painting ourselves and it's a big step to say, You know what? We're ready to let somebody else do that. Yeah. And that was probably the first time where we made a real change in the business that we have to spend our time building the business and not working in it.
00:48:18 · Peter Lohmann
[00:48:18] S0: Yeah. That mindset shift of my time is worth more than $20 an hour. My time is worth more than $40 an hour. My time is worth more than a $100 an hour is, in my experience, not easy and not a natural thing that just happens automatically. It's something you have to either work at it or have a mentor or have somebody who's kinda pushing you. Like, for me, that was my business partner. My business partner, for whatever reason, was born with a high intrinsic understanding of his hourly rate. And he's like, you and I, Peter, are... We have we have engineering degrees. We're smart. We need to not be doing this. We need to not be doing this. We need to charge this for that. And I was always like, woah. Like, this... I don't know. I mean, I I was more conservative than him, but I really got from him this mindset of my time is worth a lot. And if something's a lower hourly rate than my time, then I'm gonna have this other person do it Mhmm. Or this other company or whatever. So I think it's great that you brought that, and it's clear. I mean, this is what happens when you fully internalize that mindset. You end up figuring out a way to build a big, relatively large company, not relatively large, but, like, more than just a 100 doors with no employees, with automations, and with all these other things, and you end up with a super high profit margin.
00:49:42 · Matt Luke, Peter Lohmann
[00:49:42] S1: Right. So I'll give you an example of that. Some some people, like you said, don't understand that. I also move that into my personal time, so things that I have to do at home. Yep. I also outsource a lot at home again, which people don't always understand. But because I do that, I'm able to spend every weekend in the summer at our lake cabin and enjoy time with friends and family. And what's that worth per hour? You can't really put a price tag on [00:50:07] S0: it. Totally. [00:50:08] S1: And I'll give you one example. I was on the pontoon, and a tenant called in with a water heater issue. Max took the phone call, property meld, sent the vendor a message. The vendor called the tenant before the tenant was upstairs out of the basement checking his water heater and had it... Had the work order scheduled, I didn't even know it happened. [00:50:36] S0: Wow. I love that. All these vendors that are getting a shout out on this episode are just cheering right now. They're just like, this is exactly what we want for our our customers. Right? It's great. Okay. How about when the tenant is gonna go move in? So keys, security deposit, how do you get them access to the property, all of that stuff?
00:50:36 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:50:36] S0: Wow. I love that. All these vendors that are getting a shout out on this episode are just cheering right now. They're just like, this is exactly what we want for our our customers. Right? It's great. Okay. How about when the tenant is gonna go move in? So keys, security deposit, how do you get them access to the property, all of that stuff? [00:50:57] S1: Sure. So as soon as a tenant signs a lease, then it triggers a process in LeadSimple. And this process I've been tweaking, I still tweak because I want to provide the tenants with the least amount of information because it's overwhelming when someone needs to move in. There's a lot going on, but try my best to answer as many questions as possible. So I've continually tweaked this. If there's a new question that pops up, I'll try to sneak it into a text or email in the process between the time they sign the lease and before they move in. And we use tools to help them set up their utilities. We use Obligo as a deposit waiver program through AppFolio, so that's an option. And they're emailed all of this information or send a text through the move in process. We also then remind them we've taken photos prior to them coming in and we send them a link to sign the photo inspection before they move in. And then every property has a lockbox. So we give Like a permanent lockbox? A permanent lockbox mounted on the house. And then we give them a code to that lockbox so they can access the property on their move in day. [00:52:12] S0: Got it. So this is a touchless move in process. Mhmm. [00:52:16] S1: Correct.