Peter Lohmann's Podcast
00:56:15 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:56:15] S0: Love that. And it's, you know, it's very clear. If you go on your website and you look at your team, you know, more than half of the team members, you would expect, like, property manager or director meetings, whatever, but they say wealth adviser. And I imagine that helps you in your conversations with owners, helps the owners zoom out from the day to day toilet clog repair cost and understand that you're helping them build long term wealth. Let's look at this on a twenty year time horizon, not just this this month's statement. So I... I'm really into that approach. I think that's... It takes it a step further. Like, we all talk about asset management, but it's really taken it a step further, and you're... You found a way to sort of remind owners in a subtle way that there's more going on here than just, you know, collecting the rent. [00:57:03] S1: Right. We also have the AppFolio investor manager tool. Mhmm. And so that software, if the owner chooses to have us handle the asset management, we migrate them from that AppFolio property manager to the investor tool so that they're seeing a high... Higher level view of their investment and not getting those day to day notices or owner packets because they're trusting us to handle that part and they're looking at... We're moving them from property owner to property investor. [00:57:37] S0: Okay. I'm super into that. And tell me a little more about that. What do you handle for them, for those owners that you don't for your normal clients? And then how do you... Do you charge them differently? Or
00:57:37 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:57:37] S0: Okay. I'm super into that. And tell me a little more about that. What do you handle for them, for those owners that you don't for your normal clients? And then how do you... Do you charge them differently? Or [00:57:48] S1: Yeah. So there is an add on percentage for handling the asset management side, and then that would include things like paying the mortgage, the taxes, the insurance, helping them get their tax... The information pulled together for taxes, making sure that they're... Have the proper LLCs set up. If it's time to refinance and pull the money out, what are how are we going to do that to leverage more properties? How what kind of return on equity are you getting? So we're diving into a more investor focused side of the process. And because anybody who owns a property is going to have to go home and do bookkeeping. They're going to have to pay the taxes. They're going to have to find insurance. And so we provide the resource to take those steps off their plate. And a lot of owners when they come in don't even understand that like, wow, there's a lot to do, even as an owner outside of the property management side that they may just take for granted and feel like they can either do it on their own or have been doing it correctly. And I try to show them that there is another way to outsource those components as well and let somebody who's been doing it for a long time help you make better decisions.
00:57:48 · Matt Luke, Peter Lohmann
[00:57:48] S1: Yeah. So there is an add on percentage for handling the asset management side, and then that would include things like paying the mortgage, the taxes, the insurance, helping them get their tax... The information pulled together for taxes, making sure that they're... Have the proper LLCs set up. If it's time to refinance and pull the money out, what are how are we going to do that to leverage more properties? How what kind of return on equity are you getting? So we're diving into a more investor focused side of the process. And because anybody who owns a property is going to have to go home and do bookkeeping. They're going to have to pay the taxes. They're going to have to find insurance. And so we provide the resource to take those steps off their plate. And a lot of owners when they come in don't even understand that like, wow, there's a lot to do, even as an owner outside of the property management side that they may just take for granted and feel like they can either do it on their own or have been doing it correctly. And I try to show them that there is another way to outsource those components as well and let somebody who's been doing it for a long time help you make better decisions. [00:58:56] S0: Wow. So did you say that the... These owners who migrate to the asset management, you said they're not getting, like, the monthly packet? [00:59:04] S1: Correct. Yep. They go just to the AppFolio investor software. [00:59:08] S0: So let me get this straight. You're making more money for doing less work, basically. [00:59:14] S1: Sort of.
00:59:14 · Matt Luke, Peter Lohmann
[00:59:14] S1: Sort of. [00:59:14] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Because Yeah. Those own... You know, you're not calling them for every little maintenance thing. They're not getting the monthly packet. [00:59:20] S1: Right. [00:59:20] S0: You're taking care of the stuff they mess up anyway, like the insurance and the taxes and the, you know, mortgage stuff. You're handling all of the accounting so you can deliver to them, like, a complete accounting package. You're probably handling, like, all of the CapEx, depreciation schedules, and all of that. Oh, this is great. I love this. Because this is all the stuff you're getting questions about anyway, so you might as well just handle it for them. You know it's done right. They're happier, and you get paid more. Mhmm.
00:59:49 · Matt Luke
[00:59:49] S1: Give you one example. So we had a client come in that had a fourplex, and they were probably purchased it at the wrong price, but struggling to get the units maintained, had a previous property management company that was not good. And when they switched to us, they were in the hole several thousands doll... Dollars, took a home equity line of credit on their house to pay off the bills, and they still had two units that weren't flipped and ready for the next tenant. So as an example, what we did for this particular client is we offered to provide that asset management and find an investor to pay off their debt, get the units rented, and we took equity in the property. The investor took equity in the property, and the owner was able to wipe off the debt, get the two units rented, and then create a cash flowing property. So then we moved them from the... Just the property management side to the asset side, so we're handling everything. Yeah. So not only did they get out of debt, they also took some of that burden off of making those higher level decisions that probably wasn't their best skill set.
01:00:56 · Peter Lohmann
[01:00:56] S0: Yeah. This is so cool. And I love the... I've never heard anyone articulate this motion of moving property management clients from AppFolio to the AppFolio asset management side of things as a way to clearly delineate, like, these are asset management customers, and these are just our property management customers. I need to introduce you to Mark Brower if you don't already know him because he's thinking along very similar lines, and I think he would be fascinated. I'll make sure he listens to this episode about some of this concrete steps that you've done because he's very big on... And he he and I have had some fun kind of public debates and discussions about what what is our responsibility to these property owners to help them think more like investors? How do we get them to be more long term in their thinking? How do we build the stamina to help them weather the year? Because there is gonna be an occasional bad year. Right? Right. How do we get them through that? Because the real returns only come in year seven, eight, nine, 10 plus. And so we have to try to help them get to that.