Navigating Oregon’s Property Laws: Essential Tips for Success

Dylan Silver (00:00.687)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and today on the show I have Mike Gamble out of Oregon. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Gamble (00:13.238)
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to see what it’s all about.

Dylan Silver (00:16.697)
I always like to start off at the top of the show by asking folks how they got into the real estate space.

Mike Gamble (00:24.086)
Yeah, after the 2008 debacle, I needed a job and had a buddy who was in property management and I thought, well, I could probably do that too. And that’s it. I had owned rentals previously, but I didn’t really have a, it wasn’t a lifelong dream or anything to be in property management, but it’s done very well for us.

Dylan Silver (00:48.729)
And so, property management, this is 2009 timeframe, what was that like? Was this a lot of people who had vacant properties or was this a lot of people who had people who weren’t paying? What was it like back then?

Mike Gamble (01:00.982)
Yeah, I mean, you’ve got different kinds of clients as owners. You have people who are long-term landlords who’ve owned properties for generations and the ebbs and flows of the market don’t really affect them as much. And then we had a lot of what I would call accidental landlords who had a house and couldn’t sell it and then put it on the rental market because that was a of a weird time in our history for real estate.

And in that particular time frame, you really had to pay attention to make sure that your property owner was paying their mortgage, because obviously we had a huge foreclosure crisis. So it put some different challenges on us, but I think it gave us a good base and we grew very well as a company and made it through that.

Dylan Silver (01:50.929)
So in getting into the the property management space at the really peak of mayhem must have been an interesting Time to get in there you had of course previous experience as an investor So that the passion was there getting into managing other people’s properties was this totally new to you had you done it before?

Mike Gamble (02:11.989)
No, it was completely new. Like I said, I just needed a job. I worked for a company before that basically because of the financial crisis in 2008 was not in good financial position. So I left that company and needed something to do and property management ended up being it. So we started our company and have taken off from there.

Dylan Silver (02:34.287)
And so let’s talk about scaling a business in the property management space. I’ve had a couple folks on here who do a lot of short-term rental management, but this is a different time, right? So these weren’t short-term rentals I’m imagining, right? So what was it like in that space, and how did you find additional clients? Was it a lot of people who were coming to you, or was it you had to do a lot of outreach, friends of friends, or was it you had lots of people coming to you?

Mike Gamble (03:01.037)
Yeah, I mean, in the beginning, you’re, you know, you, I didn’t know how I didn’t even know how to go get a new client. I’d always worked for other companies. And, and things like Facebook and, and, you know, tick tock didn’t exist. And YouTube was, they didn’t use those advertising platforms. So I mean, it was literally flyers. And for a while, I would actually, I’d go to the courthouse on eviction day, and I would fit through evictions. And then when the owner got done with the eviction,

I knew he had an empty house and didn’t know what to do with it. And so I’d go talk to that guy and say, hey, you want me to help you with the turnover process and I can help you with the accounting for your previous tenant and I can help you get a new tenant. And so that was just kind of guerrilla marketing right there. Or if you saw a for rent sign in the front yard and a lot of times you have those handwritten scribbled for rent signs out there and I’d call the number and say, you want to let me do this and.

It was a slow process at first. I got my first client and was living on about $75 a month for the first couple of months. But it kind of snowballs after a while. You get a few clients who trust you and then they start telling other people about you and you get some momentum.

Dylan Silver (04:19.621)
That’s how it starts. The courthouse steps, I can relate to that because as a wholesaler, I’ve been somewhat passionate about going to the auction day in Texas. It’s Texas Tuesday. We kind of call it auction day or Texas Tuesday. The first Tuesday of every month at the county courthouse steps. And it’s very interesting because I mean, how many times are we seeing public auctions, you know, going on in today’s society? And so they, of course, have a digital element to it, but

very much public auction see you see a lot of the same people you see a lot of the same faces and i never thought about it from the other way of all had this person

in the eviction sense is losing a tenant. So now it’s an unoccupied building and now they have to figure out what to do with it. Are they gonna sell it? Are they gonna find another tenant? It’s kind of a headache if they’re not doing this full time. Now it’s a burden to them. And so you came in and said, let me solve a problem here. Were there a lot of people that were doing that or did you kind of come up with this strategy on your own?

Mike Gamble (05:22.443)
No, I was the only one there. of fact, I went to the eviction court in our area. It can happen every day. And so I went to eviction court for two or three months in a row. And at one point, the judge is like, why are you here? Because you’re not on the docket. You don’t have a case. And I just said, I’m just here to learn. Because I was new to the industry and didn’t know the ins and outs necessarily. And I knew this was part of the process. And so it was free education just to sit in there and.

understand how to approach a judge and understand the verbiage and terminology that can sometimes be scary for different people. And so I would just absorb that. And then when a guy, you know, won an eviction case or loss and he walked out of the courtroom, I’d follow him out and hand him my card and say, you know, I mean, you know, I guess in some ways it’s kind of ambulance chasing a little bit, but, but I needed clients and those were clients I knew, you know, it’s hard to, you know, and when you’re in such a specific space, I’m not selling cheeseburgers.

Dylan Silver (05:57.904)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (06:20.939)
Everybody wants, know, everybody needs a cheeseburger a couple times a week. But I need somebody who owns a rental property, who is tired of doing it, who’s frustrated. And where else can you find those? And I thought eviction court’s a great place.

Dylan Silver (06:32.314)
Yeah.

What an innovative strategy. I’d like to think that everybody who has been doing real estate and is a real estate operator for more than five years is able to adapt. So when I hear a strategy like this, go to an eviction hearing, see the person who won or lost, hand them your card, strike up a conversation, I’m like, that’s really thinking outside the box. Even the judge is like, what are you doing here? And so, you know, these really kind of get the creative juices flowing for me and my business.

Scaling from there, so you had 2009, 2010, 2011, things are getting a little bit better. What’s the business like? How are you finding clients? How does it grow? How does it scale?

Mike Gamble (07:17.352)
Yeah, once you get a little bit of momentum and you kind of find out, you’re jumping into a new space. I didn’t have any experience in professional property management, so I didn’t know where to go to get a client. We start learning, you go to networking events, need to decide, you figure out which ones are worth it, which ones are not worth it, which ones are worth your time, offering clients rebates or discounts if they refer you. And then you kind of get to a space after a few years where you have a reputation and

it just sort of does it on its own. Now, we of course still advertise and do marketing and all those things, but our best referral comes from another one of our clients. That’s the best way to get a new client, all the other hurdles are already taken down. You’re just, so-and-so said, I should use you. Where do I sign? That’s the best one.

Dylan Silver (07:59.941)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:10.897)
that point, Mike, was there a lot of property management across state lines? I see a lot of this now, but this is a different time, right? So was there a lot of people who were doing it across state lines? Or was it really, you know, you have to be where you’re at?

Mike Gamble (08:27.465)
Yeah, well, there’s definitely a lot more across state lines now and you’ve got, you know, lot of huge companies who are coming in and kind of gobbling up the small guys. Back then, no, not so much. And Oregon specifically, you have to be licensed in Oregon. You know, there’s other states like Idaho, you don’t have to have a license as far as I know. Or and some licenses will cross state lines. Oregon is very, very specific about their licensing. So when a new

Dylan Silver (08:42.897)
Mmm.

Dylan Silver (08:46.928)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (08:54.59)
company comes in and they start buying up smaller companies, have to have a representative here in the state. can’t just exist here.

Dylan Silver (09:01.935)
So the license, it’s a real estate license.

Mike Gamble (09:04.359)
It’s a property management license. I’m licensed through the real estate agency and it’s one of the licenses they offer.

Dylan Silver (09:06.137)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (09:14.041)
This is very interesting. So it’s actually a little different to my understanding in Texas. So we were going through, I’m a new agent, licensed about two months. We were going through our real estate agent course. One of the things they’re talking about is property management. You need to be a licensed real estate agent in Texas to be a property manager. There’s probably additional certifications that would look good and would help, but I was thinking, wow, there’s all these different ways for someone to be an effective operator in the real estate space. So.

scaling your pivoting back here here Mike so scaling your business you know you’re taking off you really put in the grind those first couple years really tough time to be involved in real estate for a lot of people at any point in time was there a pivot moment or a pivot point in the business where things really started to take off or where you adopted a different strategy along those lines

Mike Gamble (10:06.011)
Yeah, I think when you get to a point when you can let your bad clients go, it was a huge difference for us. We spent 90 % of our time on 10 % of our clients. And when we kind of looked at it said, what could we do if we just didn’t have these 10 %? And it was hard because we needed the funds. We still weren’t at a point where we had additional funds. But when you can let your first client go.

Dylan Silver (10:26.575)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (10:34.343)
you to say I don’t want to work with you anymore for this reason or that reason. It’s free and it is really it really I mean it’s a weight off your shoulders to not have that person you know that’s absurd you know expectations or whatever or and no boundaries to tell them that they you know they don’t they don’t have any control over you anymore. It’s a huge weight and just it allows freedom to do other things and when I bring on a new client now

They’re interviewing me, but I’m interviewing them too. And at this point, we’re at a point now where I’m turning down 40 or 50 % of the people who walk through the door because there’s not going to be a good fit. And we set the right expectation upfront. And if we’re not going to meet each other’s expectations, I don’t want to just fight them for first six months. I’m like, we’re just not a good fit. And here’s a list of people that I recommend go out and give a try to.

Dylan Silver (11:27.641)
Mike, know, there’s been a lot of change for what real estate investors can do, right? So of course, Airbnb is the biggest one that I see as far as management. I’ve had a lot of people who do the Airbnb management for other folks in their state, across states. I’ve even seen international. Was this a shift that you saw and you said, well, this is kind of like a tidal wave. There’s a lot of people who are getting into this Airbnb management. Did you get into that yourself?

Mike Gamble (11:55.866)
No, we never got into the short-term management. It’s almost a completely different business. With short-term management, with those spaces, you’re creating escapes for people a lot of times. You’re creating these little miniature spa situations. You see on the Airbnb, very specific.

Dylan Silver (12:04.751)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (12:21.393)
themes and whatnot and we’re renting people’s homes and it’s just a different space. The other thing that to think about with Airbnb, our workload is very front and back loaded in that we do a lot of work to get people in and a lot of work to get people out. And in the middle, there’s management for sure. You’re doing inspections and you’re collecting rent and you’re doing notices, but with Airbnb, I’ve always looked at it and said, man, that is…

Dylan Silver (12:22.395)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:41.499)
Right.

Mike Gamble (12:50.394)
the heaviest load over and over and over again. And you could charge a fee to make it work for you. But the other thing I’ve always learned is you can’t be everything to everybody. get in, know your space, be an expert in your space. And anytime I’ve ever tried to be everything to everybody, I haven’t done very good at it. so we kind of stay in our lane. We do residential property management long-term. And there’s…

companies out there who do a great job with Airbnb and I let them do that.

Dylan Silver (13:24.881)
our rooster just went off in the background. if our listeners could hear that, but there’s, know, I’d say a huge opportunity for folks now more than ever to offload a lot of the work of managing a single family, right? If they’re renting it out, they have lots of different options to go to. think client acquisition and scaling a business in this space is now probably more competitive than ever, right? You talk about people going across state lines and larger companies.

stepping into the space. Are you seeing right now that when maybe a newer investor has a single family home that they would like someone else to manage, are they doing what everyone else is doing and going online and doing a Google search? Or are they trying to go to their network through word of mouth and see what they can do to find someone to manage the property?

Mike Gamble (14:14.278)
Yeah, a little bit of both. mean, Google’s king. We all know that, right? I mean, it is what it is. But they’re talking with a realtor or different contacts in our space, a realtor and property manager, different things. But Google’s king. They’re always driving traffic. And that’s, I think, how most people find us. And we put resources and effort towards Google and social media and different things.

I would say most people are just going online or hopping on their phone and finding the property manager near me.

Dylan Silver (14:51.873)
Yeah, I I think about the different ways where people are spending money. It’s interesting because when I have these conversations, I think about, how is the advertising working for this avatar, for this vertical? Because I think about what I’m doing with trying to acquire off-market distressed real estate. And there’s people who spend tons of money on direct mail. And I’m like, well, that must work because they’re spending so much money every single month sending out mailers to people, cash off on your home, you know.

It’s amazing these different avenues that work, I imagine that the Google has got to be probably the best driver of traffic to you.

Mike Gamble (15:31.27)
Yeah, we did a direct mailing campaign and it was pretty successful. Very small percentage return, but it’s inexpensive overall when you talk about per piece. It’s interesting, the mailing campaign, we pay in our company to manage it, but we had these, our math got to Bigfoot, and so we had 12 postcards and they would go out and you’d get one a quarter if you were on our list, and then it would shift. So it would take you basically four years to get all 12 postcards, because it would shift it.

Dylan Silver (15:39.471)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (16:00.525)
One year you got the January one, the next year you got the February one. But it was amazing. We did get some return on it. We actually had more people call to tell us to take us off the mailing list. And I thought in my head, how much time must you have in your life? I don’t call Domino’s and be like, I don’t eat your pizza, take me off the mailing list. And the postcards were kind of cool. They all had a Bigfoot and a theme and the, you know.

I had some owners who come in and look, I’ve collected all 12. They thought maybe they got a prize or something. the mailers were great, but almost as much effort went into taking people off the mailing list as we received in clients.

Dylan Silver (16:43.161)
I didn’t realize that people were ever gonna, I’ve never once thought about taking me off the mailing list. That’s an interesting one. With sending out mailers, without giving away all the game, Mike, but maybe a gold nugget here, if someone is a property manager, they’re sending out mailers, are you looking for absentee owners? So someone who’s the owner but not living there and that’s how you’re finding records to send out to people?

Mike Gamble (17:12.037)
Yeah, well, it’s funny you mentioned, you know, without giving away the whole game, I’ve always had the approach. There’s plenty of business to go around and I’ll tell you all my secrets because come and get it. You know what mean? So if you’re doing you’re doing good in the space, then then you’re fine. I mean, but yeah, so we can go through, you know, a mailing list and you you can buy a list where that person gets, you know, an owner owns more than two addresses and gets the taxes sent to another address, which would which would essentially mean, OK, they have a

Dylan Silver (17:19.653)
Here we go. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:38.705)
Mmm.

Mike Gamble (17:41.828)
They have two properties in this region, zip codes or whatever. You can break it down a lot of ways. And that would mean either they have a home for sale currently or they have a rental or something where they own two addresses. And I would say it’s probably about 70 % effective hitting the right crowd. instead of mailing out 200,000 mailers, we’re mailing out 6,000 mailers. And they’re pretty specific.

Dylan Silver (18:08.305)
Sure. Now, I’m not too familiar pivoting a bit here, Mike, with the ins and outs of Oregon real estate law. And I’m not an attorney, so really, can’t even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to. one of the interesting things that I think people think about as real estate investors in Texas, we kind of think selfishly, we’ve got the best real estate market in the country. If you’re a single family investor and you’re in, you know, DFW Metroplex, like

we’ve got it better than anybody else. But I’ve had lots of conversations with people all across the country in places like Detroit, know, places like the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama.

You know, and it’s got me thinking like there’s all these there’s all these niche markets that you know, I haven’t looked at that maybe I should look at if someone is looking to to buy property in Oregon, is it favorable in many in many ways, at least in your perspective to to landlords?

Mike Gamble (19:10.724)
Yeah, I think so, but it’s going to be a little different. Oregon’s a very, you know, they’re very tenant sensitive and there’s a lot of laws in place to protect tenants. And so you get a, an owner of coming from Texas or Alabama buys in Oregon. They’re, they’re in for a shock, you know, when they go to try and do anything. So, but we help people navigate that. Those laws in reality do, do drive rental prices up because they make it harder for landlords. And so.

Dylan Silver (19:29.648)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (19:39.587)
So you are getting a good return and we’ve seen rents appreciate very very very quickly specifically in Eugene and Springfield, but all through Oregon But when you when you look at you know, I look at some stuff in the Midwest and buy a place in Iowa your cash flowing a thousand dollars a month That’s that’s difficult here. So you’re you’re into it You know, you’re into it for the long term. You’re into it for long term here. A lot of people, you know, they come

Dylan Silver (20:03.129)
Yeah, that’s pretty impressive.

Mike Gamble (20:09.293)
to Oregon, this is where they want to live. People buy a lot of rentals here because they’re going to retire here in 10 years. And they’re buying something here now so they can get it at a price and then they want to move into that house in 10 years or wherever. We do get some California investors because we are a little less expensive than San Francisco market. But I wouldn’t say there’s not this widespread bargains or anything in the area.

Dylan Silver (20:15.633)
Hmm.

Dylan Silver (20:30.245)
Yeah.

Mike Gamble (20:39.202)
Those numbers have come back a little bit post COVID, but I would say there’s a bit of a premium here in the state when you’re buying real estate.

Dylan Silver (20:49.635)
Are there any, I’m not sure exactly how much this is within your purview here, but are there any major areas of Oregon which are really great investment opportunities for single family investors? If I’m looking at, I might move to Oregon potentially, and I kinda wanna set up my home base, are there any areas that you’ve seen be lucrative?

Mike Gamble (21:14.337)
Well, I’d say every area has got its pros and cons. We do have a couple of areas that are a little more restrictive on owners. The Eugene market and Portland market, they do have their own guidelines on top of national and state laws. have their own specific things that do make it a little more challenging for rental property owners. That can be seen as an opportunity sometimes because other rental owners are getting out of the market.

Dylan Silver (21:40.177)
Hmm.

Mike Gamble (21:43.939)
When there’s less rentals available again, the prices go up but when I’m when I look at a When I look at a rental property in general to purchase I want to make sure you know, I look at what are the what are the local municipality laws and everything? What’s what are my restrictions as far as an owner? How favorable, you know, how favorable is that market and and then you break it down into even like well, okay What are the taxes in this area? What are?

What are HOA fees? What’s the vacancy rate? I can’t sit here and say there’s a specific hot bed necessarily, widespread in Oregon, but our market’s really, really strong and our vacancy rate’s very, very low, just kind of across the board. And we still have investors coming in every day.

Dylan Silver (22:34.723)
Mike, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Mike Gamble (22:39.958)
Yeah, so we manage properties in Eugene and Springfield, Crestwell and Cottage Grove, and then also down in Southern Oregon, Medford, Grants Pass, Central Point, and they can go to NorthwoodsPM.com and all the information is on there about us and our company, and then you can reach out to your local property manager right there from the website, or you can fill out, there’s a form you can fill out and then one of us will reach back out to you.

Dylan Silver (23:07.631)
Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Mike Gamble (23:11.443)
Absolutely, it’s been fun. Thanks for having me.