Top Property Management Mistakes Investors Make (And How to Avoid Them)

Mike Hambright (00:33)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Excited to have you here today. Excited to have my good buddy Spencer Sutton.

From Evernest they manage about 20,000 doors and today we’re going to be talking about a lot of the mistakes that people make with their property management and with rental properties and everybody’s doing this to try to build wealth to try to build legacy and Sometimes what they get is something less than what they expected and there’s a lot of reasons why so we’re going to talk about those things today and the context here is like Learn from this and don’t make these mistakes and if you’ve already made them, you know You want to learn from those mistakes and move forward as well. So

It’s gonna be a great show. Spencer, glad to have you here, Yeah.

Spencer Sutton (01:11)
Mike, thanks for having me. I’m excited.

Mike Hambright (01:14)
Yeah, yeah, you’ve got a wealth of knowledge, ⁓ you know, managing that many doors and having, I know it started at humble beginnings and lots of lessons learned on leadership and probably, you know, we always talk about like what not to do, but those are the best lessons is like what you did wrong versus what you did right. Because when you do it right, you don’t really learn from it. You just think you have this innate like talent, but when you learn wrong, you’re forced to kind of reevaluate it, I guess.

Spencer Sutton (01:41)
That’s

kind of, I’ll say that’s kind of a little bit in my story, Mike. When I started buying real estate in 2003, I bought a HomeVestors franchise and it was like, it was almost like you could do no wrong, right? And so you weren’t really evaluating, hey, what are the right things to do versus the wrong things to do? It’s just like everything was working and we were wholesaling a ton of houses. I kept some for rentals, about 30 properties. But then in 2007 and 2008,

things changed and that’s when we started going, huh, I think Warren Buffett talks about, you don’t know who’s ⁓ wearing shorts until the tide goes out or something like that. In other words, when the tide went out and the market imploded, you found out who was doing the right things and who wasn’t. So I’ve made a lot of mistakes that I even teach people that they should like, I want to warn them, like don’t make the same mistakes I made. And when you’re in a really good market, it’s easy to cover some of those sins, but ⁓ ultimately,

Mike Hambright (02:17)
Yeah.

Spencer Sutton (02:38)
They won’t work out for you in the end.

Mike Hambright (02:41)
Yeah, and what the truth is is, you’ve been in the business a long time. I’ve been in the business a relatively long time now, and we know people that have been doing it even longer, right? And so that’s where all the wisdom is. Like they’ve been up and down in a few markets. They’ve touched a lot of hot stoves and they just kind of learn like there’s wisdom there so that when you’re in a down market like you’re in now, it creates a lot of opportunity because you kind of know what tools to pull out, right?

Spencer Sutton (02:50)
Mm-hmm.

That’s right. And people would rather avoid pain than move to pleasure, which is why these types of topics are, you people tend to perk up because they, if they can avoid some pain in the future, it’s, ⁓ they definitely want to do that.

Mike Hambright (03:22)
Yeah, yeah. So you want to share a little bit more about your background there? ⁓

Spencer Sutton (03:28)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. So I started again, I bought a home Vestor franchise with a buddy of mine in 2003 and we were, you know, we’re probably spending $5,000 a month in advertising between five and $7,500 a month in advertising. These were all billboards back in the day and we were getting around a hundred phone calls a month. So lead volume was not a problem. And really the issue was it was like shooting fish in a barrel. We would

We disqualified a vast majority of those just on the phone, just having a conversation. But then we probably made offers on 20 to 30 houses every month and ended up buying four five every month. Because our offers were super deep and we were wholesaling most of those. But we started holding some for rentals. And unfortunately, this is a mistake I made, was I was holding things that I couldn’t wholesale.

And so those don’t tend to make the best rental properties and the ones that you can’t sell. I was just like, hey, I’ll stick it in my rental portfolio. so a rental by default is not the way you want to go. It was just really overflow of stuff. And so I ended up with about 30 rental houses in 2008 when the market came, like the great financial crisis happened and it was brutal. It was a bloodbath.

Mike Hambright (04:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, rental by default is not a good strategy. Yeah.

Spencer Sutton (04:47)
⁓ I had a friend who also owned a home-vestor franchise and his name was Matthew Whitaker and he had been buying houses and wholesaling houses and he and his partners had about 30 rentals. Well, in 2008, we had to make a decision. What are we going to do? What am I going to do? And what was he going to do? And he went and decided to start a property management company and it’s the name of it is Evernest, which is who I’m with right now. And I went and started a nonprofit.

And my nonprofit took me out of the country. I was providing access to clean water in really remote parts of the world. And so I was traveling a whole bunch and I just called Matthew and I said, Hey, Matthew, would you manage my rental houses? Like, I don’t really know any great property managers in Birmingham and I’m in Birmingham, Alabama. And so he said, yeah, sure. And so he started the company with 30 rentals. Then I gave him my 30.

And I stepped out of my role in about five years from leading this nonprofit and just started talking to Matthew and he’s like, man, why don’t you come and help us get to 25,000 doors under management? And I said, well, how many are you managing right now? And he said, around four 500. I was like, well, you got a long way to go. ⁓ But it was aimed at like, honestly,

Mike Hambright (06:03)
Yeah.

Spencer Sutton (06:07)
I like, I never wanted to be a property manager and I still don’t want to be a property manager. But when he said, Hey, can you help come help us grow? Meaning you’re going to run all of the marketing, all the sales and really craft the message to real estate investors out there and landlords, maybe even accidental landlords, because I know who those people, because I am one of those people. And so I said, yeah, I think that sounds like a really big challenge. And so in 2014, I signed up and, um, and so now.

We just started growing. were just in Birmingham, Alabama at the time, but now we’re in, I don’t know, almost 50 markets across the country, and we manage around 20,000 doors, and it’s been a wild ride. I just enjoy, one of the things I love doing is talking with real estate investors from all over the country, really all over the world, and helping them understand, hey, what’s a good investment and what’s not a good investment?

Mike Hambright (07:02)
Yeah, yeah. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, because a lot of times, ⁓ you know, people think that, this will make a good rental property, but it really won’t.

It’s not necessarily about cheap houses and we’re gonna get into a whole bunch of stuff here. I don’t wanna steal our thunder, but. ⁓ So I know that a part of it is, know, they say starting with the end in mind, right? Kind of like most people, some people become accidental landlords. I mean, quite frankly, most of the rental properties in America are people that own one. They like inherited it or they.

Spencer Sutton (07:17)
Sure.

Mike Hambright (07:33)
⁓ They moved up and kept their first house and stuff like that, right? And so nothing wrong with that. And if we’re talking more today to like the investors that are getting into rental properties to build wealth, like it’s important to have a vision, right?

Spencer Sutton (07:45)
Yeah, I think so. Vision really, to me, it’s the way I like to look at it is I like to look, okay, where do you want to be in 10 years? Because what we always say is real estate investing, no matter what the gurus say out there, real estate investing is not get rich quick. It’s get rich slow, very slow. income, rental properties are, right? Because you’re not going to be making massive amounts of cashflow. You’re not going to be quitting your W-2 job.

you know, within 12 months. So where do you want to be in 10 years? And then I start backing that down and helping people understand, okay, well, where do you want to be in five years? So what does it look like for the next 12 months? What do you need to be focused on? And so boiling it down to the next 12 months, very actionable quarterly goals. And then from there, what I really like to talk about, Mike, is help people define

the properties that they should be buying. So defining that buy box to me, that’s kind of part of the vision. If I were, if I were just going to buy single family or multifamily over the next 10 years, what type of inventory do I want to have? And I told you already, that was the mistake that I made from the early days was not understanding. That was just kind of rental houses by default. But I think it may have been Steve Jobs that said success is not what you say yes to, it’s everything you say no to.

And why do you want to look at 50 properties and go through all that brain damage when you don’t need to because they don’t fit your buy box? So you really you cut all that stuff out. And so that way you’re able to communicate with your whoever you’re buying from. It could be your wholesaler, could be your turnkey provider, could be an investor friendly agent. And you say, hey, this is the type of property I’m looking for. Don’t bring me anything that doesn’t fit this box. And so for me, it’s a three bedroom, two bath.

maybe 1500 square foot. want something built in 1960 or newer, no pools. I don’t want any white elephants, which are like no train tracks, no busy streets, no funky layout, things like that. And I just want pretty much a cookie cutter house because those are the most popular from a rental standpoint.

Mike Hambright (09:58)
Yeah. And another, I think another myth is like there’s people, it maybe if you’re really, really good at management, but sometimes people buy stuff in the hood. Now, you know, cheap houses like appear that the cashflow is way higher, but as you know, they turn way more, you have way more client issues, right? And so like talk about kind of neighborhood quality that maybe some myths there and some things that people kind of do wrong and learn the hard way sometimes.

Spencer Sutton (10:25)
I talked to a lot of out of state investors. These are people, maybe they’re living in a higher priced market. Maybe they’re living in a Denver or they’re out in California or somewhere and they want to buy ⁓ somewhere in the sunbelt. They want to buy in a super investor friendly market like a Birmingham, like maybe a Chattanooga or a Memphis or Jackson, Mississippi. I am always telling them, I don’t care where you live, you need to come and walk the streets of

proper where you’re going to be buying because if let’s just say a turnkey provider shows you this great looking house and they’ve renovated it and it’s great and you and you’re like wow look at I can get it for really cheap I maybe I can buy it for $80,000 or $100,000 or whatever and it’s gonna rent for $1,000 a month maybe you got the 1 % rule and you’re thinking man this is this doesn’t exist anywhere and where I live and so I want this and then you

fly there and you get in your car and you drive the street and you notice right next to your property that you’re about to buy, there’s a burnout or right next to your property is a vacant lot or right next to your property is a boarded up house that is in complete shambles. Do you want to rent that? Do you want to buy the house? Heck no, you don’t because no good resident is going to want to move in there.

Mike Hambright (11:45)
Yeah.

Spencer Sutton (11:46)
The key is finding the resident that wants to live in that property. And so if you find a house and it’s got a, the neighborhood is just high crime neighborhood, then great residents don’t want to live where it’s dangerous or where there’s opportunity for a lot of maybe vandalism and loitering, that kind of crap. They don’t want any of that. So.

Mike Hambright (12:12)
Yeah,

yeah. It’s kind like when you go to a restaurant and you see a picture of the thing you order and then you actually get it you’re like, this looks nothing like that picture. ⁓

Spencer Sutton (12:19)
This is nothing like, yeah, I can’t tell you how

many like investors have sent me the Google, like a Google picture. And I look at like the picture was taken from Google in 2010. And I’m like, you don’t understand how much can change in this neighborhood from 2010 or 2015 or really 2020. It could just be five years. You don’t know what’s vacant right now. And I can’t tell you, the kind of garbage I have seen people buy. And I already know they’re going to lose.

Mike Hambright (12:30)
All right.

Spencer Sutton (12:48)
every penny that they put into that house. That’s what I’d like to try to help investors avoid.

Mike Hambright (12:54)
Yeah. So for virtual investors, like those that you kind of gave an example there, they live in some far off land. Maybe they live in California and they’re investing in the South or the Sunbelt somewhere. ⁓ Do you advocate, like if they’re trying to build up a portfolio, ⁓

Spencer Sutton (13:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (13:11)
trying to consolidate a certain number of houses in a market. I they could be really agnostic to what market they’re in. mean, in theory, they could have 10 houses in 10 different markets, then they got to deal with 10 different property management companies too. But I mean, what kind of guidance do you give people that are like, I don’t really care where I’m at. There’s a few markets that I’m interested in.

Spencer Sutton (13:31)
Yeah, I tend

to tell people they should probably research the market first. if you look at it from a 10,000 foot view, I would rather people understand the market. Like why is this a good market to invest in? what are the reasons why you should invest in Memphis, Tennessee? Okay, so you should go and research and find out is Memphis a good place to invest? If it is,

Then you kind of boil down to, what parts of Memphis are the best places to invest? And then you can boil down to the type of house and maybe the neighborhood that you want to invest in. And I just found that people don’t do that. I would encourage them to do that. And so once you do all that research and come up with that one market, why do you need to go other places? There’s more than likely enough house stock in those markets that you can over time build a really good portfolio.

And I would rather know more about one market than know nothing about five or six. Because honestly, the house I buy in Jackson, Mississippi, I can probably buy that in Birmingham, Alabama, you know, or I could buy that maybe in Chattanooga. So I don’t, I think consolidating down to one market is just helpful only in that it helps you understand that market better and better.

Mike Hambright (14:45)
Yeah, if you got to a point to where you, you know, maybe have a pretty good size base of rentals and you’re like, hey, there’s a new market I want to go into, maybe that’s another story.

Spencer Sutton (14:54)
Sure.

And then honestly, you could even diversify like class of neighborhoods you invest in, right? So if you really wanted to diversify and you were buying C class properties, then maybe you say, ⁓ I want to buy a B class or maybe I want to be a little bit more risky and I’m just going to roll the dice with this D class neighborhood, this horrible, but there may be an opportunity here, but that’s, know, again, you can diversify even within the same market and do pretty well.

Mike Hambright (14:59)
Sure.

Right, right. So another myth I want to cover is that people think that generally rents can’t go down or they can’t go sideways or whatever. Now, the problem is I think coming into this market, we’ve been in this market for a while now, but there’s still people with unrealistic expectations of…

I have this rental property and why are the rents not going up? Or I just bought this and they told me the rents would be that, but that was from three years ago. Like talk a little bit about like the reality of what happens to rents in different markets or what can happen.

Spencer Sutton (15:55)
Yeah, I think the markets just changed. Like even right now, we’re seeing a softening of the rental market, meaning there’s more options for your potential resident to choose from, which means, you know what, you know, the, you are raising rent 5 % during the early 2020s and you can’t do that anymore. Or if you do, then they’re just going to go find something else.

to rent. so understanding the market, I think is really, really important. And then it kind of depends on the type of property you’re buying too. If you’re buying, if you’re really chasing yields and you’re trying to buy these super low income houses and you think, ⁓ this is going to be great. And I’ve seen the turnkey provider spreadsheets. They’re insane because they’re predicting like this rent increase just going up and they’re predicting that the property is going to increase in value. The ARV is going to continue to go up.

You forever. And it’s just not the case. A lot of times you’re, if you’re going to sell this property, you’re going to sell it to another investor and it’s not, it can’t be on the retail market. So you’re not going to get what you, what the spreadsheet thinks. Same thing with rents. You just have to understand the market. And if you, if you have a property for rent and you are not getting any showings, like people aren’t even going to look at the property, that means your price too high. This is the way we look at it.

Nobody they already seeing you on Zillow and they’re comparing you with some neighborhoods around there and they’re like I can get the same house for cheaper for $200 a month cheaper So you can sit there and go for another 60 90 days without with a vacancy or you can adjust your price now if you’re If you’re actually if you’re getting a lot of showings people are walking through the house and they’re not filling out applications That means there’s something wrong inside the property. There’s something wrong with your property meaning that they can

They’ve seen it. They’ve seen your competition down the street or in another neighborhood. And they’re like, Hey, you know what? I like this layout better, or I like this one has newer carpet, fresh paint, et cetera, et cetera. So you just have to be very, very careful. You can price yourself out of the market and what happens when you sit there and don’t get rent for 90 days. It doesn’t look good for your returns on that property.

Mike Hambright (18:13)
Yeah, and the turnover, it kills you. I that is by far my biggest expense, right? And so I think a lot of people don’t really calculate. They’re just like, ⁓ maintenance is 8 % a year of rent. And it’s like, I’ve got some turnovers that are like, if my property doesn’t have any more problems for five years, that’s where I’m breaking even at.

Spencer Sutton (18:18)
It’s the turn, all right?

That’s true. That’s something that people don’t think about. I always tell people you will never make money in this business if you are replacing a resident every 12 to 24 months. It just won’t happen because regardless, you’re going to have to go in there and do stuff. And the average turn is going to cost you a couple thousand bucks probably just to turn it over plus vacancy. And if you’re doing that every 12 months, it’s a nightmare. It is a nightmare. And so if you want to push rents, you can, but just expect longer vacancies.

It’s it’s from a number standpoint, from a return standpoint, it’s a lot better for you if you lower the price. We always recommend lowering twenty five dollars a month until you hit the sweet spot. So you can lower it twenty five dollars, let it go for another week or two and see what the what the you know, the activity is and then lowered another twenty five dollars and another twenty five dollars. Some people do concessions. They’ll say, hey, first month’s rent is free. All of that is going to be cheaper than you sitting

vacant for another 60 days.

Mike Hambright (19:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Let’s talk about, ⁓ well, let’s say from a client standpoint that deals with a property management company, because I’ve had some experiences before, this won’t be alien to you, of ⁓ your objectives being misaligned with the property management company. like for example, I’ve had instances before where I’ve had relationships with property managers early on where it was very clear they benefited way more than me by turning over people because they were also doing all the maintenance and everything inside.

Spencer Sutton (19:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (20:10)
And ⁓ maybe they get paid one month’s rent up front. so very quickly you realize, wait, they benefit from churn, and that’s what’s killing me. How do you make sure you’re aligned with your property management company?

Spencer Sutton (20:24)
Well, what we know as property managers and every other property manager knows this as well, is that when you have a turn on a property, right? So when a resident moves out, that opens up a loop in an owner’s head. And that loop is, should I sell this property or should I keep it? Or should I fire my property manager? If I’m going to fire my property manager, now is the time, it’s vacant. Why not start fresh with somebody else? And so,

we believe we’re incentivized to keep your property rented and to keep you happy. Because if we keep the resident happy and we keep you happy, then there’s a lot less chance that you’re gonna churn. so what you’ll see is if you see, and you can pick it up, if you’re a smart investor like you are, Mike, you realize when people are trying to take advantage of you and they’re like, oh, well, hey, we turned this property, we do the paint, we do the carpet.

We get a leasing fee, which is equal to one month’s rent or whatever the case is. Yeah, they’re making a lot of money, but that’s short-term thinking because you will turn. You’re not with that property manager anymore. It doesn’t take you long to realize what’s going on and you say, I’m out of here. And so I would have those conversations upfront with your property manager and just say, you know, how do you ensure that we’re both successful? It is true that property managers don’t make a lot of money. If you’re paying 8 % or 10 %

per month, it’s just not a lot of money. ⁓ They can make some money on some ancillary services, like we have our own maintenance department. So yes, we do make money on maintenance. That doesn’t mean we want to gouge you for maintenance. We believe that us having our own maintenance department makes the experience of the resident a lot better because they know who’s coming to fix the property. They see the Evernest trucks, they see the Evernest technicians. If they have a problem, they know who to call.

And so it gives a better product to the resident and really a better service for the owner. And so I think you need to have those conversations with the resident. I mean, with the property manager and just make sure you are aligned. But I think the smartest ones understand that the less hassle that you have to go through, as an investor, the less times I’m having to call you and say, hey, you need a new HVAC or, hey, ⁓ your residence moving out in 30 days, we need to…

rehab this property, the less opportunity you’re going to probably be thinking about selling that property or firing me as a property manager.

Mike Hambright (22:52)
Sure,

sure, yeah. So I know that you think, because we talked about this before, that a lot of investors think that, I have a rental portfolio. These are my kind of assets, right? But you’re like, the asset is the customer. It’s the resident, right? And so talk about that a little bit. And then I’m curious, like, what you guys do based off of what we’ve talked about so far of, you want to keep that resident happy for as long as possible. What do you do to maintain those relationships or have conversations with them about, you know, just showing some gratitude and

basically saying like, we want you to be here forever, essentially like trying to, you know, plant seeds that you want them to stay for a long time. talk a little about your beliefs on all that.

Spencer Sutton (23:33)
Yeah, we’re big believers on, and I got this actually from a long-term investor. You talked at the very beginning, there’s people we’ve known who’ve done this a lot longer than we have. So I got this from a guy named Robert Locke, very successful real estate investor in Atlanta, also owned a very large property management company. And he realized one day he said, had somebody come to him and they said, hey, we’re having this person move out of this property and

They’ve been there for 20 years and he was blown away. was like, holy cow. They’ve with me for like, they’ve rented that property for 20 years. And guess what? The client has kept me for 20 years. And he started thinking, well, why did they stay 20 years? Because they were happy. We provided them a great place to live, you know, at a reasonable price. And they just kept renting. They didn’t have any reason to move. didn’t, we didn’t open any loops in their head where they were thinking, man, I could do something better than this.

And so he started talking about the resident is the asset. And so that’s what we started believing is like the resident is the asset. It’s not the property. They’re the ones that are paying your mortgage every month. They’re the ones that are, you know, if they’re paying on time, they’re great residents. They’re taking care of that property. They’re not damaging it. They’re not destroying it. And so we were just like when we first started thinking this way, started what we started doing was writing thank you cards and sending just gift cards in the mail Starbucks. We just started going, hey,

thank you for being a great resident. And what we would do is we just find somebody who’s paid rent every month for the past 12 months. And we’re like, hey, thank you for being a great resident. And here’s just a token of our appreciation. have a few coffees on us. We’d send them a 20, $25 gift card. wasn’t that big of a deal. And, you know, I mean, this is the this this is 100 % the truth. If you keep somebody in that property and they’re taking care of your property.

then over time it’s gonna work out really, really well for you. I personally have had residents that have stayed up to 10 years. That’s the longest I’ve had anybody stay in one of my properties. It was a lot better experience for them and for me as a real estate investor. And so, you know, it kind of depends on all really residents want is they want you to do what you say you’re gonna do and they really wanna be left alone.

You know, we used to go into the property once a quarter Mike We used to go in there and do inspections once a quarter and we thought this is a great service for our landlords But what we realized was the residents weren’t happy about it They didn’t I mean, how would you like this somebody came and looked at your property every month? I mean every quarter and so we back that way off and we’re just like hey if they’re if they’re paying their rent and they’re taking care of the property we can go in there once a year twice a year and and make sure that the

The filters are changed, smoke detector batteries are good, and ⁓ they’re happy, we’re happy, and keep them in there long term.

Mike Hambright (26:29)
Yeah, that’s great. And one other thing I want to talk about is a true partnership with your property management company. So I would say, you know, I’ve been doing this a long time and for the first like five years that I was in business, I thought like everybody’s out to get me, right? Like, so the hard money lender, is out, my lenders are out to get me, my property management’s gouging me, like all these things. And then you get to a point where you’re like, man, I can’t do this without these people. And you kind of meet the people behind it like you, and you start to realize like, look, these are my partners. Like they’re not in my office.

Spencer Sutton (26:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (26:59)
but these are my third party partners that helped me do this whole thing. so maybe just talk about, and of course, like you said, property managers don’t make a lot of money. I’m sure you guys are doing quite well managing 20,000 doors, but it didn’t start that way and it was a lot of work. And it’s still a fragile business if you didn’t treat the client right and you don’t do what you say you’re gonna do and all those things, right? ⁓

Spencer Sutton (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (27:22)
Maybe just share your thoughts on kind of property management as a partner instead of investors looking at it as an expense. And I’ll just manage them myself, which of course in that instance, they’re not looking at the opportunity cost of their time or what else they could be doing, right?

Spencer Sutton (27:37)
That’s right.

That’s right. That’s what I always tell them. I was like, there a higher return activity you can do? Like finding more property? I don’t know. Yeah, I believe that’s the, that is absolutely the way we think. We think that we are, we want to be your real estate partner. And for us, what that means is for the entire life cycle of that property, we can help you in some way, right? So we can find you properties. have

investor friendly agents so we can find you properties that are in your buy box. We can renovate those properties. We can then find a great resident. We can manage that resident and then we can manage the move out and all of that stuff. Make sure you’re in compliance with renting and all of that. And then when it’s time to sell your property, we know that people typically don’t hold on to properties forever. Then we want to be able to help sell your property too. So the whole life cycle of it, I am a big believer in.

And this is the reason why so many real estate investors have called me over the years is because they know I’m going to tell them the truth. And the truth is you date your agent or you date your turnkey provider, but you marry your property manager. Like this is a long-term relationship and it is like, Hey, listen, some turnkey provider sells you a deal. get like their profit commission for an agent, whatever, and they’re gone.

but your property manager has to live with the decision that you have made on that deal. And so that’s why I had so many people reach out to me and say, Hey, is this a good deal or not? Because they know that our company is going to have to like live with that decision. And it’s not going to be good for us if you’re buying a piece of crap property in a horrible part of town and we’re having to do damage control the whole time. You’re not going to be happy. You’re going to be pointing the finger at us. We’re just going to be

saying, hey, here’s the reality. It’s hard to find a great resident. It’s hard to keep them from tearing up the house. And by the way, you know, they didn’t pay rent because they lost their job and you you can’t foresee that. finding a property manager that you can be a partner with, that you can align your goals on and their goal should be to keep a resident in the property and keep them happy. That’s what you want to do. But I really do think it’s more of a partnership than with any kind of acquisition person that you’re buying a property from.

Mike Hambright (29:42)
Yeah.

For

sure, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, Spencer, thanks for sharing some great knowledge today. If folks want to connect with you, learn more about Evernest, like anything, where can they go?

Spencer Sutton (30:08)
Yeah, they can go evernest.co, that’s dot C-O. You can check us out there. And then we’ve got a podcast called the Everness Real Estate Investor that I do with a good friend of mine here in Birmingham as a real estate investor. And then we also have a YouTube channel. You can just search us for Everness and we put out some YouTube content. Again, we just want to educate as many people as we can.

help them make the best decisions possible when they’re buying real estate. So that’s how you can connect with us.

Mike Hambright (30:41)
We’ll add the links down below in the show notes. So thanks for hanging out with us today Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Yeah, we’ll see you see you in a week and a half at investor fuel

Spencer Sutton (30:43)
Awesome. Thanks Mike. Thanks for having me. Enjoyed it.

That’s right, I’ll be there.

Mike Hambright (30:50)
Yeah,

yeah, awesome. Everybody hope you got some good insights today from today. ⁓ Property management is not to be taken lightly. You’ve got to, there’s lots of ups and downs and I think it helps when you have a portfolio. It clearly helps when you work with the right property manager. And it also helps if you work with somebody to make sure you’re buying the right properties in the first case. So hope you got some good insights from today. We’ll see you on the next show.