Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Erika interviews Charles Phanumphai from Snowcapped Properties. Charles shares his journey into real estate, starting from a necessity during college to managing a growing portfolio of rental properties. He discusses the challenges faced in property management, particularly in the changing market post-COVID, and emphasizes the importance of identifying suitable homeowners. Charles also reflects on valuable lessons learned from evictions and the need for strict tenant requirements. Looking ahead, he shares his plans for future growth and potential expansion into property sales.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Charles Phanumphai (00:00)
Sure, let’s start with the homeowner space. The homeowner, I can almost tell when I speak to them within the first few minutes of what their, let’s call it upward pressure would be when I ask them, when did you buy the property? If they bought the property prior to 2020, that means chances are there’s a lot of equity, their interest rates are low, there’s less pressure to feel like they have to hit the market rent.to have to break even or have positive cashflow. In those situations, the homeowner is simply looking for someone to outsource the property management to. So it’s an easier conversation and chances are we can strike this win-win situation. And actually we tell people we want a three-way win. The tenants win because they find a good property to live in. The homeowners win because they take an asset that’s underutilized and they get rental income.
and they helpfully have positive cashflow. And of course we win as property managers.
Erika (02:32)
everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host Erika. And today I’m joined by someone that I’ve been looking for in the chat with Charles Phanumphai from SnowCapped Properties. Charles, it’s awesome to have you on the show today.Charles Phanumphai (02:47)
Hi, Erika, thank you for having me on your show.Erika (02:51)
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, let’s jump on in for our listeners who may not be familiar with what you do. Tell us about that journey. How did you get started in real estate and getting the property management?Charles Phanumphai (03:05)
Well, I’ll go back all the way to out of the necessity time back when I was in college. was a sophomore in college and a situation came up where my younger sister had to ⁓ move in with me. So you can imagine being a college undergraduate, shifting gears from just doing your typical college thing to sort of having to take care of my younger sister. ⁓ I was late to the game. School had already started.and ended up ⁓ not being able to find a place to rent for my sister and I. And so we ended up buying a place. This was right around the same time that I ⁓ was listening to… ⁓
What is that book called with Robert?
Erika (03:54)
Rich Dad, Poor Dad.Charles Phanumphai (03:55)
Thank you, Rich Dad Poor Dad. And soit all made sense and it came together in that, ⁓ you know what? I can buy the house, ⁓ finish the basement, add some more bedrooms. And we ended up renting it out three rooms and my sister and I lived there essentially for free and we covered the utilities and it all made financial sense that way. A couple years later, ⁓ as more friends through word of mouth would say, hey, Charles, do you have a place for rent? And then…
Instead of ⁓ once we maxed out on the rooms that we had, I ended up buying the unit next door a couple of years later. And then we just continued to grow that way out of necessity. And that was probably early 2020. Fast forward to 2019, not knowing that COVID was around the corner, we bought more property in our own portfolio, rented those out and it all worked out great.
and renting them out as long-term, which, you know, that’s sort of been my bread and butter, my experience. But then 2020 came around, ⁓ was just walking through the neighborhood and a neighbor of mine asked who happens to do short-term rental cleanings on the side. She had mentioned that some of her clients ⁓ either have a short-term rental operator that are not performing well or they’re on a wait list. They’re simply not taking on any more clients.
would we be interested in managing it? So my wife and I said yes, and we sort of approached it as sort of a side hustle, it, you know, just again on the side, but real quickly because of the supply and demand in the area, we grew, I think we took on 12 doors in 2020. And then 2021, we were at about 35 doors and we hit the capacity where it was just my wife and I could do it. And we asked ourselves, well,
What do we want to do? Do we want to stay at 35 and just sort of cash in on the income that we’re getting? But we had a wait list of about 30 homeowners waiting for us to help manage them. So we ended up expanding, hired our first full-time employee in 2021 and went from about 35 doors to 65 doors in 2022.
Along the way, we had a contractor who helped us as well. And then from that point on, know, word of mouth, a little bit of marketing, website optimization work, getting our name a little bit in front, but really, you know, working with ⁓ other tradesmen in the area, whether it’s ⁓ your handyman, electrician, plumber, everything just sort of spread like wildfire and the real estate companies in the area as well. Agents would refer, you know, tenants.
looking for rental place or homeowners who are looking to rent out their place. So that grew real quickly. And now in 2025, we have about 100 doors.
Erika (07:42)
exciting with you know working the long-term rental space what would you say are some of the unique challenges that you see in your market with property management?Charles Phanumphai (07:54)
The long-term right now in 2025, it seems like if I were to take, pick out 2020 through 2025 during the beginning of COVID was one thing, the middle was another, and now the current market, right? There’ve been huge swings in those five years alone. In the current market right now, there’s a lot of supply in the long-term rental space. I feel likeWe have 90 plus percent of our inventory rented out, which is great. But it’s the new homeowners who are coming to us. The short-term rental space, feel like unless they’re a property that have a niche offering, say single family home on acreage, four bedrooms or above and have something unique to it, maybe, you know, ideal location, we operate in Colorado from Winter Park to Grand Lake and hot sulfur.
Each of those six towns have a little bit of a unique personality to them. But the key thing there is in Winter Park, there’s a huge ski resort. Granby has a ski resort as well, though much smaller. ⁓ So a lot of those areas have high density multiplex properties. Think condos, townhome apartments. Those short-term rental configurations, I think, are struggling a little bit. So homeowners are coming to us
and transitioning from having their investment property be a short-term rental and converting them to long-term. And we’re doing great keeping up, but I can tell that there’s only so much demand. There’s only so many renters looking to live there full-time. And I feel like we’re potentially getting there where the market is a little bit saturated. But again, for right now, ⁓ most of our properties are rented out.
Erika (09:44)
For you, Charles, how do you determine if someone is a good fit to work within the rental space?Charles Phanumphai (09:52)
From the homeowner perspective.Erika (09:55)
I guess you could go both ways as you’ve handled it. You’ve been involved in different aspects of it.Charles Phanumphai (10:38)
Sure, let’s start with the homeowner space. The homeowner, I can almost tell when I speak to them within the first few minutes of what their, let’s call it upward pressure would be when I ask them, when did you buy the property? If they bought the property prior to 2020, that means chances are there’s a lot of equity, their interest rates are low, there’s less pressure to feel like they have to hit the market rent.to have to break even or have positive cashflow. In those situations, the homeowner is simply looking for someone to outsource the property management to. So it’s an easier conversation and chances are we can strike this win-win situation. And actually we tell people we want a three-way win. The tenants win because they find a good property to live in. The homeowners win because they take an asset that’s underutilized and they get rental income.
and they helpfully have positive cashflow. And of course we win as property managers.
So that’s ideal. Now, if they bought in 2020 or after at a higher price point and an interest rates that’s higher, and they were, let’s say they were banking on short-term rental income that was much higher in 2021, 22, 23, if they bought in 2024, and let’s say their rental income was, short-term rental income was projected at 100,000.
But now in 2025, they’ve lost 30 % of that demand, that gross income. So now they’re at 70%. And maybe that $70,000 per year is not even covering their overhead. Now they’re struggling. So when they come to us and they try to switch it as a long-term rental, they, of course, they want to cover all of their expense. But the rental market may not support that rental price. So homeowners now are faced with the reality that their long-term rental
income could be less. And like many other conversations and other podcasts and investors, I know the conversation with those recent homebuyers is more, it’s not as much as how much can we, what’s the maximum positive income we can, cash flow we can get you. It’s the, how much can we minimize the bleeding, the expenses that you have if you want to hold onto that asset.
Erika (13:00)
⁓ And also you want to have quality tenants in ⁓ these spaces as well. So how do you balance having cost effective solutions, but having a premium feel that would attract those right people?Charles Phanumphai (13:14)
⁓ great question. So I’ve been doing long-term rentals for about 25 years and I’ve had three evictions so far. And all three evictions happen when we made an exception to the minimum requirement to ⁓ take on a tenant. We have them go through a formal application. They go through credit check, background check, financial check, reference check. Oftentimes we look them in the eye, shake their hand.check, right? There’s a little bit of that X factor when you can meet them and say, everything, you might look great on paper, but something’s off when we meet you, your story just isn’t right. So when we look at that, and if we don’t make any exceptions, so far it’s been a great experience. The three times is, know, oftentimes is they barely made ⁓ the credit cutoff.
and maybe something happened in their lives where, a lot of times it’s a divorce or they had an injury, they couldn’t keep up with their bills. And of course it pulls on the soft strings, the hard strings, right? And we are like, you’re so close, okay, we’ll make the exception. And so far, every time we’ve done that, it’s led to three evictions. So sticking to our minimum requirements, I think is gonna be our best path moving forward.
Erika (14:36)
Absolutely. And I feel like that kind of transitions perfectly to what I was going to say. as I’m sure, you know, every real estate pro has a moment, you know, that really tries them. You know, what’s that been like in property management? What’s been the, you know, the hardest thing that you’ve dealt with and, you know, were there any valuable lessons fromCharles Phanumphai (15:40)
wow. The hardest thing, you know, when we do make decisions, right, you have almost two ends. One is very analytical, fact-based, data-driven, and then you have, like I mentioned, that heart string moment. I think the hardest one to date was from 2020 when we really first started StoneCat Properties to this scale. We were always on an upward trajectory.you know, the economy was doing well. ⁓ There’s just a lot of, we would list the property for rent and usually we can turn around and find a good qualified tenant within 30 days. So in 2024, at the end of it, I ended up hiring a contractor to help out in anticipation that 2025 would be very similar to previous years. But come late spring, early summer, I realized that
the real estate rental landscape was a little bit more stagnant in the area that we operate. I tried to hang out and to cover the expenses for as long as we could, but just three weeks ago, we just had to look at the business and say, look, we’re not doing as well as we would have by keeping the contractor. So I did have to let her go and try to be as fair, as straightforward as possible that this is nothing to do with our performance or what.
what we wanted to do, but the growth had just come to a stagnant pause. So we had to let her go. We’re doing great at about a hundred doors that we operate and manage today and just waiting to see what 2026 will look like.
Erika (17:24)
Yeah, so speaking of 2026, what do you see next on the horizon? What are you looking to scale or solve next with snow capped properties?Charles Phanumphai (17:34)
that’s a great question. ⁓ Out of the hundred doors or so that we manage, the majority all are long term, with the exception of one that’s a short term. The bigger short term properties, again, that have a niche, I think are doing well. So if we open our doors to manage that in 2026, that could be an opportunity. Although I do think that there’s plenty of short term rental operatorsin the area. I’m not sure if by opening our door to do that, are we continuing to just differentiate ourselves from staying in the long-term space? That is an option. We’ll just have to see. I actually was just talking to a homeowner yesterday who’s looking to buy a gorgeous ⁓ five bedroom single-family home. And he even said, like, I see on your website, it says long-term rentals, but I really like what you guys are seeing on your website.
would you reconsider? And so now I am reconsidering, although again, I’m not sure if that’s what we’re going to do. ⁓ But a big opportunity there, if the market changes and we can grow, I’m looking forward to adding on that additional FTE to help the business grow. ⁓ My target this year was 120 doors, but because of the landscape, we dropped it back down to 100. We’ll let the contractor grow and I think we’re doing good.
But a great opportunity that I look forward to seeing in 2026 is our homeowners eventually want out. They’re going to want to sell. And now that they know that we can sell for them, ⁓ think we’ve, we started the transactional side of buying and selling November of last year. And pretty much we’ve bought and sold about one property a month. A lot of that’s just the word of mouth within our internal network, that vertical integration that comes from our homeowners who want exiting.
and our tenants who want to buy. And then on top of that, just through natural word of mouth, being in a smaller mountain community. So I think there’s probably a better chance of that transactional buying and selling in 2026.
Erika (19:47)
exciting especially when you’ve already got the solid foundation that you have right here. Charles, before we wrap up if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about what you’re doing at SnowCapped Properties, what’s the best way for them to reach you?Charles Phanumphai (20:03)
Our website at ⁓ snowcapped properties, actually, sorry, snowcappedpm.com. ⁓ That’s our website. We have presence on Facebook and Instagram as well. Although I will say that I am not as good as updating that. I try to do it once a month, but we update some blogs, some articles, some fun facts ⁓ about the area and what we’re doing on there as well.Erika (20:31)
we appreciate you being on the show today, sharing all that you have going on and your stories, your insight and advice. was really great.Charles Phanumphai (20:40)
Thank you, Erika. I appreciate it.Erika (20:42)
And for our listeners, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pros podcast. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators like Charles who are out there building fantastic real estate empires. We’ll see you on the next episode.
