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Show Summary
In this conversation, Cody Albright, a property manager from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shares his insights on managing rental properties with an investor’s mindset. He discusses his unique approach to property management, the challenges he faces, and his strategies for growth and personal development. Cody emphasizes the importance of building relationships, effective time management, and the need for a balance between professional growth and personal life. He also offers advice for aspiring real estate investors, encouraging them to take actionable steps towards their goals.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Cody Albright (00:00)
Yeah, absolutely. So I was actually, I was a college athlete at LSU, on the powerlifting team there. So physical activity is a big part of me just taking care of myself. But I’ve done the deep dive on all the self help. So I’ve done everything you asked about. I do meditate regularly. I actually go to a guided breath work practice once a month with a mentor of mine. And the biggest thing that I picked up in 2025,that I always thought was kind of hokey was journaling. What I found with journaling, and I used to hate on journaling.
Quentin Edmonds (00:33)
I knewHello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited to be here today. I’m excited about the gentleman that’s here. Listen, when it comes to property management, this gentleman knows exactly what he’s doing. And I love his mindset and his perspective because what makes him and sets him apart, what makes you trust him is that when he’s managing with the owner’s mindset.
And so he’s making sure that he’s treating things just like a visit zone. And so I’m so excited about what he’s doing. I’m excited about the way he’s growing his vision, innovation. So I am so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Cody Albright. Mr. Cody, how you doing today, sir?
Cody Albright (02:59)
I’m doing great today. How about yourself?Quentin Edmonds (03:02)
Man doing great doing great. Like I said, man excited to talk to you, sir And so from being honest with you mr. Cody, I want to dive in man I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days If you want to give us a little bit of an origin story about how you got into what you do We would love to know that and then man tell us what part of the world you’re in man. So mr. Cody, sir, you have the floor, manCody Albright (03:25)
Okay, awesome Q. So my name is Cody Albright. I’m in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which if you guys don’t know where that is, if you’re looking at the boot of Louisiana, we’re the top of the shoelaces. We’re about 10 minutes from LSU campus. And I am an operator of Bird Dog Properties BR LLC. We’re a best spoke property management company here in Baton Rouge.We basically work with small to medium size investment property owners and provide investment minded management for their portfolios. You asked about my origin story. I got started buying single family homes back in 2020, right? The heart of COVID. I decided it was a good idea to put some money on the line and start doing rentals. I parlayed that into actually leaving a 15 year career I’d been in.
Got a job managing a 300 unit class A apartment complex, transition that into managing a commercial office for that same company, manage their commercial portfolio for a little while, and then ended up going out on my own so that I could be full time in real estate and writing my own paychecks. And that’s where I’m at today is we’re managing about 87 units and trying to grow our portfolio and trying to have a good time doing it.
Quentin Edmonds (04:41)
Man, I love it. I love it. So you know you survived the COVID era, buying property, walk this up to where you are now. And so I want to pick your brain a little bit, Mr. Cody, on like the personal strategies that you know really help you. And when I say stuff like that, I mean, you know, some people may do meditation, you know, some people may do, you know, going for walks. Like, are there personal strategies that you knowthat help you center you as a person, as a businessman, as a manager, things that you can lean on personally that you know to help you out.
Cody Albright (06:05)
Yeah, absolutely. So I was actually, I was a college athlete at LSU, on the powerlifting team there. So physical activity is a big part of me just taking care of myself. But I’ve done the deep dive on all the self help. So I’ve done everything you asked about. I do meditate regularly. I actually go to a guided breath work practice once a month with a mentor of mine. And the biggest thing that I picked up in 2025,that I always thought was kind of hokey was journaling. What I found with journaling, and I used to hate on journaling.
Quentin Edmonds (06:39)
I knewCody Albright (06:45)
I did, I didn’t like it, I thought it was silly. And what I found is I dedicated myself to a practice I journaled every day in 2025. And what I found is that when I solidified my thoughts on paper, that it really let me know if what I was thinking was true or not.and it allowed me to reflect back the thoughts in my head. And so it’s like, you write down that something’s bothering you, then it forces you to acknowledge that it’s true or false. And if it’s true, then your only choice is to do something about it just live with the pain. So I would say journaling would be my big one for 2025.
Quentin Edmonds (07:24)
I just had another guest on maybe a day ago, and he said the same thing we was talking about sometimes as men, you know, I’m Duke Echols, as men, when you hear journaling, you’re like, man, what do you mean journaling? But you just said it so best, man, like it allows you to get the things out of your head, put it down, and actually look at the real data that’s in front of you. You know, that’s what journalism…is it’s investigating, it’s researching, it’s writing things down that way you can talk about the facts of what’s right in front of you. And so I’m with you, I meditate, I journal, my wife and I for 2025, we did a gratitude jar, which, you know, every day, you know, we will write something down that we were grateful for. And what we did for 2026, oh, come on, see what we did for 2026, man, is that we, when 2026 came in,
we was reading things we were grateful for for 2025. we better make 75 to 100 different things that we were grateful for. And so that journaling absolutely spot on, man. And so thank you for, you know, talking about journaling. Let’s break the stereotype because that’s one thing that can help us out. It really can, man. It really can. And so, yeah, absolutely. So let me ask you, have you bumped up against any adversity as you was building, as you was building bird dog properties?
Cody Albright (08:41)
for sure.Quentin Edmonds (08:50)
Have you rucked up against any kind of adversity?Cody Albright (08:52)
Absolutely. My handyman and I, joke around whenever work orders are running low, like don’t say anything. Because the moment you make a comment, like six or seven work orders come in and half of them are emergencies. I would say the biggest adversity that I’ve bumped up against, especially we operate like real, real lean. And so that is being effective with my time management.Quentin Edmonds (09:07)
Mm-hmmCody Albright (09:19)
and my processes. And what I’ve found is if you’re not following the process, even if it’s just something as simple as the process that you walk a new tenant through, through the application screening and onboarding process, you can just create a lot of headaches for yourself and something that should maybe take two hours of work. You know you end up having to do 10 or 15 phone calls and you just have an over communicate and overwork yourself.So really it would be just locking in those processes, documenting them and setting up things that make it easy for you to execute on like the repeatable time consuming tasks of your business.
Quentin Edmonds (10:00)
Hmm. Man. So great. So great. I love your mindset. I love where your, where your head is, man. I’m a matter of fact, I wrote it down. You said, processing and time management. These are some of the, things that you really have kind of sent it to you. And I love that. let me ask you, what are the next real goals for you? Like, what are you looking to solve and scale next?Cody Albright (10:57)
Yeah, so our big goal for 2026, we currently have, I think, 87 units under management. And we really, I really just want to get to that 100 mark. want three digits in terms of units under management. That’s our immediate goal. That being said, I’ve got a little one on the way in March. And so we also know that we’re gonna be cool.pulling back for a couple of months in March and April is our first little one. So it’s like our life’s about to get turned upside down. So we just kind of we set that goal for ourselves for this year, because I think it’s manageable, it’s achievable. And then once we get over 100, we’re going to start looking at which of our systems need to evolve to get us to that 150 point. and
We’re not trying to grow and grow and grow and be a property management company that has five or 600 units. We want to do a good job for our clients. We want to do a good job for our tenants. We want to earn a respectable and healthy income for ourselves, and then also have a life. And so there will be a point for us where, you know, we’re not worried about growth and we’re more worried about optimization. We’re thinking that’ll probably be around 150. Got you.
Quentin Edmonds (12:15)
I love the way you think, man. I’m getting more and more encouraged by talking to you and the way you think, the way you process, the way you go about things, man I absolutely really, really love it, man. I want to pick your brain a little bit about relationship building, right? And I would love to know your perspective when it comes to relationships. Are they important to you building relationships?Has it served you well? What’s your perspective when it comes to relationship building, specifically when it comes to business relationship building?
Cody Albright (12:49)
I mean, everybody’s gonna say this if they’re doing a good job, but they’re everything. You know, you have to have those relationships and that doesn’t mean that every relationship has to look the same. For me, it’s about interacting with that person, getting to know them, having clear expectations, but also being willing to come to the table and reasonably negotiate when expectations aren’t met.and just being able to carry those relationships forward. And I think also you have to be, I don’t want to say flexible, but you have to be understanding that everybody’s got a lot going on and just be willing to work with people. And if that person continuously,
is not meeting those expectations and maybe that’s time to sever that relationship, but just because somebody messed something up one time, You know it doesn’t mean you’re not gonna pick up the phone and call and deal with that person anymore. So it’s just, once you establish them, just maintaining them and just keeping that communication and flow open between those individuals.
Quentin Edmonds (13:58)
And see, we throw the word relationship around, but what you just broke down is the art of really relating to somebody relating to them and seeing how a healthy relationship looks like you talk about everybody got stuff going on. Everybody proc we process stuff differently. We got, you know, we got different traumas. We got all kinds of different stuff. So, yes, let’s let’s see how we can organically relate.Let’s talk about expectations. Let’s talk about the give and take. Let’s talk about, you know, mutual interests. But then after we do that and we establish either, hey, the two can walk together or you know what, maybe right now your expectations is a little bit different than mine. Not that you’re a bad person, but you know, maybe we can’t do what we thought we could do moving forward. And so I love that. That’s the art of relating. That’s the mature way of doing it. You don’t have to hold on to every relationship.
But also take the time to navigate and get curious about how the relationships should be built, how the relationships should be working. So I love everything you said, I really do.
Cody Albright (15:46)
Yeah. And I think you also have to look at the, what is the level of the relationship? So like I have a very different relationship with Roto-Rooter than I have with my personal plumber. You know what I mean? So I don’t know the guys at Roto-Rooter by name, but if I got a clogged sewer line and I need it fixed in 45 minutes, like that’s what I’m calling and we’re going to pay a premium for that service and it’s going to get done. But if I need good plumbing work at a good price,but it’s not gonna be as immediate. Like I’m going with my plumber to do that, you know? And obviously he gets a little bit more leeway than I give Roto-Fruiter.
Quentin Edmonds (16:27)
That part. Absolutely that part. Yes, sir. No, I understand for sure. Listen, let me ask you, Mr. Cody, is there anything, any subject that we haven’t brought up that maybe you wanted to talk about coming in or is there any kind of other words of encouragement, motivation, education that maybe you would like to leave our listeners with?Cody Albright (16:53)
Yeah If I give you a word of encouragement, I’d say like if you’re on the sidelines, which there’s a lot of people in real estate on the sidelines. I talk to at the local meetups that I go to every month, talking to friends and family, like everybody likes the idea of being involved in real estate, but there’s a lot of talkers and not a lot of doers. And so what I would say is, you know, there’s the typical, take action, take action. Like, what does that look like? It’s like,If you haven’t read a book, go read a book. Okay. If you’ve read a book and you’re looking to meet people, then you need to be at a meetup. You know, if you’re at a meetup and you haven’t done your first deal, but you’re ready to do your first deal, then you need to go get pre-approved. You need to get with a realtor and you just start looking for properties and putting in offers. And there’s stages. And I think folks starting out, like they just want to jump the really basic boring stuff.
and they wanna talk about ideas and they wanna learn about ideas, but they don’t wanna actually do anything to move themselves forward. So I would just say, start moving yourself forward. And if you’re not in a position financially to do that, go ahead and get your financial house in order so that you’re in a strong position when it is time for you to make those moves investment wise.
Quentin Edmonds (18:09)
Yeah, yeah. Sorry, man. I appreciate you so much. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, Mr. Cody, how can somebody get in contact with you, sir?Cody Albright (18:24)
Yeah, so I would say like, if you just want to chit chat on real estate, or you know, if you want to see the carnage that I see every day as a property manager, hit me up on Instagram, it’s just bird dog properties. I don’t really do much serious posting. Usually it’s like, hey, here’s this crazy thing we saw today, you know, so it’s this wild thing happening, we’re solving this problem. If you want to talk management, if you’re interested,Like I said, I am a licensed agent. So if you’re interested in doing some investing down here in Baton Rouge, we do have a strong rental market with the university and the oil refineries and here in Baton Rouge area. You can reach out to me at [email protected]. Be happy to talk to folks interested in management services here in Baton Rouge or, you know, wanting to find themselves a rental property down here if they’re a remote owner looking to invest in the landlord friendly south.
Quentin Edmonds (19:14)
I love it. love it. Well, listen, there he is. Mr. Cody, thank you so much, sir. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your story. But more importantly, for me, thank you for your perspective. Thank you for your mindset, the way you think. And thank you for bringing that mindset to this podcast. I really believe you have given some real good nuggets for people, if need be, to have a mind shift, a mindset shift around some things. And so I thank you so much for coming through today.Cody Albright (19:43)
Yeah, happy to do it, Q. Thank you.Quentin Edmonds (19:45)
Absolutely, no problem. So listen y’all can’t tell me you didn’t get the value out of that You can’t tell me you didn’t and so thank you so much. Mr. Cody definitely check him out But definitely make sure you are subscribed here That way you will not miss out on these amazing people just like mr. Cody that we’re going to bring up and continue to bring up So mr. Cody, I want to say thank you again and to everyone else. We’ll see you on the next time
