Mastering Property Management: 7 Keys to Success in NYC Real Estate

Michael Stansbury (00:01.204)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. My name is Mike Stansbury and today my guest is Edin Bojic. We’re gonna call him Bo today just for my personal, it makes it easy on me. Bo’s his actual name that he goes by. Bo, thanks for coming along here and I wanna let people know that at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five extra business to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted.

Edin Bojic (00:16.642)
Bye bye.

Michael Stansbury (00:31.478)
and to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Bo, you’re a big hook. You’ve been in property management for you and your partner for over 40 years. Tell us what your origin story is. How did you get into it? What’s that like in New York City? Because I’m from Memphis. Some of our folks are down south. We’d love to hear the story,

Edin Bojic (00:53.09)
It’s the true sort of immigrant story for both myself and Frank, my business partner. It’s really where your father was involved in the business and I was sort of in the back end of it. I’m not really scared of trying to find my way and I accidentally jumped in on it. But in the beginning I started off as a security guard in a commercial building. I moved up from there and was managing commercial buildings for

And after 9-11, sort of transitioned over to residential. And we do, I personally own a nice small family property in Bushwick, which we lived in during the 70s and then moved off from there. But it’s still in our possession and I really do like that up-and-coming area now. You know, it was a tough neighborhood and now it’s a great area to go to. So, yeah, and…

Really in New York City, it is quite interesting where it’s a huge city, but it’s still a small place where everybody knows everybody else. At least you got two degrees of separation around here, not six. So yeah, it’s an interesting career. Where now I’m in a luxury condominium, over 580 apartments. We run on a daily basis.

almost 30 employees. So we’re constantly busy, yes.

Michael Stansbury (02:26.444)
And so one of the things you say is like, communications is the key. say, if anything, I’m Bo’s really gold standard at communication. So what does that look like? How do you teach that to somebody, maybe to some of your employees? Or what’s your philosophy around communication, especially with taking care of all those people in the condos and the apartments?

Edin Bojic (02:48.898)
Right, it’s really the more information that you put out to them, the happier they’ll be. They don’t want to come home and see surprises. Oh, we don’t have any hot water today. Gee, I wonder why none of that is going to happen. And basically, you start off with your front desk and your doorman. And that’s where the greeting comes in. That’s where people are greeted and guests are checked in and asked where they’re going. And we go through this whole process. And I believe you, when I say nowadays,

There’s probably hundreds of packages every single day. We have a special area for them. And all of this has to be communicated. And we have some great, great apps. Building Link is one that’s fantastic that allows you to communicate to your residents. It allows you to communicate to the staff and to management so that everybody is in the loop. Everybody knows what is going on for that day, for that week, and sometimes also the next month.

Look, we also post birthdays and announcements and people can, you know, if they want to trade or give it to their furniture, they can do it on there as well. so that when people get home and, you know, they don’t want to hear, there’s not this, not this, you have to give them a chance to know what is

Michael Stansbury (04:10.402)
Yeah, so when there’s something that’s disruptive, right? And they don’t want to know about it as they’re walking in the door. They want to know about it while they’re at work so they can prepare for it, right?

Edin Bojic (04:13.962)
Open.

Edin Bojic (04:23.008)
Yeah, I think that’s the best way to do it is to be prepared for it. As much as we’re prepared for it and hopefully nothing happens that would be ordinary. Emergencies are a different story. In an emergency situation, we try to get the information out as soon as we can, but we’re dealing with, you know, 50 different things. We’re dealing with about 50 other things. So it gives them a chance to know

what is going on. I try to be as communicative and open as possible. My door is always open. Anybody who wants to come in, all have our cell phone. I try not to give it out too much, but you know, that’s the way it is.

Michael Stansbury (05:07.862)
Right, you know, it’s funny, people, if they know the proper protocols, I’m really big on, the only few people have my cell phone, but I can be communicated to pretty quickly with technology these days. And so what has changed technology-wise? What has helped you? What do you like? And maybe what do you, do you miss anything about maybe the old ways of doing things? Or how has technology helped you or hurt you in property management?

Edin Bojic (05:36.61)
Yeah, I sort of even go back to the tax machine and messengers. And I don’t know if people remember the bicycle messengers where they’re all over the place. And no, you didn’t have city bike. You had your own bike to zip in and out. This little device, it’s what everybody has. I love my BlackBerry. Love it. Because it was great for what we were doing. But I think…

where people are best now is like, hey, I have a situation in my home. I need some help. Hey, here’s a picture of it so you can see it. Before we even go up there, we know what we’re dealing with. I think that kind of communication, that kind of help. Your cell phone is your camera, it’s your microphone, it’s your recording device. It’s everything out there. And mine is available. I try to keep myself as available. I know this is a 24-7 type of job.

On my nightstand is my phone charger. Not the best way to wake up, it does the job.

Michael Stansbury (06:43.788)
All the health experts tell us that we need to put it away from our nightstand. But I’m like you, sometimes you gotta have it.

Edin Bojic (06:52.023)
Yeah.

Not in this position, you gotta have it around you all the time. we, you know, most presentizers out there, have our little go-to bag, a little kit that we always keep in our home. So it’s very quick, we just grab it and go. We can deal with almost any emergency.

Michael Stansbury (07:10.754)
Yep, the go-to bag. So you mentioned earlier about like a pivot point in your life specifically about 9-11. So what were you doing pre-9-11 and was it 9-11 that that made you think, okay maybe I need to pivot and go into this part of real estate?

Edin Bojic (07:28.534)
No, it was a traumatic and dramatic day. It was all about people. didn’t know that. My father was in the hospital, actually, and I was driving to the hospital and coming out of the tunnel. And I did not see the planes crash into, but I saw the after effects. And I just couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a major fire. I’m like, why the hell is there a fire extinguisher?

working? Why isn’t the sprinkler working? How can there be so much fire and smoke and everything? Only to learn later on in the radio that airplane had to go into. So after that it was just a matter of where do you go? What would you like to do? know commercial business is great. It’s really nine to five. Although we stay a little bit later. get it guys. don’t have to hit me again.

It might be nine to five, might be everything, but you’re really not dealing with a personal type of issue. They’re gonna be there nine to five and then gone. know, all this calls, we always have the people.

But more so with residential, it’s really a one-on-one. And it basically is that these people have invested everything in this apartment, in this building. They’ve invested their, some of them might say this and further, and it’s an investment that they want to see made sure that it runs correctly, that it runs on budget or under budget as much as we can, that it has people that are equipped to deal with emergencies or with.

new local laws that have come out and have the education and the experience to handle all of this. So, like I said, we’re talking about coming in through the door. People don’t want to know. They just want to walk in through the door, go upstairs to their home, and relax. And that’s really what we all try to do.

Michael Stansbury (09:28.598)
Yeah. Well, so Bo, I’m curious because the New York market, obviously, and condos and the residential real estate, commercial real estate, multifamily is different in New York. In fact, if I’m being honest with you, in my family, I have not been in New York yet, so I’ve not experienced it yet. I’ve got to get there. I want to ask you, in your buildings, do you guys handle, when somebody wants to sell their

their condo or their apartment. Do you guys handle the transaction or is that something separate that they just get another realtor for? What does that look like? I’m curious.

Edin Bojic (10:06.37)
We have brokers in some buildings, especially when they’re opening. There’s major companies out there that provide the brokers. There’s a lot of them and most of them have their own TV shows by now. So you know which ones we’re talking about. And they handle it in our building here. We have a few brokers that know the building.

sold various apartments over the years. So, you know, they’re very good. And that’s just the person that you’re looking for if you want to sell your place. You want to know the broker that’s there and has done transactions in your building because they know what it’s really, really worth. They know what they can get for it with the top dollars. And that’s it. Our job is just to help them out. Yeah, really, we’ll provide or we do a lot of some buildings will allow some don’t.

So if they want to have open houses, if any grab we have some apartments that actually get staged. If the people move all their furniture out, they’ll bring another company to stage it so that this is what it can look like. with new buildings, I’ve actually been involved with opening a couple of random buildings. And the amount and effort that goes into it is amazing.

You listen, you’re talking about anywhere from three, five to ten, forty million dollar apartments that out there. So yes, they have to look a certain way. Your staff has to present themselves in a certain way. And I think that’s all part and parcel of everything as you experience as you walk in. As you walk in, the very first thing you’re there is the lobby, is the person who’s going to meet you, who can show you where the elevator is, who can take you up if you need.

I think that’s what everybody is looking for. You’re going to be greeted by Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith, know, and you’re going see the same people all the time. know, our guys are almost like family because they see them, they have this sense of, okay, I’m home. And I watch as people come from vacation or they come from, let’s see, you know, some of them don’t live here that often, but they will come back and visit and they treat these guys like long lost.

Edin Bojic (12:28.81)
relatives I’m like how many times I have to tell stop eating my dormant you know you know but this is the kind of place that I really like to see and I think if you’re investing in for you want to go into a place where the people and the staff are appreciated and they’re performing to the best level of service

Michael Stansbury (12:54.936)
That makes sense. So to give you an idea or to help me out, because again, I’m very curious, when somebody buys into the building, is there a management fee that they have to pay every month for these services? how does that service get paid in building in New York? Again, I know nothing. I know nothing about New York real estate. So yeah, clue me in on that.

Edin Bojic (13:21.09)
It’s maintenance fees and as well as common charges. depends if you’re on a condo or a co-op. That will include basically all of the insurance, payroll, taxes, electricity, water for the building, common areas. In some buildings there’s also extra charges because of the amenities that are brought in. Some buildings have pools, gyms, very, very big, apartment, lounges, day rooms.

kids room is very, very important in some aspects. And all of these, yes, may be included in with the maintenance or it could be extra.

But overall, New York is, shall we say, a little bit more expensive than other places to live.

Michael Stansbury (14:12.654)
Yes, yeah, and it’s well, it’s worth it, right?

Edin Bojic (14:16.768)
It is. It is. Because the level of professionalism from the building employees, from everybody, we are here to look out for you. And I would say to my guys, hey, you’re part of a union. This is a union building. It’s called the Service Employees International Union. The first word is service. This is what we’re here to provide you. And this is what we’re here to make sure that your investment stays at that level of service.

Michael Stansbury (14:48.333)
Right, so.

Edin Bojic (14:48.993)
It’s something that I is sort of easy, people have to be trained to sort of the way. And I think in my building, especially, I have a very good crew. I have very good people who really care about the people that live in the building.

Michael Stansbury (15:08.088)
Well, you described that your guys treat the tenants, the folks that live there, the folks that have purchased there, like family, right? And so family’s gonna wanna feed them. Are they allowed to? Again, I know nothing, I’m curious. They’re allowed to feed them? Are they allowed to tip them? Are they allowed to give them Christmas gifts, Easter gifts, Easter’s coming up? Bo, I mean, are they gonna get an Easter eggs or Easter baskets? What do we get? What has shown up on your desk that you’re like, that was a nice gift?

Edin Bojic (15:23.842)
Thank

Edin Bojic (15:28.875)
I’ll see you

I’m full.

You know what everything I’m actually a chocolate person so you know that shows Yeah Anything I listen to bottles of wine alcohol to everything else yes, they are allowed to accept me racially nobody’s gonna overdo it but I just think it’s a nice gesture like you know what I’m gonna give you a bagel today because you know I walked to the bagel store came back here’s one for you to just sitting here at the desk or standing at the desk rather

Michael Stansbury (15:42.062)
You’re looking forward to Friday.

Edin Bojic (16:06.018)
Enjoy yourself. Have a cup of coffee. It’s the Friendship Commodity and everything.

Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (16:16.632)
I like it. So I love that because I was just under the impression that maybe they’re not allowed to gift to them and so I love it that they’re able to reciprocate the service because as you know you’re in the service industry and there’s two ways to you know service is one of those things where a thank you is nice but then you know a thank you plus really gratitude by showing a gift is just wonderful and I know that’s because you guys do such a great job.

Let’s talk about, so you talk about property management in New York with your friend Frank. Tell us about what does that look like? How did that dynamic all start? it described here that you guys are two dinosaurs talking about this industry. I don’t think you’re that old, Bo. I don’t think you’re that old. Come on.

Edin Bojic (17:07.138)
Yeah.

Edin Bojic (17:10.858)
No, no, no, but we’re not ready for retirement. It’s a labor of love that we do and show. It’s more because we want to give back to something. We’ve both, like said, we’ve been over four years in this industry, and we’ve grown in this industry. And this industry has resident manager clubs out there. There’s about eight of them in New York, different ones that you could participate and join them.

I’m a member of four of them and on the board of the Manhattan Resident Managers Club, I really, really hold dear. And to that, where you meet your fellow RNs, resident managers, and job managers, but you also meet so many different vendors and contractors. And these people all come in and this is where you pick up leads or you pick up maybe a different plumber. like, hey, this guy sounds good, let me try.

It’s all really to help each other and when we saw in New York You know, there’s that term superintendent and super how you doing? My whole thing was what I like to say is that no, we’re not superintendents even though there are the working superintendents That’s fantastic. We love them me at this stage of my career and I’m the resident I do a lot more so

I don’t like that term to be used around it, but I like to say that, you know what? The supers have come out of the basement for long time. And throughout the course of the years, supers have been depicted as, you know, the guy with the tool belt and the toothpick and, know. We are a lot more, and Frank says the best when he goes, which drives me crazy. We wear lot of hats.

Michael Stansbury (18:56.578)
Yeah, in every sitcom, every New York sitcom, that’s exactly what they are.

Edin Bojic (19:08.79)
Frank, which hat you gonna wear today? But you know what? It’s absolutely true. We are human resources. You know, we’re psychiatrists, psychologists. We have to figure out the mentality of the men, out the mentality of our shareholders, unit owners. We have to figure out why they’re coming into my office on a screen that I know it’s been not because of society. It’s something else. So let’s calm down. Let’s sit and talk and try to reason out.

There’s so many dynamics to a daily routine. There is no daily routine. Every day is completely different. When I come in, I come into this office, I’m like, what’s the next email? Over 100 a day, by the way. What’s the next email like? What is the next project? And you’re also running multiple, multiple projects. There’s a ton of local laws. As a matter of fact, I was leafing through one of them, the real quick one.

that is like 100 pages long and just a brief, just the local list for this year that goes on. We have, yeah, we have those every year, this new local list. The composting now is a big thing in New York City. We have the compost and I don’t see many farms around here, but they’re gonna put it somewhere.

Michael Stansbury (20:14.018)
was just the added local laws that they added.

sorry, Beau.

Michael Stansbury (20:29.356)
Right, well, you know what you need to do is get a chicken coop above on the top of the building and they can help you compost.

Edin Bojic (20:31.35)
Not a

Edin Bojic (20:38.018)
I love honey, so beans would be it. If I could get a bean from up there, I’d love that. It’s interesting, New York City comes up with these local laws every year, and some of them are fantastic, some of them mean well, but I think the execution is really not 100 % thought out, because they’ll bring it out, we’ll practice it, practice it, and try to put it into perspective, try to do the right thing.

Michael Stansbury (20:40.749)
Yes.

Edin Bojic (21:07.746)
And then we come back and say, listen guys, this is not working, this is not working. So I have a very good relationship with the local sanitation crew. I have a very good relationship with the fire department or the New York City police department. We reach out to them all the time, they reach out to us. So again, it’s constantly evolving, I can’t wait to see what tomorrow looks like. So it’s always been like.

Michael Stansbury (21:32.77)
Yeah. Wow. It’s always new. Yeah, you get a hundred different emails. Yeah, you got, to, were you composting 10 years ago?

Edin Bojic (21:42.89)
No, no, no, no, no, the bags are out in the street. I mean, that’s a, I will tell you a funny story. Today, I just coming back from the doctor’s appointment, I’m in the subway, I’m on 72nd Street, and here comes a rat that is going right along, well, you don’t know what subway is, but they have a a big yellow border which says don’t step there while the train is coming, you know, obviously.

And he’s just walking along. He’s just what people, ladies are jumping out of the way. Everybody’s jumping out of the way. And he just keeps walking along as a, that’s a New York rat. That’s New York for you,

Michael Stansbury (22:23.469)
Wow.

That’s, yeah, every day something, every day something awesome, I bet over there. Yeah, it’s definitely fast pace, yeah. Well, let me ask you this, because I’m curious, how did COVID change property management or your residence management? How did you guys deal with that? when did you, how long did that, how long was New York really affected by that? Or how long could you, until you guys got back to what you felt like was a normal?

Edin Bojic (22:53.506)
Oh, I think by now we’re mostly back to normal. You’ll still see the hand sanitizers in the lobbies and here and there. People are still wearing masks. I think it was one of the most devastating things besides 9-11 that happened to New York City, at a scale that we’ve never seen before, where you actually look up and down and there’s nobody inside.

All of our buildings were under lockdown. We were essential personnel. We stayed in the buildings. We slept in the buildings. We stayed, and people stayed during 12-hour shifts trying to get people to cover. Our own people, our own staff and employees got sick and were dying. And yet, we stayed at our jobs. That’s what we’re there for. If we weren’t at the door, nobody’s going to drink any kind of beer.

We had to do that. I think I’m very, very proud of our members, of our resident managers, our property managers that assisted us. You couldn’t ask for a better example of what it means to be in a tragedy and in a war where people come together and help throughout. You know, we were, there was shortage of everything. There was shortage of everything. We couldn’t get any gloves, masks.

Hey, we were just like, whatever we can do and whatever we can do for our residents. A lot of them in a lot of buildings left town, left New York, but the ones who stayed with us, yeah, they developed COVID. So now how are we gonna deal with that? And we had to have basically every day was a new strategy to get there. I remember getting packages and spraying Lysol all over them.

you know, and then bringing it up in gloves and masks. It was an incredible time. Very surreal, very incredible.

Edin Bojic (25:03.83)
We made it. it all we made.

Michael Stansbury (25:07.566)
Well, yeah, I was just curious of how that I know it was affected everybody in the country, but New York so densely populated. just wanted to get your story there. And then one of the things you mentioned earlier is that you’re a part of some organizations that have other residence managers in there. Would you classify those as kind of masterminds or groups or how would you classify those?

Edin Bojic (25:29.698)
I wouldn’t say that, but no. Open the side. Each club individually has something different to offer, and each club has the same really great idea and forward to promote the Resident Manager, to have people understand what it is that we really do. You know, what we handle, the projects that we handle.

People come into the building and ready to work. They know where to go and they know what time they’re supposed to be there. We make sure that only qualified and professional people are doing jobs. We have to keep track of everything. We have to keep track of payroll for each individual person that you can use that a year. You have to get supplies, order supplies. Well, which vendor? Now we go back and forth and try to get the best pricing.

uh… we do our budgets for you financially everything uh… there is to do with the building we’re doing it you know so these clubs help you every week we have a different contractor a different vendor come to the club and explain their services explain what they do and what can they provide for us you know so that’s always a learning experience

Michael Stansbury (26:55.758)
Bo, that’s great. you’re constantly, even though you’ve been doing the business for a while, you’re sharing it with folks. You’re still learning something. You’re still finding out there’s new subcontractors or new contractors to work with. Maybe they do a better job. And always looking to upgrade your folks’ experience that you work for. Bo, where can people find you in your podcast if they were looking on the internet? Where can they find you?

Edin Bojic (27:06.174)
Yeah.

Edin Bojic (27:23.942)
You can find us on YouTube. are Building Talk. our website is buildingtalknyc.com. They can reach out to us. Just building talk. I’m sure you’ll find it. You can’t miss this place, So, yeah, I wish I started this younger, but I never really got better looking.

Michael Stansbury (27:27.896)
Building Talk.

Michael Stansbury (27:42.744)
Absolutely.

Michael Stansbury (27:48.694)
Well, you look great. You look like you’re using some sort of a face cream, I think. So don’t give yourself such a hard time. Well, Bo, thanks again for coming on the Real Estate Pros podcast. Folks, if you want to find out more about building taco to YouTube, and check them out there. Bo, thanks again for coming on. Folks, like and subscribe to Investor Fuel, a YouTube channel. And we’ll see you next time.

Edin Bojic (27:54.024)
Of course.