Preserve Character, Protect Value: How to Renovate Vintage Multifamily Rentals

Lisa Talbot (00:00)
My big thing is just that I really am very passionate about being a steward of older buildings here in Los Angeles. I really believe passionately about, preserving the old vintage 1920s, 1960s apartment buildings, not just for because they’re beautiful, which I think they are, but also because there’s history here that I think is very important.

Q Edmonds (01:59)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am indeed excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest and I can’t wait for us to just glean from her experience. Now she got 20 years of experience as a property manager. So obviously nothing to sneeze at. And so

What I love about her vision and the things that she focused on, she really wants to help homeowners keep the beauty of the building. And so I love her mindset, the way she thinks. Got a little arts background too. Hopefully, we all get into that a little bit. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Miss Lisa Talbot. Miss Lisa, how you doing today?

Lisa Talbot (02:45)
I’m good. How are you?

Q Edmonds (02:47)
I am doing great.

Thank you for being here. I’m glad we get to do this. Always say time is our most precious commodity. And so I value you for being here and giving us your time. I really appreciate it. And Miss Lisa, I am the type. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell them like what market you’re operating at, where you are in the world. And so.

Miss Lisa, you have the floor, ma’am.

Lisa Talbot (03:20)
Okay, well, so I am a property manager. I specialize in vintage older buildings from like 1920 to 1950s, 60s buildings, smaller multifamily. How I got into it, actually kind of a funny story. My background is art, photography, and I was in my like early 20s and I wanted to move out of my mom’s house. And I was like, how do I get out of there? And I couldn’t afford to move.

In Los Angeles, very expensive. And so I Googled live rent free and a property management company came up and I was like, that’s interesting. And so I looked into it and I ended up doing it. That’s what how I got it, was able to move out of my apartment for the got it get an apartment for free. Yeah. Because that’s what on-site apartment managers get free apartments. And

Q Edmonds (04:15)
Yeah.

Lisa Talbot (04:16)
So that’s how I got into property management. Yeah. And I was doing freelance photography as a job. And so I ended up being really good at it. And so my first place was on Rossmore, which is in Los Angeles, a really beautiful street with old 1920s apartment buildings. And I really fell in love with the architecture there. And I ended up also the same time I was doing architectural photography.

And so eventually I moved into my first building that was a 1929 Spanish Revival apartment building. And that was my second place I managed. And I still live there actually. I’ve been there for 20 years. I’m the on-site manager there, and it needed a lot of work. It was like in a really bad shape. And so over the first couple years, I learned a lot about.

Renovation and we had to do a lot of work on the building and you start to learn about what you want to keep in the building, what you need to take get leave behind. Sometimes things are too in terrible conditions, but you also kind of see the beauty of an old building. And this building’s got some really beautiful vintage tile and built-ins and

really cool stuff in it and so and really beautiful parquet hardwood floors and things like that. And so, as we were fixing it up and when people moved out, we would do renovations, start to learn what you want to keep and what you can let go of and renovate like some of the kitchens and stuff like that. And so, I really fell in love with old buildings. And as I started doing property management more and more.

I started really specializing in the old buildings because that’s really what I love to do. And so we started I started really learning, as we fixed buildings, I saw some owners just tearing out these apartments and letting go of these beautiful tile and built-ins and putting in gray vinyl plank flooring and just white tile and really losing the character. Yeah. And while they

thought they were gonna be able to rent it at really high rents, sometimes it would be very hard to rent them. Yes, ma’am. I started to kind of learn how to talk to the owners and say, hey, this is not necessarily the way to go. Maybe you want to keep your bathroom, the cool tile, color tile, maybe you want to keep the hardwood floors, maybe, if you can, stuff like that. And so

I started to and then owners started to want me as their manager. And so I decided to open my own business and that’s kind of the story.

Q Edmonds (07:57)
I love it. No, thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for taking us on the journey, kind of how you got started, where you are now. And so I often say this, Miss Lisa: destiny has no wasted moments, right? We learn from each leg of our journey, from the success, from the failures, from if we had to transition from different businesses, like we learn from all of it.

So I would love to know what has the journey and property management, what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience? Like what has the journey taught Lisa about Lisa?

Lisa Talbot (08:34)
Yeah, I mean it’s definitely resilience and it’s been an interesting journey. There, things like property management can be creative too. I love that like you think like, this is just like a business about making money or taking care of the day-to-day stuff. But we have Los Angeles is filled with like all sorts of really cool architecture. It’s something that we don’t really

Think about because you drive by. I mean, LA is like kind of a huge place, but there’s all these cool neighborhoods with all these really cool buildings and a lot of old Spanish Revival and Victorian houses that were, converted into duplexes and fourplexes, and there’s just a lot of really cool stuff and Craftsmans and just all sorts of cool of architecture, and

That stuff needs to be preserved. History is beautiful. And so we wanna, there’s we wanna think about that stuff. And so as I am doing my job, I really think about that kind of history and beauty. And because I come from an art background, I can kind of like see it in a different way. And so, I definitely feel like you don’t know how like

different things kind of converge together and affect your life in a in a very interesting way. So it’s been kind of a fun journey and an interesting convergence of a lot of different skills.

Q Edmonds (10:03)
Yes, ma’am. No, thank you. Thank you so much for the way you answered that question and the reflective way that you answered it because you’re right. So many of our skill sets, there is a merge. And when, kind of like

So my mentor said it like this when you know who you are, you know what to do. So when you are, you when you know your skill set, when you know, when you’re pulling from different parts of your life, it really helps you in your present life and how you conduct and go about business. And so I absolutely love that. So being a property manager, I know you deal with a lot. I know there’s a lot on your plate, a lot that’s always coming on your desk, right? So operationally, like what are some operational things that you do.

They kinda help you be successful, help you kind of manage the day to day.

Lisa Talbot (10:48)
I will say definitely the most wonderful thing that’s ever come to our job as a property manager is computers. So having an online like app that we I use AppFolio and it is like a godsend, because you now people can put in their maintenance requests online and you’re not doing like before that it was like you had to keep some sort of like

all that file information on paper and stuff like that, right? It was much more complicated. But everything, can be, all stored and done through a computer system. So it’s much, much easier. And that keeps my life much easier to do. So most of that work is streamlined like way, way, way, way simpler through an app.

And so I like I will say that, it just makes it easier to address a problem really much quicker, be more on top of things with your vendors and interacting with tenants and stuff like that in a much more smooth way. And so, I feel like that has been one of the benefits of, just

evolution of computer technologies and stuff like that. And so I definitely embrace all of that. I am very I love ChatGPT. So like I think that that’s like those things are really helpful. And I think we need to, embrace the technologies that help us do our jobs faster and more efficiently and help to do that kind of stuff because my job in communication is really important.

And efficiently so people feel like, whatever’s going wrong with their apartment is going to be addressed in a timely manner. That’s really important because it’s your home, So that’s being on top of it is important. And those systems help you to be able to be on top of those things. So kind of creating a system is really important and just kind of having that system in place makes everything really efficient.

Q Edmonds (12:48)
Absolutely. So well said. Absolutely. So Miss Lisa, what’s next for you? What’s the next real goal or what are you looking to solve at scale next? What’s next for you, Miss Lisa?

Lisa Talbot (13:39)
Well, so one thing is I’m getting my broker’s license. So I’m gonna have my own like really own business. I don’t need to all it’ll be mine. It’s called gonna be called Viewfinder Properties. So I’m really excited about that. And it’ll be, brokerage and full property management company. That will be all my own. And then in within that Viewfinder Properties, we’re gonna launch it.

A YouTube channel where we’re gonna be teaching people more about the vintage properties, how to care for them, what to do with them, like how to care for the hardwood floors, the tile, little things that tenants need to know, like putting, a hair trap on your shower and things like little things like that, plus also RSO, which is Rent Stabilization Ordinance in Los Angeles, the laws around those things and

what does habitability mean? Things like that, so just information for both owners and tenants and that they can take home and learn and understand in a way that’s more human, hopefully, and not just so like lawyer information. And just other things about the vintage properties, because for me that’s really important how to take care of them.

Q Edmonds (14:57)
Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Now listen, property management, I’m sure you come in contact with a lot of people, have come in contact with a lot of people over the years, right? So I wanna hear your thoughts on relationship, like business relationships. How do you go about building healthy relationships? Who are some of the people

that’s in your corner that that helps you within, the business world and some me maybe even some people that you help. But just talk to me about your philosophy, Miss Lisa, on relationships.

Lisa Talbot (15:31)
Well, I think relationships are really important and I think communication’s really important and you’re always learning how to be better at it because this is something I feel like it’s like really humbling when you deal with residents because it’s always an a learning experience because people can be highly stressed when interacting with a situation, right? And so you’re always learning how to be understanding and listen and

get better and be better at communication because there there’s always very high stress situations that happen in property management. And so you can always learn to be better at at communication. And so, and also, I have my broker and other real estate agents within my brokerage company that I feel like are help me to, we can talk about situations that have happened and how can we be better at that, I think that

We’re always learning to be better communicators. Yeah. And other property managers that I’ve worked with and work with currently. And then also people that I’ve done, I’ve been a teacher in the past that I’ve taught photography. So, as a teacher and other teachers, and just my mom is a teacher, so she’s, something that I’ve always learned, that’s been in my life is being a teacher. And so

I think it’s just something that always learning how to communication is just a huge thing. So we’re just all I’m always trying to get better at that because even though I don’t think I’m bad at it, it’s just something that like you can always be better. Yeah. And you can always learn to listen more,

Q Edmonds (17:13)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So we’ll say about my wife just entered her twenty-fourth year of being an educator. And so yes, so yes. So hats off to you teachers for sure.

Lisa Talbot (17:23)
Education is so important.

Q Edmonds (17:25)
So important. Yep. And she because she communicates at a high level, she helps me be a better communicator. So you’re right, communication is everything. Listen, it is there anything because I’ve been asking you questions, but I want to make sure, like, is there anything that you kind of came in to this podcast, like something on your mind that you wanted our viewers to know? Like, I kind of just want to open up space, like if you had a message that you wanted to make sure landed.

I just want to open up the floor if there’s something like that.

Lisa Talbot (17:57)
I think we kind of covered most things. My big thing is just that I really am very passionate about being a steward of older buildings here in Los Angeles. I really believe passionately about, preserving the old vintage 1920s, 1960s apartment buildings, not just for because they’re beautiful, which I think they are, but also because there’s history here that I think is very important.

But also the smaller like four to eight to maybe sixteen unit properties create kind of more neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It’s instead of these huge hundred unit, two hundred unit buildings, you have more smaller buildings that create a more neighborhood style, more community. And I really think that that is something special about special about Los Angeles. We have this sort of more horizontal, sort of builded.

Like build like neighborhood sort of feel to Los Angeles, which is different than most cities. We’re not really a vertical city. We’re kind of bigger. And so it has a lot of pockets of neighborhoods. And those little neighborhoods are all walkable and very like cute. They’re cute. They have single family homes. They have little duplexes, fourplexes, eightplexes, all mixed in together. And those

kind of create a neighborhood where people know each other and they interact with each other. And I really think there’s something valuable about that. And community is super important, especially right now. We need more interaction with humans. So I think that it’s important to preserve that environment. And so that’s a big part of why I’m so passionate about that type of building. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (19:54)
Miss Lisa, I couldn’t have said it better myself, especially about community. So yes, that resonates highly with me. We definitely need community at this stage and where we are for sure. Miss Lisa, I really appreciate you coming on. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, ma’am?

Lisa Talbot (20:16)
Well, my current website is RSFLAPM.com. So R as in Robert, S as in Sam, F as in Frank LA. And then PM property management.com. So that’s my website. And then my email is just [email protected]. And yeah, you could just find my website and there’s all my contact information there.

Yeah, and then I would love to talk to anybody that has any questions about property management, needs a property manager, has questions about housing in Los Angeles, that’s definitely something we can help with. But yeah, so also Viewfinder Properties on Instagram. It’s viewfinder underscore properties on Instagram.

Q Edmonds (21:16)
Yeah, yeah. Love it. Well listen, Lisa, thank you so much. I’m gonna say three things to you. Kind of reiterate, thank you for your time. Again, it’s precious commodity. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for the gift of your authenticity, the gift of your integrity. I believe our stories, they plant little seeds for people and we never know when it’s gonna grow, but the seed is there and it can grow at any given time. So thank you for coming on planting real seeds. And lastly, thank you for your mindset, for the way you think.

And I really appreciate you bringing that mindset to this platform. So thank you so much for coming on, Miss Lisa.

Lisa Talbot (21:51)
Thank you so much as well. Have a good one.

Q Edmonds (21:53)
Are you as well? So listen, y’all heard Miss Lisa. Her information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with her. If you need some help, questions about property management, get in contact with her. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Miss Lisa. So, ma’am, I say thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have an incredible day.