Property Management Success | KeyRenter Newport Beach Story

Daniel Borland (00:00)
It’s all about trust and it’s all about I can sit and talk all day and they just have to see it in action. the great story that I like to tell is that we had an investor that came down from Northern California. They bought a property in March of this year. Excuse me. And they literally, were new to Orange County. They were from the Silicon Valley. And ⁓ I met them. We went to the property. We had this thing leased, marketed.

And attended in place, and this was income producing, just inside of about three weeks of their actual closing of the property. So they had a, you know, it was a really great realtor that came to me and said, hey, we’re gonna close on this date. And then we went ahead and used that escrow time to prep the property, was vacant, and get it ready to go so they could hit the ground running, get it marketed, really good photos.

Kristen Knapp (02:21)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Daniel Borland, who is a franchise owner of Keyrenter in Orange County. So thank you for being here, Daniel.

Daniel Borland (02:30)
Great, great to be here, Kristen, thanks.

Kristen Knapp (02:32)
Yes, I’m excited to get into the world of property management and kind of your knowledge on the industry.

Daniel Borland (02:37)
Sure, happy to answer any questions and talk about it. It’s my favorite topic.

Kristen Knapp (02:40)
And how did you get into the real estate industry to begin with?

Daniel Borland (02:43)
Well, I started out in commercial real estate lending. was an executive running commercial real estate finance for five different banks right here in Orange County. I spent a career doing that. Went to school at UC Irvine, USC Business School, and made a career out of lending. And I’ve learned that the best way to learn real estate is to lend to it, provide financing to the investors and to the industry. And I learned the 360 degrees around investing.

and financing this. was just a really, really good background and a good perspective that I had in that whole 25 plus year career doing that.

Kristen Knapp (03:18)
Wow, yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense that that’s a great way to just understand the whole business through and through.

Daniel Borland (03:24)
Yeah, was just been great. I, starting about 15 years ago, I became an investor and began buying apartments, single-family residential homes, and one to four residential duplexes and things like that. And so I started to get into it myself. And it was owning and buying and selling and financing and then hiring managers to deal with it. And we bought and sold several and I’m with a lot of good investment group.

that the timing was great, it was post-08 that I got into that after the financial crisis, and we found amazing opportunity to do that. And so since then, between the banking career that I’ve had and all of the personal investing I’ve had, I just really feel like I have been in a seat and I love talking to other owners that want to learn more. Maybe they’re younger owners, maybe they’re wanting to get into the business and figure out how to make sure that they avoid the pitfalls.

and some people make mistakes, let’s not make those mistakes. Let’s learn from others that have been doing the business.

Kristen Knapp (04:20)
Yeah, you have an incredibly well-rounded viewpoint on everything. ⁓ When you were investing, did you see any challenges with the property management side that you kind of wanted to fix?

Daniel Borland (04:30)
Yeah, great question. And I would tell you that a lot of the ones that we talked to, they were really slick. They were really good on the sales side. Hey, we’re going to help you. And you sign the property management agreement and the next thing you know, they aren’t available. They don’t call you back. They’re not in town, whatever it is. And I will tell you, I mentioned that owners of property just want to make sure that whoever’s watching and managing their property answers the phone and is responsive. And we were finding that they weren’t.

and that they were not attending to the needs of the property. Maybe they had a really expensive vendor, the vendor didn’t show up, tenants were unhappy. We care about our tenants, that matters, because we want them to stay and renew. And a safe tenant is a made tenant, is a leased tenant. And it’s one of those that we just, the whole experience wasn’t good if it wasn’t a good property manager. But then, when we found the great property managers,

We love them, we stay close to them, and we make sure that they handle all of our properties, and then we have that multiple property relationship with them, and then they understand us.

Kristen Knapp (06:18)
Of course, feel like finding good support around you, it’s just challenging in general. It’s challenging to find your team. So when you find people, you hold them close and you want them to do everything. And then, so when did you make this transition into HeRentr?

Daniel Borland (06:27)
yeah, absolutely right, very much.

So last year, 2024, I was approached by them. They carefully go into the marketplace and go look at people’s profiles. Maybe they’ve been an investor, maybe they’ve been a banker like I was. They’re at a certain age, they’re at a certain experience level, and there’s a belief that, or was a judgment that KeyRender made that I have a skill set that could own, operate, start, and run.

a property management business because I’ve led people before, I’ve managed people before, I’m client-centric and all of those things that they put all together and then they approached me and said, come visit with us, come talk to us, come talk to our other franchisees that are successful, that left their corporate job like maybe you will and let’s talk about the journey and where you want to go in your life if you ever owned a business and let’s go realize that dream with you.

And just the love and support that they put around, it’s a family group, all of our fellow franchise partners, it’s not a competitive thing, it’s just let’s help the new franchisees. Let’s show you how we grew our business from 10 doors to 300 doors to 1,000 doors, let’s do this together. there’s a lot of franchises out there that do this. Keyrenter was particularly amazing in terms of…

of the people side and the comfort I get in the support that I get from both the company itself, the franchisor, as well as the fellow franchisees. And that gave me a good feeling and I made the decision.

Kristen Knapp (08:04)
Amazing and you already kind of had the bug of working for yourself from investing.

Daniel Borland (08:07)
Correct.

That’s right. That’s right. I really wanted to go out and serve the community called Real Estate Investors and be another service provider, but do it in a really good way. Very client-centric, answer the phone, be on top of it. Every time you meet with somebody that’s an owner, you’ve got some interesting little factoid that they don’t know, but you’re bringing it to that lunch meeting, you’re bringing it to whatever meeting or a phone call, something interesting, informative.

that helps them that day. You’ve just given them some new nugget of information, as well as, of course, running and managing their properties.

Kristen Knapp (08:41)
And I just think franchises are such a great option for someone wanting to run their own business. I think a lot of people overlook that and might think that they have to build something from the ground up. I would love for you to go into just the benefits of being with a franchise.

Daniel Borland (08:48)
Right.

yeah, another great question. Yeah, if you were to go and do this on your own and with, you you’d have to go find all of your vendors. And by the way, you would not be paying good, what I’ll call, you know, large property or large company prices. We’re getting good rates and discounts on the different vendors that service this business, whether that’s operating software, maintenance vendors, and all of the different software and operating systems that we have to use.

that this franchise told me about. You’ve got somebody that’s got to be managing all of your showings. Someone’s got to be managing all of your appointments. How are you using AI? What about remote team members? All of these things that you wouldn’t otherwise think about if you were going to do a startup on your own, all of it’s been thought of, it’s already been practiced, it’s already proven, and it’s already written as a policy and a procedure. And it’s kind of a plug and play.

What does that mean you have to do? It means you’re going to be in complete business development mode right away. And that’s all about door growth. But then you’ve got all of these support mechanisms around you, which are really amazing. So it’s always best in class vendors we use in terms of our operating software, accounting, all of that that goes with this. It took all of that sort of stress of having to go find out and worry about that already in place.

Kristen Knapp (10:10)
And you have even just the name behind you that if someone has maybe done business with Keyrenter, you know, they’re more likely to partner with you.

Daniel Borland (10:13)
Right.

Exactly. there’s the marketing side of this. We have a great website manager and creator, in terms of being in front of the SEO, PPC, all of the things that go with, and then now AI overview, all of the things that are going with name recognition, brand recognition, and it’s changing dramatically by the day here. And our company’s staying ahead of that, and we’re making sure that we’re with the really best-in-class vendors to do that. But that marketing support…

and brand development is very, important. Yes.

Kristen Knapp (11:20)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

So you’ve been doing this about a year, correct?

Daniel Borland (11:25)
Yeah,

mean, what it takes is when you do one of these franchises, have to, you do your onboarding, you do your training, you do your coaching, it takes quite a bit of time upfront, you know, a few months, and then you finally open your doors, which I did earlier this year, and that was really about February, and that’s when you get out there, you get out there and you start talking and you’re networking, and you’re starting to talk to owners, and I was bringing on, you know, I brought on like six doors really fast.

And you have people that you’ve known in your life that, you’re a property manager. Great, I have properties. I trust you. Please manage my rental property in Corona Del Mar. And that’s how it all starts. And then just one after another after another. And then you just start feeding off of that. And you have these success stories. You get them into social media. You start highlighting all of that and making sure that your Google business page is correct and accurate.

up to speed and you’re out in the community and you become the mayor of your town and you start doing all of that kind of stuff and it just starts to turn into a flywheel and then you’re also working on your Google reviews and things like that to make sure that your clients are happy and doing reviews of you and you’re just growing the business in all of these different ways you have to do it.

Kristen Knapp (12:34)
Amazing, yes, and you’re in the Orange County area, which is one of my favorite places. I love Orange County so much. And talk about kind of how important it is to be a part of the community and be local and be available and close to people’s properties.

Daniel Borland (12:47)
Yeah, no, that’s a super important point. So I’m here in Newport Beach and there’s a lot of amazing coastal communities that are within, call it a 15 or 20 minute drive. there’s eight to 10 cities that I actually cover in the territory. I’m in the community, we’re doing charity work or we’re supporting all of the businesses that are here. And whether it’s using this handyman or that maintenance company or these escrow people or whatever.

We all just help each other and there’s lots of events that get planned here that we all contribute to or sponsor and we just help each other out by each of us growing our businesses together. I love that I’m helping. I mean, I’ve been working with some other like new electricians and they’re new and I’m new and we’re gonna grow this thing together and they’re amazing. so it’s just helping the community that way and then giving back.

We love to do that and there’s lots of organizations that I’m part of that do that. you just, you then you become part of the community and then if you have a property here, you’re gonna say, you know, I kind of like the local, I like the local property manager. The company’s here, they know my neighborhoods, they know my street corners, they know good neighborhoods, I’m gonna go buy another house and they’re gonna be the experts on being a good ⁓ trusted advisor when I purchase my next home, because they know the neighborhood.

Kristen Knapp (14:07)
Yeah, and something that you mentioned before our call that really stuck out to me is you’re trying to be their asset managers, not necessarily just their property manager.

Daniel Borland (14:15)
Correct, correct.

Kristen Knapp (14:16)
And I would love for you to, yeah, I would love for you to kind of expand on that.

Daniel Borland (14:19)
Yeah, let’s talk about that. when everybody, you we think of property managers, well, they’re just rent collectors. They’re the ones that go knock on the door and get a check and go deposit it. And that’s one little aspect, you know, collecting rent, which by the way, we do everything electronically now. don’t, I mean, we must accept checks legally, but we really like the electronic, you know, rental payment system. But what we do is work with owners to find better insurance.

Find a better mortgage. Find their next house. Have the best vendors. Maybe we give them tips on a renovation that they could do if they go spend a little bit of money here, a little bit of money there. Guess what the rent can be on this house if you just do X, Y, Z, and we have vendors ready to go. We’ll get it done in a week or two or three, and then you’re going to have your rent’s going to go from here to there

and

let’s not spend money there, let’s spend money here and make it be really efficient. They need advice. People need advice. People are really good at what they do in their own life. Maybe they’re an attorney, whatever they do, but they just don’t know the nuances of what it really takes to make their property hum. And they need somebody along their side that’s gonna just help everything. So, the expense side, property tax. If we have to go and talk to the Orange County Property Tax Assessor and have this place.

reassessed we would and can. You just have to help them in all aspects of the revenue and the expense side of their property.

Kristen Knapp (16:28)
Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. And talk about, you know, being in Orange County. I know that California is a very tenant friendly state. You you have so much knowledge. You have all this knowledge from being in the financial part of it and investing and now property management. How can you use all of these tools to help investors, you know, in a state that’s notoriously pretty challenging for an investor?

Daniel Borland (16:50)
Right,

yeah. You gotta be very, very careful. So it means that you better know every single one of the latest and greatest laws. one of the things that I wanna be a little bit careful about is when you sit down with somebody that’s maybe an inexperienced landlord, otherwise known as an accidental landlord, what does that mean? That means that their parents might have passed away and they inherited the property and I start going through the…

you know, the XYZs of the state law, they freak out and they get scared and it becomes a frightening aspect. And so you really have to bring it down and just talk very, very carefully and truthfully. But you’re there to help them own this property. You’re there to explain things to them in good layman’s parlance. And you’re helping them understand the risks and you’re helping them

make the decision. Maybe they’re not even gonna own the property. say, know what, I think we’re gonna sell this. Or no, thank you, I think you’ve explained enough, we’re gonna manage this. so, it’s the laws are what they are. Orange County has, there’s a few cities that are specific. So we have the state laws, and then there are certain cities that have specific laws. Not as many in Orange County. We’re seeing this more like in the Bay Area, Los Angeles.

⁓ Santa Ana is one of our Orange County cities that has a little bit, there’s a little bit more of a restrictive rent control or landlord laws and rules. And so you have to go know those, like city of Costa Mesa, for example, you just have to know what they are. So if there’s a property there, you got to know those extra laws and you have to just explain to the owners what that means and what’s the impact. And how does that, how might that, know, how are we, what are we doing about that? And we like to explain that.

Kristen Knapp (18:28)
Yeah, I mean I can just see how you have so much information to share with people and people probably feel very safe with you.

Daniel Borland (18:34)
Well,

it’s all about trust and it’s all about I can sit and talk all day and they just have to see it in action. the great story that I like to tell is that we had an investor that came down from Northern California. They bought a property in March of this year. Excuse me. And they literally, were new to Orange County. They were from the Silicon Valley. And ⁓ I met them. We went to the property. We had this thing leased, marketed.

and attended in place, and this was income producing, just inside of about three weeks of their actual closing of the property. So they had a, you know, it was a really great realtor that came to me and said, hey, we’re gonna close on this date. And then we went ahead and used that escrow time to prep the property, was vacant, and get it ready to go so they could hit the ground running, get it marketed, really good photos.

virtual staging, all of these things that you really need to do now, 3D photography and all of that so people can be on their phone and see the house without actually going to it. And then ⁓ it was leased very quickly and the tenants are super happy. They were highly screened, but super happy. And it’s been my proud moment to just keep giving that owner their distributions every month for the last, since March.

Kristen Knapp (19:47)
That’s amazing. I love that. And what would be some of your advice maybe to people who are trying to make the leap from corporate to owning their own business?

Daniel Borland (19:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a big deal to think about because people get very comfortable in their corporate job. They’ve got health insurance, they’ve got their 401k, they’ve got people around them, they’ve got a manager, they’ve got a system, they’ve got processes, they’ve got all of the, I guess I’ll say the comforts of that. But you have to realize that there’s lots of changes going on in that corporate environment as well. you shouldn’t feel necessarily safe doing that. But if you believe in yourself,

and you’re super passionate, anything can happen. you would, so I would, go and I try to tell them that, you know, you just have to, you have to just go do the research, talk to people, and then have the confidence. And if you’re not, gotta believe in yourself, just believe in yourself. And it really does work. And I try to be a testament to that. I say, I left this fantastic job, very high paying job, very nice. And I, a lot of perks and everything that goes with that.

and hopped out of that and I’m now on my own in a building business, ramping up business, that, what does that mean? It means it’s costing money and it’s not making money yet, close, but not yet. And you just have to just believe in yourself and then go be around amazing people and get away from all the negative people. Make sure that there’s nobody negative in your life because that’s gonna be, those voices are gonna be what’s gonna be a problem for you. So stay away from that. I have loved this journey.

been the best thing ever. Yeah. ⁓ absolutely. Absolutely. It does help if you’ve got a little bit of a financial cushion. You you can’t, you if you’re, if you’re trying to raise a family of four and you’re, and you’re 38 years old, a little bit harder. That’s probably a risk I wouldn’t necessarily recommend, but if you’ve already got some, some financial wherewithal and you’ve got, you know, some cushion to absorb what this, what this is, which is cost and time and risk.

Kristen Knapp (21:18)
⁓ yeah, so it’s definitely worth it. It’s worth all,

Daniel Borland (21:43)
⁓ But if you know what you’re doing, it’ll be successful. So it’s not for everybody, but it’s really for those people that are willing to take risk and really, really believe in themselves.

Kristen Knapp (21:53)
Yes, I love that. So where can people find you?

Daniel Borland (21:56)
[email protected] or our website https://keyrenternewportbeach.com/or 949-404-3000.

Kristen Knapp (22:03)
Perfect, we got the number two. So thank you so much for being here today. I think that people have a lot of inspiration and learned a lot.

Daniel Borland (22:08)
Thank you, Kristen.

Well, I appreciate it. It’s very nice to chat with you and have a great afternoon. Thank you.

Kristen Knapp (22:15)
Yes, and thank you everybody for listening and we will see you back next time. Bye.