The Future of Property Management: AI, Resident Retention, and Multifamily Growth

Matthew Vincent (00:00)
Customer service in a sense of like

getting tasks done, sure, that’s gonna go away. I mean, it’s gone from my business now, which is really nice. But the customer service and the aspect of feeling heard, listened to, and understood, AI can never take that away. I think if you think it can, you’re dead wrong because AI doesn’t make mistakes. We connect with people who make mistakes. We connect with people who frustrate us and can calm us down and can match our emotions.

Michelle Kesil (01:58)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Matthew Vincent, who is a property manager in the Pacific Northwest, helping manage larger multifamily properties. So excited to have you here today, Matthew.

Matthew Vincent (02:19)
Yeah, me too. Look forward to getting into it.

Michelle Kesil (02:21)
Great, let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your world, can you share what your main focus is?

Matthew Vincent (02:28)
Yeah, so in property management, there’s several buckets that you can fit yourself into. know some property managers that do short-term rentals. Some do specifically midterm rentals. Some of them manage everything like single-family to multi-family, short-term, commercially even. The bucket I’ve set myself into and really focus on and have been excelling at is long-term multi-family property management. This is the type of property management that companies like Greystar, Lincoln Property Group.

I think it’s Fifth Avenue residential. Those larger companies, they focus primarily on long-term housing, which there’s several minor buckets in there. You have apartments, you have larger communities like HOAs. HOAs isn’t something I’m into yet, but that is considered in that bucket. Then you also have student housing, as well as tax credit compliance-focused properties. So my entire focus is long-term multifamily housing.

for anything in the Pacific Northwest above 20 units, and that can be stabilized with employees on site.

Michelle Kesil (03:25)
Awesome. And how did you get into this?

Matthew Vincent (03:28)
About four years ago in 2022, I was a broker with Jack White Real Estate in Anchorage, Alaska. And during my term being a broker, I thought I was going to sell single family homes. Sucked at that. It took nine months to sell my first house. But during those nine months, I decided to pivot a little bit and see about my hand in commercial real estate. I looked on the MLS and I looked for the most

Priced out listing, the highest cost listing and at the time it was a $16.5 million multifamily community, about 96 units and they were all townhomes. I took that and I presented it to somebody that I found online. It just went to a website, presented a deal, submitted it. Within 24 or 48 hours we had an offer on the table that we were negotiating and it took a little bit to close.

But during that process of selling that 96 unit as a brand new broker, never even sold a house yet. That taught me a lot on the operational front of multifamily because the questions they were asking me for data that they were looking for, I didn’t know those things. I thought I knew those things. I thought I knew what property management looked like. At the time, my parents owned eight units here in town and I had no idea what they were looking for.

Through that process, I learned the operational side, how to identify deals, how to identify operationally value add deals specifically, and eventually ended up selling that group another 300 units over the next year and a half. And that really got me into the multi-family space in the brokerage side. But it’s not a question they were always asking me is when am I going to open up my own shop? Because I don’t seem like a broker broker because I’m not selling them stuff. I am giving them really good opportunities and building out plans.

on how to make those opportunities reveal themselves pretty much. Through that, I got into property management. I left the brokerage I was with, started my own brokerage, got my brokerage license, and now I’m here in Alaska right now physically and also entering all the other states in the Pacific Northwest, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado, some more of the mountain region. But yeah, that’s the short-winded.

way as to how I got into property management.

Michelle Kesil (05:34)
Awesome. And what do you feel are some of the main keys that have allowed your business to grow and run successfully?

Matthew Vincent (06:30)
So I’m still learning everything, regardless of property management. I think one of the main keys is learning how to hire good people early, not trying to do everything yourself. Realistically, right now, I don’t need any employees. I could just handle everything myself right now. I have two employees right now. One of them is 1099, and then one of them is a offshore employee.

Learning how to work with them and manage with them are skills that I know are going to be super necessary in the future as I build more and grow more and get more properties where I need to hire more physical employees and especially training them. So I think that’s the answer to the question you asked.

Michelle Kesil (07:05)
Sure. And what have been some obstacles or challenges that you’ve had to overcome?

Matthew Vincent (07:11)
Learning is the little things.

When I first started property management, I thought I knew what I was doing. I had my own portfolio of properties that I bought over the years since being a broker. And I had, I was well into the double digits of units at the time, personally. I was acting as an asset manager at the time. I was not acting as property manager. I had hired a property manager. She was fantastic, phenomenal. Kept those units full.

I knew they were under-rented a little bit and I was completely okay with that because no vacancy, the expenses offset enough or the income offsets the other lost income enough where it just kind of leveled out, which was great. I took on management, learned a lot pretty quickly with my own portfolio, started taking on new clients and learned a whole lot more because not everybody treats their properties like I treat mine. And as to be expected, I mean, we all have egos, we all have…

like expectations that if I can treat it like this, then somebody else can treat it better, if not the same, hopefully. Not the case. So learning that the little things matters means working with residents especially and the owners.

Having a management company collecting rent and setting out disbursements and handling maintenance, that’s the bare minimum that people expect from a property manager, especially residents. I’ve learned very quickly that all the property management companies in town that are very successful right now, most of them provide the bare minimum. They take care of maintenance, rent collection, some of might pay taxes, some of them might pay people’s mortgages. They’re basically a glorified accountant.

which is what property management is.

None of them that I’ve found at least do little things for the residents. Some of may give them a little packet at the beginning at least, but they don’t call them on their birthday and say, hey, happy birthdays or anything I can do to improve your day today. And it’s something like that that increases resident retention. It ultimately makes it easier to manage. You have much better reviews. I only have a ⁓ one-story review and that’s on Yelp from

a disgruntled tenant. And I believe that could have been completely eradicated if I had picked up the phone and wished him happy birthday before that had happened. It was just a little thing. Not sure why I got that review. It was very confusing to me. But it’s those tiny little things making sure that the residents feel known that increase the resident retention, increase collections in a sense that there’s no delinquency.

and just really helps out the residents and helps out the owners as well. So that’s what I’ve learned.

Michelle Kesil (09:31)
Yeah, absolutely. And are most of your clients, investors that have many properties or what does that look like?

Matthew Vincent (10:14)
Most of them are investors, yeah. With my focus being in the long-term multifamily of like no single family, very few duplexes. Long-term multifamily, it’s mainly going to be investors, it’s to be people who have been in the real estate industry for at least a couple of years now, have a good understanding. So they’re more sophisticated than somebody looking to rent their single family home and are saying, okay, 12 % management makes sense.

these investors, looking for, I they got deals to get their properties and they’re looking for a deal on management as well. So I’m definitely not at 12 % myself. I’m much lower than that on my management fees. However, with the volume that multi-family brings, it makes sense to be lower. yeah, definitely, definitely investors.

Michelle Kesil (10:58)
And what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Matthew Vincent (11:03)
Right now it’s stabilizing each market that I’m in right now and to allow me to grow in other markets. Right now I’m getting my real estate broker’s license in Washington and gonna be looking at getting my real estate broker’s license in Colorado as well. Not to actively get in those markets but be ready when I do get in those markets. So it’s definitely on growth but also ensuring that my systems are.

able to be copy and paste pretty much. Right now I’m running a marketing campaign, essentially, I think I have some of letters here. It’s a newsletter campaign. It’s a snail mail newsletter campaign. And it’s going to be like a five week program that I’m going to be sending to owners directly through the mail as to a newsletter. The first one that I’m going through right now is

Like many owners are leaving $78,000 on the table. This is a introduction to utility reimbursements and rubs and what that means. The market I’m in right now, not a whole lot of properties managed like that. A lot of property managers don’t do that because utilities are such a pain point for property managers. Nobody knows how to manage utilities effectively because they’re always coming in. They’re always going out. There’s no set good system for utility management, but I’ve created one.

And I’m using it and it’s very effective. And I’m kind of teaching people how I do that and how to get those reimbursements back. Next newsletter is going to be, it’s little things that increase resident retention. Talking about sending those birthday notes, giving those residents a call. Not just doing inspections, but like having good relationships with those residents so that they increase, so that they sign renewals, stay with you longer and ultimately take care of your property better.

Michelle Kesil (12:35)
Yeah, absolutely. And how do you find the owners that you partner with?

Matthew Vincent (12:43)
it’s mostly the snail mail, honestly. I’ve tried Facebook ads. I’ve tried Google ads. I’ve tried online marketing. It has not, it has not been as effective as just sending letters out. like one thing I do and I mean, I’m trade secrets, but I’m sure many other people do that. This isn’t new to me. didn’t make, I didn’t think of this. I found it because some property manager gave it to me pretty much. When I get a property manager management contract for the building, I’ll send a letter to.

like the very direct vicinity of that area, saying, hey, we just got this property under management. If you have any noise complaints, if there’s any trash, if you have any issues with the property, here’s our direct contact information. You shouldn’t need to question who to call or anything. Here’s who we are. Here’s who to call if you have issues. And that’s it. If you want to learn more about who we are and what we do, here’s our website.

It’s not a call to action. It’s not anything. It’s building community trust. ⁓ that’s something that’s really gotten me some good leads. I just started doing that, so I haven’t signed any clients as of yet, but I am working with a few that will probably increase my door count by a hundred or 200 doors in the next couple of weeks, which is massive for a smaller property management company.

Michelle Kesil (13:53)
Yeah, amazing. And what goals do you have for where you want your company to grow to?

Matthew Vincent (14:43)
This is going to sound insane, but I want to get to 10,000 doors by 2030. so I got four years to do it. I think it’s entirely possible. getting to that point, as soon as I have this area that I’m in right now stabilized, which is, it hasn’t even been a year of active management. ⁓ I haven’t had my company for a year yet, but we’re, I’ve learned how to increase stores quickly. and now I, I just had a meeting yesterday with somebody in Idaho.

has a lot of connections down there in the tax credit space because he’s been doing it for 20 years. Working with architects, working with attorneys, working with very higher up CPAs who manage companies and know those types of owners.

The goal is to start managing at minimum 150 unit properties. And that’s going to be where Washington, Oregon, and Colorado come into play. So having even 50 of those types of properties, that’s going to get to the point of probably 7,000 doors for just 50 properties.

Michelle Kesil (15:35)
How does it work when you are in a different state? Are you hiring people on the ground?

Matthew Vincent (15:40)
Most of the time, so my operations are going to be pretty much in-house and remote. I’m always going to have a office in Alaska. That’s where I’m based. It’s a state that I love. I go sailing in Seward. mean, I’m going to a Thumb Cove race, which Thumb Cove, it’s a Cove within a, it’s called Resurrection Base and down in Seward. Pretty popular tourism place. But we’re going to go sail 18 miles to Thumb Cove and race back. And we’re racing with…

I believe four or six other boats with us.

So it’s those little things that keep me in Alaska. How it works with hiring people.

Mainly with property management companies at the scale of 10,000 doors, they’ll have a in-house corporate property management branch, which has the asset managers. It has the leaders. It has the marketing directors. It’s basically the corporate umbrella for every other property. And then every property at 150 doors, you can’t have like a third party property management company where somebody is not on site. We are a third party, but

you can’t have like a somebody who manages single family homes managing a hundred for your units because that’s a completely different business model. The business model I’m looking for is half corporate.

corporate structure and then each property is going to have its own employees, its own maintenance technicians, pretty much run its own business and we’re just going to be managing that business for the owner. So that’s kind how it works. Four or five people could easily manage 10,000 units if it’s put together well.

Michelle Kesil (16:58)
Yeah, amazing. That makes sense.

Do you have any advice for someone wanting to get started in this world?

Matthew Vincent (17:04)
in the property management world.

I don’t know if it’s good advice. I started out as a broker. learned how to underwrite deals. I learned how to evaluate deals and what, what levers you can pull. Something I’ve noticed is the biggest lever you can pull aside from increasing rents, offsetting expenses through utility reimbursements and just general curb appeal is going to be the customer service aspect. I know AI is becoming a really big thing and people are saying that customer service is going to go away with AI.

Customer service in a sense of like

getting tasks done, sure, that’s gonna go away. I mean, it’s gone from my business now, which is really nice. But the customer service and the aspect of feeling heard, listened to, and understood, AI can never take that away. I think if you think it can, you’re dead wrong because AI doesn’t make mistakes. We connect with people who make mistakes. We connect with people who frustrate us and can calm us down and can match our emotions.

Being able to get that skill and implement it with working with residents is going to be very highly sought, I believe. And it’s already highly sought now, working with a manager who can connect with their residents and really build communities and not just manage a property, collect rents, and evict people when they need to.

Michelle Kesil (18:09)
Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Vincent (18:10)
So focus

on customer service.

Michelle Kesil (18:11)
Thank you for sharing.

Well, before we wrap up here, someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more, where can people find you?

Matthew Vincent (18:18)
Yeah, the best way to reach out right now is my website. It is spurres.com That’s my main company website right now. That’s the development branch, management management branch. Everything’s right there. Best way to reach out is through there.

Instagram. I’m active on there, but I don’t post anything. So there’s really nothing to look at there. So.

Michelle Kesil (18:39)
Okay, well, appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Matthew Vincent (18:44)
Yeah. Okay. Well, have a good one.

Michelle Kesil (18:47)
And for the listeners tuning in, you got value, make sure you have subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Matthew who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you on the next episode.