The Ultimate Guide to Tenant Experience: Boost Your Rental Success

John Harcar (00:01.046c
All right, hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Maranda Tucker. And what she’s gonna share is how she educates landlords, real estate agents, things to do with your rentals. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate agents, real estate investors. Okay, I’m gonna start over, okay? We’re gonna cut that out, we’ll start over.

Maranda (00:10.483)
Okay. Perfect.

John Harcar (00:25.464)
Please edit that. All right, so one, two, three. All right, hey guys, welcome back to the show. My name is John Harcar, your host, and I’m here with Miranda Tucker, and we’re gonna discuss how she educates both landlords and agents as far as working with, you know, maybe their rentals. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, I mean all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business. We do it by providing tools and resources to build the business they wanna build and live the life that they wanna live.

Welcome to our show.

Maranda (00:57.255)
Thank you for having me.

John Harcar (00:58.894)
Yeah, no, I’m excited to talk about some things and you know, I already learned something when we were off air. So I’m excited for you to share your knowledge. But before we kind of get into all that, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit about you, kind of, you know, what got you into real estate, your experience and kind of what got you here.

Maranda (01:15.155)
Cool. Yeah. So I have been a broker now here in North Carolina for six years, in property management now for four. And, I, I fell into real estate, when I first moved here, I first of all, born and raised in Texas, relocated to be with my husband here in Charlotte. And when I got here,

I was 23, just graduated college, wasn’t really sure what I was doing and got scooped up by the Core Training, which is a real estate sales platform. They basically train real estate agents and loan officers on how to manage their time, run their business like a business, lead generation, all that good stuff. so that was my introduction to real estate. And from there, I was watching all of these other

people just like me making a lot of money in real estate and thought, why am I not, I can do that, they’re doing it. So I think I want to dive in. And so that’s when I got licensed and sold real estate for the first few years. And that is a grind. 80 hour work weeks, disrupted vacations. That for me personally just wasn’t sustainable. And I know really great real estate agents today who

whose business model is very different and they are able to protect their time a little bit better. But when you’re first getting started, you don’t have the luxury to have someone else do your work on the weekends. So yeah, so after I was at my grandfather’s funeral and had a client who was disgruntled call me at my grandfather’s funeral. I thought, you know what? I don’t think I want to do the real estate sales route anymore. And thankfully a week later,

John Harcar (02:52.993)
no.

Maranda (02:58.981)
I wasn’t looking for it, but a recruiter reached out to me and asked if business development and property management might be something that I would be willing to consider. And the great thing about property management is you don’t have to work on the weekends if you have a great team and support systems in place to make it happen. So I get to work Monday through Friday and be at dinner with my kids and have the weekends in the sunshine.

during the summertime and yeah, so I’ve been doing that now for four years. Yeah. So we’re barely on the map. It’s called Plainview, Texas. It’s between Lubbock and Amarillo. My dad was a farmer, so it’s just cotton country out there. Lots of dust.

John Harcar (03:31.918)
That’s awesome. We’ll part of Texas.

John Harcar (03:42.488)
Got it. Yeah, I know. Our company is based out of Dallas. But OK, so you go to North.

Maranda (03:48.108)
Yeah, so I went to school in Dallas Baptist University actually. Yeah, yeah.

John Harcar (03:51.714)
Okay, so you’re in Dallas, you moved to North Carolina, is your husband in real estate or anything like that? Okay, what did you study in school?

Maranda (03:58.274)
He’s not, he’s a fireman here, so.

I studied Christian Ministries and Psychology and minored in Spanish, so I’m all over the board.

John Harcar (04:08.53)
and

did you come across this core thing you said you just kind of stumbled into it how did that happen

Maranda (04:16.292)
I was looking for any job. I was hungry and so I came across. actually, no, you know what? That’s not true. I had just taken a recruiting job here in Uptown Charlotte and it was sucking the life out of me. My commute into Uptown Charlotte was an hour plus every day, even though I technically only lived 30 minutes away and

John Harcar (04:21.335)
you

Maranda (04:45.515)
It was just a desk job where I was like pressing emails, AIs doing the job that I was doing today for sure. So I used my husband’s network of friends and asked if any of them could get me a job literally anywhere else. And he was working at the core at the time. So he referred me and I thank goodness I got hired because it changed the game for me.

John Harcar (05:10.698)
Did you have any, know, because a lot of people that get into real estate might have had, you know, maybe some influences in their life, whether it’s family members, whether it’s, you know, somebody that is an agent or maybe had rent tolls or did you have any influences in your life that maybe kind of put a seed, you unknown seed in your head about real estate?

Maranda (05:28.692)
No, no. My family, my mom was a single mom of three until my stepdad came into the fixture a little bit when I was still young, like seven years old, but we barely, we live paycheck to paycheck, one house, don’t know anyone in my family who owns rental properties or is an agent of any kind. I just got lucky with this connection to the core training. And that’s really when I got to be in the room.

around people way smarter than me and in on the secret. So in on the secret of real estate. Yeah. No in on the secret.

John Harcar (06:04.718)
And on the secret? Oh, and on the secret. Oh, I thought was like, and on the secret. like, is there a secret? You’re not telling me. And on the secret. OK. Just some of our audience that might not be familiar with Core, tell them what that is.

Maranda (06:18.645)
Yeah, so basically, if you’ve ever heard of by referral only, know Tony Robbins has its own like coaching program, but it’s essentially just that you come in, you get to work with professionals who are already have they already have a proven successful business in real estate or as a loan officer or mortgage broker. And they teach you basically what they did to make their job successful. So

They teach you the time management lead generation, how to build a team whenever you get to that level of production. And every year they have a couple of events. There’s different levels to the coaching company. I only went to, I was only at that company for a year before I dove into real estate myself. So, but went to a couple of events where you’re just in a room full of people making a lot of money and they’re all just learning.

how do I better organize all of this? so that’s what I mean by in on the secret is I don’t know that people, it’s not common knowledge that you just make a lot of money in real estate the way that you and I would probably know it to be because we’re in the rooms and having those conversations every day. And so that was my big eye opener. And the core training is great for anyone who may just need to learn the basics. It’s nothing, there’s not a big secret.

It’s the basics, always call people, network, but it just teaches you a little bit more who to call and what to say and who to meet in those rooms whenever you get there.

John Harcar (07:45.326)
Alright. Okay. Okay.

John Harcar (07:57.08)
And how long was that training? How long were you doing that?

Maranda (08:00.07)
I did that for a year and I did it as a sales trainer. So they gave me the material and I was on the bottom level. So there’s like three different levels to this program on level two and level three. You get taught by someone who’s actually doing it on level one. It’s you’re taught by someone who’s giving you the curriculum. So I was given the curriculum and then I would basically regurgitate that and hold students accountable to make sure they’re getting it done. Really fun success story with that though is

John Harcar (08:03.598)
Okay. cool, okay.

Maranda (08:30.16)
Although I didn’t have the background at that time, I was able to help a realtor who her and her husband were a duo team and her daughter had brain cancer. And when she called me, she basically just said, Miranda, like we are in debt up to our eyeballs with these medical bills and we don’t have the energy or the hope to keep going right now.

And I got to help step in and just offer a different perspective, speak a little bit of life into her and her business. within the year, all of their medical debt had been paid. And it’s not by anything I did, clearly. It was just, you know, sometimes you need a different voice and a new perspective to reboot and revitalize. And so that’s one of the few. Well, sure, I guess so. I got to be the mouthpiece, but really she she did the hard work, but that’s fun to see.

John Harcar (09:12.494)
credit.

John Harcar (09:18.914)
Well, it was something you did.

John Harcar (09:27.032)
So talk to me about some of the challenges that you made when you transitioned to going into real estate, being a broker.

Maranda (09:32.572)
Um, yes. So I guess I didn’t actually have any challenges up front, to be honest, going into real estate because I dove in at a time when it was easy. I have not been in the career. I’ve not been in the career space long enough to go through the dips through the 2008s yet. But, um, when I first started, we were just ramping up in 2020. mean, it was easy to become a real estate agent, to be honest. And I…

John Harcar (09:49.006)
you

John Harcar (09:58.978)
There were a lot of people that became real stations at that time, yeah.

Maranda (10:02.14)
Yeah, so but I knew open houses were a great opportunity to and this was right before the world shut down so open houses and I was doing to every weekend and I came across my first million dollar buyer they’re relocating here from California again Feels pretty lucky Just to happen to some will cross the right people and get to know them really well. So in my first year, I did 11 sides and

John Harcar (10:20.974)
you

Maranda (10:31.301)
It was great, but again, it’s a lot of work for a beginner and I was, it wasn’t sustainable. So when I went into property management, and I think this is where we can talk more about the education piece, but the biggest challenges that I’ve seen have been around getting on the same page as our clients in property management. So, and what I mean by that is when we are,

When a tenant moves out of a property, they leave it in a certain shape and we got to get it back to a property standard that. Is not only acceptable, but sexy expectations for that next set of tenants and. Some owners don’t understand that because they’re not doing it every day, so understandably they don’t know they’re not. They’re not understanding that how we leave a property or how we hand over a property to the next set of tenants will.

set the tone for that year. And we want them to stay for more than just one year. So they need a great experience upfront in order to increase the opportunity for them to stay longer, especially in the market that we are in now compared to the markets we had been in for the last four years. And I think landlords here in Charlotte are just now really starting to feel that shift because although the shift happened,

John Harcar (11:28.494)
Mm-hmm.

Maranda (11:54.113)
Last year, the year before, we’re just now seeing the decrease in rents happening because now tenants are moving out and finding new places and they’re having to find tenants for the first time since the market shift has occurred. So I think we’re only just now experiencing the challenges when it comes to the rental market, in the market, in the market, definitely.

John Harcar (12:07.182)
Okay.

John Harcar (12:11.936)
in the business or in the market? In the market. Okay. And what challenges are you seeing now?

Maranda (12:20.802)
So MLS, average day on market for MLS right now for all rental properties in the greater Charlotte area is 75 days. And that’s pretty high. Again, I think it’s because people are putting their house on the market for the first time in a couple of years. And the last time they put their house on the market, they didn’t have to do it. You could just, know, a quick little listing, cell phone snap. Yeah, it was easy.

John Harcar (12:44.366)
Have your kid find something that’s going to be printed.

Maranda (12:49.524)
Easy, easy to do. And now we have apartment buildings that have since come available in Charlotte. We have the build to rent. know Charlotte’s, North Carolina is number two in the nation for the build to rent communities behind Arizona and Charlotte is the biggest city in North Carolina. So Charlotte’s right behind Phoenix, Arizona for the build to rent communities that are popping up out here. So if supply is high, the economy is hard. And I don’t.

I don’t think owners are realizing that upfront when they bring their home to market now that they have to try a little bit harder to be more competitive because people do have options now that they haven’t had before.

John Harcar (13:30.702)
Okay. And how are you educating those homeowners on, you know, some of these topics? Like how are you, how are you breaching that with them?

Maranda (13:39.137)
Yeah, great question. So a lot of it is through videos. It’s the easiest way for us to communicate to our owners at this time. when, especially when one of our properties are getting, is getting ready for move out, we’re already starting that education process then. And we are doing quarterly updates to our owners and specifically updating owners that are on market twice a week now. So we used to do a leasing update once a week to our owners where we would get information on

Here’s how many days on market we are. Here’s how many days since the last price change. Here’s our feedback. Here’s our suggested next move. And it might be we keep the price the same or it might because of the interest that we’re seeing in the property, or it might be, let’s go ahead and improve the price a little bit to increase that interest now. And we’ll revisit this on Thursday. So we are doing those leasing updates twice a week now. And since we’ve started that process, I think it’s

keeping owners a little bit more involved. But to go back and I kind of rabbit trails there, but to go back that education process starts when a tenant gives notice that they are moving out. It’s okay, tenant will give notice that they’re moving out. That means when tenant moves out within 48 hours or doing an inspection, it’ll be posted to your portal and we will reach out to you with the quotes in order to get the property rent ready once again.

please be on the lookout. It’s important that we get this done quickly so that way we can reduce vacancy time. And it just, it starts from there. Once that inspection is posted, I’m now reaching out, getting on the phone call with them and saying, this is what needs to be done. Do you have any questions? If you are, if it’s just a green light, let’s go. It’ll get it turned in a week and we’ll be back on market. If you have questions, what are they? So I can tell you why, why we are doing what we are doing. So I think it’s just being very hands-on.

through the process. And because of that, our average day on market right now within our portfolio here in Charlotte is 28 days compared to the market itself at 75 days. So.

John Harcar (15:36.003)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (15:42.984)
wow.

John Harcar (15:47.086)
was going to ask what kind of feedback, mean, you know, what kind of, know, from the owners that are getting this stuff, like since you’ve implemented maybe some of this newer stuff, have you seen that uptick in maybe retention?

Maranda (16:01.031)
Well, we’ve never really had an issue with retention because we are very, we’re hyper local. very, very, and we don’t, we try upfront to not bring on people who can’t, who won’t, who don’t see eye to eye with us as far as how their property should be managed because we’re not everyone’s cup of tea. So, and it’s my job specifically to make the right connections with the right people upfront. So that way, when it comes to a move out.

John Harcar (16:05.678)
That’s perfect.

Maranda (16:29.714)
inspection and it comes to getting the property rent ready again. We’re not running into a lot of headaches or frustrations because all of that communication has happened before they ever even came into our portfolio under our management. But I would say I haven’t seen an increase in retention just because we we’re retaining everyone that’s not selling their home. At this point, we haven’t lost an owner that’s not selling their home in in probably two years. So it yeah.

John Harcar (16:57.518)
That’s awesome. What mistakes are you seeing folks making that aren’t with, you that aren’t working with a company like you or someone, you know, what’s mistakes our landlords making when they’re on that turnover process?

Maranda (17:10.075)
Great question. I think the first mistake that they’re making is marketing too soon. When I’m looking at Zillow listings, I’m seeing some people say, you know, it’s April now and they might already be marketing for June, available June 1st. Well, that’s a long time away from now. You’re marketing to people who need a house now, not people who need a house in June. So whatever momentum you may have with your listing right now, it’s going to die off by the time you’re

property is actually available and now you’ve accumulated days on market unnecessarily. and by the way, you’ve also probably unintentionally pissed off your current tenant because you have people wanting to see the property and now you’re trying to show the property while someone’s in transition and moving out of that property. So I think that there’s a lot to be said about that. And then overpricing the property because they don’t realize that the market has shifted.

And again, we’ve seen a decrease in rent here in Charlotte since June of 2023 of about 5%. And I’m speaking specifically to long-term rental vacant properties. We’ve seen that decrease in rent. And they don’t realize that because they’re not keeping their finger on the pulse all the time. When you have just one property or maybe three properties, you’re not actively paying attention to what the market’s doing because it’s not top of mind all the time you have the three properties. That’s why

John Harcar (18:21.644)
Mm-hmm.

Maranda (18:34.465)
we try so hard to educate our owners because we are whatever they’re doing one time, we’re doing at times 350. So whatever lesson they’re learning that one time, we’ve learned at 350 times already. So I think that’s a huge one. And then of course, just marketing in general, how you position the property on the internet may not have mattered two years ago.

But now that dark and dingy cell phone picture for your $4,000 a month property may not cut it. And I think that that’s a shame. So.

John Harcar (19:04.632)
Right.

John Harcar (19:12.954)
As far as advice you would give, let’s say someone’s not in the North Carolina market, right? They’re a property management company, they’re out in forever. Phoenix, who knows? What advice would you give maybe some other property management companies that could maybe help them transition to a business kind of like yours, right? To be able to have these things for their landlords.

Maranda (19:35.566)
What do you mean as far as resources or?

John Harcar (19:37.838)
What advice could help other landlords in that turnover process? Things that you’re doing, you think maybe others aren’t.

Maranda (19:48.486)
I think…

I’m not sure, am I speaking to property managers or speaking to landlords? Okay, yeah, I think it’s maybe putting your foot down a little bit more when it comes to working with the landlord. And I don’t mean just bossing them around, but you are hired to protect this asset and you’re hired for your expertise in protecting the asset or assets. And so if you say that we should probably paint, we need to do a full repaint of this house.

John Harcar (19:54.358)
Yes, property managers right now.

Maranda (20:21.535)
Yeah, it might give the owner a pause because that’s a bigger expense than they were expecting. But if they say if they come back and say, well, I’m not going to do that. And that’s that that’s a red flag to me because you have you have offered advice based off what you’ve seen in the market, what you know will be successful. And if they’re not willing to work with you on that, to me, that’s that’s a red flag. And that’s not someone you want to be working with anyway.

When you’re first getting started, you kind of just say yes to whoever’s needs management. You’re just like, yes, yeah, I will manage your property. For how much? 4 %? Sure. Why not? Because you’re hungry and you just, you’ve got to pay the bills and you got to, rent is due on the first. So at some point though, when you’re in the business long enough, you learn, you learn the ins and outs of property management that that landlord won’t. And so if they, you either change people.

John Harcar (21:06.103)
Yeah, right.

Maranda (21:20.329)
or you change people. either you can educate your clients and kind of put your foot down with that, or they might not be worth the time that the money you’re making off of them may not be enough for you to keep working with them. How much is your time worth? And are they sucking up all of your time? So I think the number one thing that we did, we made a goal a couple of years ago to start

John Harcar (21:36.268)
Makes sense. Yeah.

Maranda (21:47.819)
calling off some of the owners that were just sucking up a lot of our time and causing us a lot of headache. And so when we made that move, it improved the overall morale of our team. And it also gave us the capacity to put the effort into growing the right way with the right people in our portfolio. And I think that made the world of difference. So just having the expectations.

I think a big mistake is just saying yes to whatever, but you don’t really have an opportunity to say no when you’re just getting started or when you’re at a certain number.

John Harcar (22:17.346)
when you’re new.

Now let’s talk to landlords and I want to go back to what we talked about before, right? What things landlords shouldn’t do, like don’t leave paint cans. Explain that to me. Why shouldn’t we? Cause I’ve done it. Why shouldn’t we leave paint cans?

Maranda (22:29.066)
Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

Maranda (22:34.726)
Yeah, great question. So I think the intention behind leaving paint cans out of property is so pure and so nice. So the idea is, man, I’m just gonna, I’ll just stuff these paint cans in a closet and when you’re ready or when you need them, they’re there for you and you have the color, you know exactly what you need. But over in time, over the years, paint fades on walls and also your tenants likely are not professional patchers. So

You’re asking them to go in and patch up a wall and then paint it with paint that may or may not match. at end of the day, odds are you’re likely left with more work and a more expensive paint job with your professional vendor than you would be if you just took the paint cans out of the property immediately. It’s the first thing I do when I bring on a new property is I look for the paint cans that I know are gonna be there and I trash them.

John Harcar (23:26.67)
make sense.

Maranda (23:32.455)
because we have a great vendor who can come in and professionally color match. And you will never know the difference. You’ll never know how long that paint’s been on the wall because they paint match, color match every time. That’s a big one.

John Harcar (23:46.488)
What else? What else should landlords not do?

Maranda (23:49.448)
Um, this is more of just a biased, but they, they will, um, Replace light bulbs with light bulbs that are a different color and it’s all in the details. So I’m really picky when I’m walking a property, but if you have, guess let’s, let’s back it up. Let’s say they want to, you buy a house and there’s a value add opportunity there. So you, you can throw in 30,000 and it.

it will increase the value of that property by a hundred thousand just by doing a little bit of cosmetic work to the property. So before you ever did the cosmetic work, when you’re walking that property, you see stains on the carpet and it’s disgusting walls that are, haven’t been there, that yellow from early 2000s that haven’t been touched and the light fixtures are brass and need to be replaced, cetera. You see a lot of the big stuff.

So then you go in and you take care of all the big stuff, but you leave the dingy yellow outlets and you replace the light bulbs with a different color light. Now those things start to matter. So before it was the really big things, but the more you fix, the more the little things become noticeable. And when you have a tenant moving into a property, what you want them to feel is,

I want to take great care of this property because this property has obviously been well taken care of. You don’t want them to think it’s been patched together over time, band-aid after band-aid, like the most cost effective every time. You don’t want it to look like the light bulb that was in the back of your car just happened to be in the back of your car, so you’re going to use it to replace it, even though it doesn’t make sense in that place. You want it to feel like here’s the expectation you’re setting.

Right? Here’s how I want you to take care of this home. It has been well taken care of and we want you to continue to take care of it. And so, yeah, I’ve kind of went on a rampage there with that one, but.

John Harcar (25:44.28)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (25:51.406)
No, that’s okay. That’s good. That’s good stuff. I mean, that’s good to know. I mean, what’s the saying they have? kids in a drip is in the detail, right? It’s making sure that yes, the details really can, you know, make things better. If I have any property managers that are on here or there’s landlords on here and let’s say some of the stuff they talk that you talked about resonated with them, what would be the best way that they might be able to get in touch with you? Or if they have properties that they they’re in North Carolina, they want you to manage. How do they reach out?

Maranda (25:54.627)
Yeah.

Maranda (25:59.407)
something like that.

Maranda (26:21.349)
Yeah, great question. So I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, I’m on BiggerPockets. So you can look me up in the BiggerPockets directory. Our website is www.whitepropertymanagement.com.

John Harcar (26:43.262)
Put all that in the in the show notes. So anybody that’s listening You’ll have all the links to be able to get get in touch with her Miranda Thank you very much for coming on the show, man. I mean, I appreciate it Like I said, I I love to learn one thing and now I’ve learned the don’t leave the paint cans guys if Yeah and change the flame change the the face plates on the electric socket so

Maranda (26:51.457)
Yeah.

Maranda (26:57.923)
And make sure all the light bulbs are the same color.

Maranda (27:06.464)
Yes.

John Harcar (27:07.246)
Thank you once again for coming on the show guys. I hope you enjoyed this show as much as I did and we’ll look forward to seeing on the next one Cheers

Maranda (27:14.403)
Thank you.