Vacancy Kills Cash Flow: How Landlords Can Market Rentals Better and Stop Losing Money

Berlice Bassas (00:00)
and they’ve got a great credit score, I’m gonna negotiate with them. I’m gonna be like, hey, first month, half off, something like that. I’m gonna try to entice them. The bottom line is vacancies is your biggest fear. Every day that you have a vacancy, you’re paying big time. You think that it’s like flowing away. No, no, no, you still have to pay the taxes.

Scott Bursey (00:17)
We have.

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by investor fuel. I’m your host Scott Bursey. And today we have a force of nature in residential real estate joining us. She’s ready to pour the fuel right into your investment journey. Please welcome Berlice Bassas. Berlice, thank you for being here.

Berlice Bassas (02:16)
Yay! Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

Scott Bursey (02:21)
Absolutely. And we’re so pumped to have you on the show. Could you tell our listeners how you started your journey?

Berlice Bassas (02:31)
sure. so i started my journey. it’s kind of sad. but my father had dementia and he ended up passing away. but he was from miami. that’s where i’m from too. and he had this house that he bought for $80,000. and by the time that i inherited the property it was worth like $700,000. which is pretty good. so ⁓ it had problems. had pool problems. i probably didn’t have the money to fix it up, but i did what i could.

and I ended up selling the house. So, ⁓ because it was just, I didn’t have the capital to really fix it up and a big drain and all this stuff. ⁓ So with that property, I was able to buy more properties basically in Domino it. So what happens is I got out of the Miami market and I jumped into a cheaper market where I was able to buy duplexes and, you know, single family homes and kind of rolled it from there. So.

That’s how it all got started.

Scott Bursey (03:31)
Excellent. What’s your main focus now?

Berlice Bassas (03:36)
So right now I’m doing residential rentals and we’ve still got properties in Georgia. ⁓ We do have one in Miami that is from my husband that he used to live in. And now I’m in the middle Tennessee area and we’re here as well. So we’re kind of all throughout the South right now.

Scott Bursey (03:55)
Awesome. And if someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, Hey, this is someone that I like to partner with or learn from. What’s the first thing that you would like them to know about your business?

Berlice Bassas (04:07)
Well, we market ourselves as mom and pop property. I know it says fix and a grow there, but our outward facing acquisitions where I do like, you know, cold calling to ⁓ potential ⁓ single family homes that I like that maybe I see potential in is mom and pop properties. So we’re very much mom and pop. We’re literally a mom and pop. I’m a mother and my husband works with me closely. So that’s kind of how we do things. And my other brand is fixing to grow. So I’m very kind of like

homegrown, organic, real person. I’m not like a very flashy, you know, guru type. I’m more of like a natural, ⁓ I like to deal with real people type of thing. That’s how I operate.

Scott Bursey (04:47)
Absolutely. And on your journey, how has that worked for you? Dealing with those relationships, I think is what you’re hitting home on. How impactful has that been thus far?

Berlice Bassas (05:33)
Well, it works really well in the South though here in the Tennessee area, we have a lot of people coming from California and they definitely have a different vibe and being from Miami and also dealing with the Atlanta market. They do tend to be more of the flashy like look at what car I have, look at what this is, look at what that is. And I have a more of like a Dave Ramsey approach. I don’t like to like flash everything that I have. I don’t like to be in debt. I like to be more like humble, if you will.

but I do like growth and I’m serious about good deals and cash flow and that type of thing. I think it’s a balance. don’t think success isn’t showing off how much you have.

Scott Bursey (06:14)
That’s a huge distinction. Thank you for presenting that to our listeners. And Burlees, no business is perfect. What is one thing that you’re still figuring out or that you’re trying to work around recently?

Berlice Bassas (06:22)
problem. Yeah.

Well, I’ve got a situation in Georgia, Georgia ⁓ officially put into place that all out of state landlords have to have ⁓ a local property management company in the state of Georgia to manage their rentals. So what’s happening there, what I think is happening is that the property managers are not even answering their phone, right? So I have this property management company that I’m working with and they’re not great at marketing. And this is a

big problem because I have a vacancy there ⁓ that I had to take over the listing and make it nice, do the listing up really good. I got a lot of response in a short amount of time versus my property manager that literally took like seven videos, seven photos with like a terrible camera and terrible lighting and like did all these watermarks on top of it. Like just a terrible, like it made the place look so bad.

So I’m dealing with this issue with the property manager in which I have to work with the property manager because of the law. Nobody’s answering their phone because they’re swamped. Apparently business is really good for property managers in Georgia that they don’t even have to answer the phone. So I can’t switch property management companies either. So now I’m self managing this property from a different state while trying to rent it out. And that’s, that’s my bottleneck right now. And yeah, I’m sure there’s other.

investors from out of state that are dealing with Georgia dealing with similar things. It’s been a big headache with the property management situation in Georgia there. I know the law was supposed to help people, but now we’re all kind of stuck, you know. That’s what I’m dealing with.

Scott Bursey (08:08)
Per lease, what sort of strategy

are you going to employ to rectify the situation so you can make the most of it and escalate your business?

Berlice Bassas (08:19)
Well, I have no choice but to handle the situation myself. That’s what it’s come down to. And I’ve been communicating with the property management company. Now, they are good at actually managing the property as far as like, if there’s an issue, right? But that’s their strength. Their strength is absolutely not like, I’m showing this property, you know what I mean? I’m gonna really rent this out for you. You know, we’re gonna do it up. ⁓

So then what has to happen is that my husband actually just came back from Georgia, ⁓ which, you know, then I’m alone with the kids here. My kids are very young. Like I said, mom and pop were actually mom and pop situation. So he had to go and see what was happening with that property in person because we, when we updated the listing, we got a lot of people interested and we got people in through the door.

Scott Bursey (09:03)
Thank

Berlice Bassas (09:16)
But somebody, I had to follow up and see what’s happening because I’ve never had a vacancy that lasts long. I’ve always, I have vacancies for maybe like 14 days tops. This has been going on for months. So something is going on there. And my youngest kid is nine months. So it’s not so easy for us to like just up and go. You know what I mean? So there’s some real logistical challenges here. So he goes down, yeah.

Scott Bursey (09:42)
That was.

Berlice Bassas (09:45)
So I’m calling people, I’m following up with people. I’m like doing super salesy stuff here that really the property managers should be doing. You would think they have the incentive to do it. They get a percentage of the rent. You know what I mean? And they’re telling me, by the way, they’re telling me the entire time, just lower the rent, just lower the rent. The problem is it’s priced too high. Okay. When I took over the listing and I got a Zillow photographer in there, by the way, did an amazing job.

So, you know, cause I can’t go over there and take pictures. It’s not easy for me. They did an amazing job. I updated the listing and I raised the price and I got a bunch of people in there, but it was still, nobody was applying. Nobody could get in and I’m wondering what the heck is going on. Okay. So now I’m calling these people that I’ve seen the place and they’re telling me that it’s not kept.

then that’s why my husband had to go down and figure out what was happening there. So, ⁓ my gosh, it’s, it’s been

such a headache with this whole situation of like the marketing gone wrong, the property managers are spread thing. You cannot actually go to a different property manager because if they don’t even answer the phone for a new customer, they’re probably not gonna answer for somebody that’s already working with them either. So it’s like we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. So right now we’re figuring that out. My husband,

cleaned it all up because apparently what happened was we did have contractors in there when my baby was like just being born that renovated like the kitchen, the bathroom, did all this stuff, but they left kind of like a little bit of a mess. And in the meantime, people have been looking in there and they like did stuff like they didn’t flush the toilet. You know what I mean? Just like little stuff that probably added up that obviously is not great for selling. So we’re having…

this huge marketing selling thing with this particular property that has always performed well. And it’s actually the price is right. I know the price is right because I’ve done my research on it. I’m getting people in there. I’m getting people through the door. So we had to go in there ourselves and like really make sure it was cleaned up, which is unfortunate. You know, ⁓ you’re

You think that you’re on the same page. have the same incentives with these property managers, but sometimes you need to babysit them still, especially when you see like, Hey, something must be wrong here because why isn’t this place renting like it always is? And I used to, when I lived in Georgia, I always managed this property myself. But now that, you know, I moved to a different state, very young kids, I handed it off to this property manager before the law changed.

luckily. ⁓ but it’s still it’s still been this issue. so now i’m learning the hard way that when it comes to sales, when it comes to like renting things out, sometimes you have to step in there when it comes to actually getting a tenant. i’m not going to say all property management companies are like this because i’m sure some are actually very good at marketing and sales. but i think a lot of them their strengths are more like

day-to-day operations and that’s just not the same thing at all. That’s what I’m learning and that’s what I’m working on.

Scott Bursey (13:42)
For Leiths, let’s really pivot from that and talk about some opportunities. Let’s talk about something really positive here. What do you feel is your biggest opportunity right now? This could be a market shift, a new offering, or just part of your business that you’d like to double down on.

Berlice Bassas (13:50)
Okay. Yeah.

Well, I think that there’s some real opportunities in this middle Tennessee area. ⁓ There is an area nearby me where there’s a big development that’s happening. It’s gonna be a multi-use, one of those things that’s happening all across America with, know, ⁓ restaurants, ⁓ living, a greenery. So I’m looking around that area for single family homes. And I think for me, the move is gonna be buy and hold.

in this particular ⁓ situation, because a lot of people are talking about the market softening in various areas. know, Florida is definitely taking some. I think the middle Tennessee area has peaked and is either stabilizing or maybe even turning down a little bit. So I think the opportunity and the excitement is to have a long term.

vision of what a property is going to be like. Not a quick flip, not even like a you know a couple years like many years of a hold.

Scott Bursey (15:04)
I love that framing. That was excellent. Any ⁓ challenges you’re watching closely? This could be like a market risk access to capital competition, you know, that sort of thing.

Berlice Bassas (15:58)
Yeah, like I said before, I do think that the market is softening in a lot of places and that’s probably scaring some people. ⁓ know, people are probably starting to get scared to jump into some deals, especially as an investor. ⁓ then there’s, you know, the Nashville area is also particular because we have a lot of tourism here. So a lot of people are into the Airbnb thing. That’s another angle. And Airbnbs are also kind of

taking a little bit of a hit. There’s a lot of regulation coming out. People are unhappy with ⁓ the lack of quality control there, but that could be a really good opportunity for some people that if you pay attention to detail, if you actually care about things like cleanliness and really, you know, making a place look beautiful and unique, that could be your opportunity there.

Scott Bursey (16:51)
Absolutely, and Burlees, looking ahead 12 months, what niche opportunity in the residential sector are you most excited about capturing?

Berlice Bassas (17:01)
in the next 12 months. ⁓ Yeah, like probably just single family homes, like right outside of Nashville is what I’m looking at. But I’m also thinking about getting back into the Miami market because of the softening and us being from there. I think there’s gonna be some opportunities ⁓ happening in these places where before it was too expensive, but I think in a year things are gonna look

better for for buying. yeah. if you look at it that way. not if you buy right now and then you’re like what what happened to the equity i should be making?

Scott Bursey (17:34)
Okay.

And what long term strategy

are you going to implement?

Berlice Bassas (17:46)
Yeah, I think long term I’m going to buy probably single family and rent it out for a while. I used to be more of like a multi-family ⁓ thinker and I do like multi-families. But where I’m at right now ⁓ is that I’ve got cash to deploy and I’d rather have it in a single family home ⁓ getting equity over many, years and like, and also getting the rent.

throughout the years as well, and then maybe reevaluate in like 10 years time to see, know, you know, sell that or a 1031 into a multifamily again. But I really like the idea of single families right now, because if I want to get out, it’s so much faster.

Scott Bursey (18:36)
100 % and Burlees is there any sort of golden nuggets or advice you’d like to leave with our listeners here today?

Berlice Bassas (18:46)
well the golden nuggets that I’m learning the hard way so hopefully you guys don’t have to is the importance of marketing. people think like if I just buy in a highly desirable area the place will just rent out itself but that’s not true. there’s a lot of competition nowadays. you really do have to pay attention to the photos. you need to have a lot of photos like minimum 20 photos. I don’t care if it’s a studio like

take a bajillion photos of it and then really sell the location. Like what is it close to? What school district are you in? And don’t think that I have to bottom out my prices to get somebody in there either. I think that’s a mistake. You’re not gonna get the quality tenants that you should have and that’s really important. You don’t wanna be dealing with headaches all the time. You want to keep your standards up.

like for me, I do at least 620 credit score. I know some people go lower than that, but for me, I’d rather wait for that. I mean, do you think that’s ridiculous? 620? I don’t know.

Scott Bursey (19:55)
I would

aim for a little higher myself, but that’s just me.

Berlice Bassas (20:00)
okay good good good i’m glad you say that because some i’ve talked to some people who told me that that is actually too high i don’t think that that’s too high at all i think you know credit score says a lot ideally i try 700 and up to be honest the better the credit score the more i’m willing to do a deal with you as well that’s that’s another thing i think landlords if you have a vacancy if it’s taking a while don’t be afraid to be hands-on like if somebody comes at me

Scott Bursey (20:16)
Yes.

Berlice Bassas (20:29)
and they’ve got a great credit score, I’m gonna negotiate with them. I’m gonna be like, hey, first month, half off, something like that. I’m gonna try to entice them. The bottom line is vacancies is your biggest fear. Every day that you have a vacancy, you’re paying big time. You think that it’s like flowing away. No, no, no, you still have to pay the taxes.

Scott Bursey (20:46)
We have.

Berlice Bassas (20:56)
have to pay the insurance. If you have an HOA, you have to pay repairs on that still. Even if nobody’s in there, you have to pay electric. It really adds up. think you’re looking most units I would say is probably between a thousand or like even 5,000 per unit. If you have a vacancy, depending on the mortgage, it could get really ugly. So every day that goes by, you have a vacancy. You got to do whatever it takes to make that listing. Excellent. Like the

best pictures, the best titles, most detail, and don’t settle for less. That is my big takeaway for people. Do not settle for less and really work it. That would be what I would.

Scott Bursey (21:36)
There it is. There it

is. Berlice this has been an absolute master class. Thank you so much for sharing your insights today.

Berlice Bassas (21:47)
No problem, thanks for having me.

Scott Bursey (21:48)
And for those that want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to contact you?

Berlice Bassas (21:56)
Well, you could find me on Instagram @Fixin’toGrow. I’m also on Bigger Pockets, my name Berlice Bassas I’m also on Facebook for just Berlice Bassas as well. If you’re interested in seeing how this all turns out for me, I’ve learned a lot from this and hopefully your audience learns too.

Scott Bursey (22:20)
Everybody Berlice Bassas. Thank you so much Berlice for being here today. And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have more exceptional guests coming up just like Berlice who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.

Berlice Bassas (22:27)
Thank you.