Self-Managing Rentals Made Simple- Insights with Hemlane’s Dana Dunford

Christian: [0:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is your host, Christian Nossum, of the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty Exchange, Inc, and I'm here with my beautiful co-host, my wife, Shannon Nossum. Thank you for joining me today, Shannon.

Shannon: [0:14] Of course.

Christian: [0:15] And on this podcast, we're gonna break down all things real estate in Seattle and beyond, giving you expert advice, local market trends, and strategies to help you thrive in today's Seattle real estate market. And today, we're really tackling a topic that we've talked about with a lot of fellow landlords, and if you should self-manage your rental properties or hire a property manager. And this is a big decision that can really impact your time, finances, obviously your stress level as well. So we've actually brought in an expert to help us break this down.

Shannon: [0:50] That's right. So today, we are so lucky to have Dana Dunford from Hemlane, which is a platform designed to help self-managing landlords like us, with your properties, make it easier, more efficient, and welcome so much. Thank you, we're so excited to have you.

Dana: [1:06] Great. Thanks so much for having me today.

Christian: [1:09] Yeah. So let's dive right in. So Dana, one of the first questions we often get from landlords is, "How do I know if I'm the right fit for self-managing my rental properties? Is it really as difficult as people make it out to be?"

Dana: [1:24] Great question, and I think, um, you kind of have to, first you have to take a step back and talk about what self-managing is.

Christian: [1:31] Mm-hmm.

Dana: [1:32] My definition of self-managing is that you're making the decisions. Someone else is not making those decisions for you. And there's no right answer. Like, if you say, "Hey, I don't want to do anything. I never want to hear about the property," and if your decision is to spend $5,000 to repair the HVAC that maybe you should have just purchased a new one, great. It- then you should probably use a, a traditional full-service property manager. However, if you want to be part of those decisions, in other words, you're gonna say to the property manager, "Hey, why did you spend so much on this?" Or, "Why are the late fees going to you?" Any of those types of questions, then you probably should self-manage. And just to put it into perspective, 72% of rental properties are self-managed. Hmm. So the mass market, the majority of US rental households are self-managed, and majority are also small mom and pop, like us. Yeah. Where they have between, you know, one to, one to 20 rentals.

Christian: [2:36] Yeah. I did not know that. That's a shocking stat. I-

Shannon: [2:39] yeah, I've never heard that stat either.

Christian: [2:40] Wow. Yeah.

Shannon: [2:41] Why do you think most people choose to self-manage?

Dana: [2:45] So I think there's two things. One, um, if historically, uh, people purchase rentals out of state- It would have been flipped. And actually a good, um, uh, l- like if you look at, um, Australia- Mm-hmm … Australia is fixed, or flipped. I think it's like 87% are with a traditional property manager. Hmm. Um, but I think historically real estate was very much geography constrained. In other words, most people who own rental properties, when you ask where they are, they're within driving distance.

Shannon: [3:21] Yep.

Dana: [3:22] And then also the mentality of it is I own a physical asset. If I wanted something to be in- entirely passive- I would have gone and put it into the S&P 500, put it into bonds, put it into anything else. And if you want to be passive in real estate, go ahead and put it into REITs. Mm-hmm. But, uh, most real estate investors do it because they want to be involved, they want the tax advantages associated with owning and operating real estate, and they also know that they can have that control. The third point I would make with it too is trust. If you look at Angie's, which used to be called Angie's List, but now it's Angie's.

Christian: [4:01] Yeah.

Dana: [4:01] Property management is the second lowest rated industry, second to, can you guys guess what the, uh, um, the lowest rated industry is?

Christian: [4:10] Probably- Real estate agents … real estate agents, attorneys, or car dealers.

Dana: [4:14] It's, well, you're close. You're close. It's home warranty.

Christian: [4:17] Oh.

Dana: [4:17] Oh. And so home warranty is the lowest rated, and property management is the second lowest rated. And I actually don't think it's that there is bad pro- like, that property managers are out to get you or they're bad people. I don't think it's that at all. It's more just that a property manager has to be good at everything, good at sales because they have to convince a tenant and an owner to, you know, either move in or use their services. They have to be a lawyer, in other words, know legal contracts really well. They have to be an accountant. They have to know maintenance and repair. And when you have 137,000 property managers in the US with an average of three employees, you guarantee they don't have that skill set. And so owners say, "Hey, I'll take that responsibility on myself." Yeah. And so I, I think that's another component part of it, where it's like a property manager is not trying to get these negative reviews. It's just a really hard job. Mm-hmm. And it's also a very low margin job. And so a lot of the top talent will go to the REITs or something else, and kind of leave everyone else fending for, uh, or fighting for, like, then the Class A properties, and then it continues to go down. And so I think from that perspective, it's a really hard job. And so, you know, most owners will say, "Hey, you know what? Due to that, and, like, the trust in the industry, the cost of it, et cetera, I'll just go ahead and manage myself."

Shannon: [5:39] Makes sense.

Christian: [5:39] Yeah. I think, I'm sure cost is part of that too. Do you want to break down kind of what the cost of hiring a property manager generally is? Do you have those numbers?

Dana: [5:48] Yeah, I do. So it depends on how many rentals you have. You can get it down to three to 5% as you become more institutional, owning hundreds and thousands of rentals. But the average cost is usually 8 to 10% of monthly rent.

Christian: [6:02] Mm-hmm.

Dana: [6:03] And then on top of that, there's a lease-up fee. So there's one month's rent. It can be anywhere from 50% to 100% of one month's rent for the turnover. What's really interesting is property management fees have not changed in hundreds of years.

Christian: [6:19] Yeah. And,

Dana: [6:20] and to me, it's like, uh, you know, actually I would prefer a property manager who has a flat rate fee versus a percentage, and I'll explain why. But without those fees changing over time, there's a lot that the industry could do to basically align incentives. And what I mean by that is today a property manager makes the most money when they turn over a property.

Christian: [6:44] Mm.

Dana: [6:44] So for them They would prefer to not have that renewal.

Christian: [6:50] Yeah. Which is the opposite- It isn't- of what a landlord would want. Like, I don't want- I don't want- I want my tenant to stay there forever.

Dana: [6:55] Totally. If I increase the rent by $50 or $25- Yeah … to keep them in there and it's slightly under market, if I take that 25 or $50 times 12, it's still a heck of a lot less than one month's cost of turning over this place and having it vacant- Mm-hmm between tenants. And so my goal is actually to keep my tenants in the property. And that's another one. The other way property managers basically, uh, make money is, one, on, on late fees. Mm-hmm. So they make money on late fees. If you're a landlord, 100% of those late fees go to you, as they should. I actually prefer property managers who have the late fees go to the owner, because the owner's the one who-

Christian: [7:37] Yeah

Dana: [7:37] you know, does it. They're the ones that gotta pay the

Christian: [7:38] mortgage and have

Dana: [7:39] the- They've gotta pay the mortgage- Yeah … and everything else. So there's that. And then the other one that I'm, I'm really opposed to, and if you do have a property manager out there, you should ask them this, is up charges on maintenance requests. Because- Yeah … they make a percentage, and this is very standard with traditional property managers, anywhere from five, I've seen it to 20%. It's usually 10% of whatever- What? … the repair cost is, they add on to the bill.

Christian: [8:07] That's

Dana: [8:07] crazy. And the problem with that, and, like, our viewpoint in repair coordination is, the goal is to get the best quality at the most affordable price. And you're always balancing quality and price.

Shannon: [8:21] Totally.

Dana: [8:21] But if I'm making money off of that, I'm just gonna go for the more expensive person- Mm-hmm … not the best person that's balancing those two things, for my cashflow.

Christian: [8:32] Yeah.

Dana: [8:33] And so that's another one where property managers, given that their margins are really low, have been tacking on these fees. And again, it doesn't align incentives. So I think that cost is a really, really good one, Christian, that you bring up. Mm-hmm. That like, hey, if the cost structure were to change, then you would have, I think, much more alignment with going with a property manager. But I think that in, within itself just takes out that trust that we spoke about in the industry.

Christian: [9:02] Yeah.

Shannon: [9:03] Well, I'm about to call. So we do have a property manager in our property in Hawaii. I'm about to call them. Okay. Because their maintenance, um, when I see the bill sometimes, I'm like, "This seems really high." Yeah. Well, now I know why. I had no idea they could tack on to those requests. Mm-hmm. So that's shocking to me, and I'm about to go research.

Dana: [9:21] Yeah. You can, you can talk to them. It should be in your property management agreement. So all- Yeah … of these should be in there. But the other thing you'll want to do is every time they charge you, you yourself want to ask, "Can I see the invoice?" 'Cause the invoice that you should see is from the third party, and it should match the amount charged. Now, some property managers have maintenance staff in-house. And so then they make more money off of it, but the goal of them bringing it in-house would be to make it more affordable for you. So it's very reasonable to ask if they say, "We're using in-house maintenance," which I think there's huge advantages of that. Oh, yeah. Um, to that, I also ask, "Well, what, where's the price sheet? Can I know how much you're charging?" And then is that transparent with the jobs? So I think with that, like, overall, people invest in real estate for those tax benefits for the cash flow, and so that kind of lends itself to pe- more and more people self-managing. And now we've gotten to, um, a place where geography has never been less important than it is today. Yeah. And so what I mean by that is with technology, you can remotely manage your properties, and because of that, even though more, uh, more investors and, you know, s- just starting out investors are looking out of state, they're still able to manage their properties remotely, because what y- do you need? You need someone really good who you can trust on the ground. And you can still manage th- that person remotely, but they don't have to be a full-time PM. They can be a handyman. They can be a general contractor. They can be a leasing agent, and you can basically unbundle it and still get the same advantages of self-managing a property that's in your backyard.

Christian: [11:08] Hmm

Shannon: [11:09] He's like about, he's about to fire the property manager. He's like, "We can fly to Hawaii to show this."

Christian: [11:14] Yeah, I'll fly out there to show the property. No big deal.

Dana: [11:18] I, I have a very good property manager in Hawaii for you. Hawaii is actually a fun fact. Fun fact about Hawaii, 'cause we do have, um, property managers who use Hemlane, and we do their repair coordination and everything else they don't mark up on fees. Mm-hmm. I will tell you that. But so we try to have them aligned, um, with the owner/operators. One really fun fact about Hawaii, not to get you down, Christian. Mm. But in Hawaii it is illegal to manage your properties from the mainland.

Shannon: [11:49] Oh, well,

Dana: [11:50] funny. It's the only state that does that, and the reason is, is they want to make sure that people who are living on the islands, uh, don't have this disadvantage of, like, no one there, and they wanna support the local businesses. Totally, yeah. So it is the one place, one state, it's the only one, that requires you to physically be on one of the islands. And it's funny, 'cause you can be on a different island, I think, and still it qualifies. As long as it's Hawaii. As long as you're there- Interesting … and paying taxes, then, um, you can self-manage your properties. Otherwise they say you need someone who's just local as the point of contact for the tenants. And so that's, uh, that's been actually a interesting one for us because we've partnered with some PMs to act like that and help you kind of on the ground for that reason.

Christian: [12:39] I guess that just means we have to move to Hawaii. Oh, I

Shannon: [12:41] knew you were

Dana: [12:42] gonna say that. Now we're moved to Hawaii. I knew it. Oh, yeah.

Christian: [12:43] Yeah. It, problem solved.

Shannon: [12:45] Don't give him any more

Christian: [12:46] ammo. Problem solved. We can leave Seattle, have all our rentals here self-managed still.

Shannon: [12:51] If only we didn't have children who are in

Christian: [12:52] school. Ah, if only.

Shannon: [12:53] Darn.

Christian: [12:53] Yeah. All right. Mm-hmm. So obviously- Schools are better in

Dana: [12:55] Hawaii.

Christian: [12:56] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So self-managing is clearly the more profitable choice, and that's what we do with all our Seattle rentals, but not in Maui. Yeah. Uh, when we hear about the tools that Hemlane offers, we, that's when we were like, "Ooh, we should really have you come on." So it seems like it could definitely be a game changer for people that are self-managing. What all does Hemlane offer? What are the solutions that you can kind of solve for, for us?

Dana: [13:27] Yeah, that's a great question. Um, and, and the reason it's a great question is it goes back to self-managing and how you define it. Mm-hmm. Um, to me, it's you're making the decisions, but that doesn't mean you have to be an admin and do the admin work. Yeah. And so, um, first we start out with we have free packages as well as bas- basic software only packages that just automate you out of the administrative stuff that, you know, normally you'd be using Excel and email, et cetera for. Some examples of that is advertising your rental to over 15 listing websites with one click. Right. Instead of going over to Zillow and listing it there, and then apartments.com- Mm-hmm … and then realtor.com, and then rent.com, which is Redfin, and then Zumper, we'll just list it on all of those. And then we also respond automatically to the tenants and say, "You know, here is Shannon's showing schedule. Like, when would you like to see and schedule a tour with her?" And there will be pre-qualification questions. Then we do the full comprehensive background check, which includes eviction report, credit report, income verification, et cetera, and the application, and then provide a recommendation to accept or deny the tenant based on the objective criteria. Nice. Then we also have, um- Yeah, I know in

Christian: [14:44] Seattle we have extremely- Yeah … tight, like, Seattle's landlord-tenant laws are very tenant friendly, and we can't check for a lot of these things. So I assume it's- Yeah … tailored to the particular

Dana: [14:56] state. It's all compliant with the county. Cool. Yeah. So it's all compliant with the county of what we can share. Mm-hmm. And then with the recommendations we give, it's all objective. That's actually a really good point. There are certain things in our system, like we have AI to help write the listing descriptions. Okay. Most of the softwares out there you'll see have, like, not given any of that much thought. And so you'll be like, "Write a description," and they're like, "Great family neighborhood." And then, like- … you get slapped- Fair housing. … with some fair housing violation. And so ours is all fair housing compliant based on your county. We also do the same thing with Section 8. There's certain counties and cer- certain states where you can say no to Section 8. There's other places, I'm also in a very tenant friendly place, San Francisco. Mm-hmm. So very similar to you on basically making sure that there, there aren't those violations. So then we have the lease specific, the state specific and county specific, especially in the case of Seattle lease agreements. You can also just do e-sign if you have your own through a lawyer. Mm-hmm. That works, too. And then we do the automatic rent collection. We do automatic late fees as well, so if the tenant hasn't paid rent by X date, whatever your lease says, the late fee will trigger. And then when the late fee triggers, they have to pay the late fee before they can pay the rent. So all of that's built in there. We have something called Eviction Shield, so these are more of our services. That's where if the tenant doesn't pay on time, we have a mediator get involved. Right away, they're calling the tenant on between day three and day five, based on how you have it set up, and they're saying, "Hey, how can we help you? What's going on? Can we get you rental assistance?" And they're funneling that back to you to understand, is this gonna go to court? Because our goal is aligned with yours to not have this go to court. Yeah. So we have those types of services. And then the most beloved, which really differentiates us, is our services such as 24/7 repair coordination. We have rental assistance as well. So it's like an assistant, just like a virtual assistant, but someone trained on fair housing, trained on property management. Now, they don't make your decisions. It always goes back to you to make those decisions, but they have a guide from you of how you want certain questions answered. They'll go through that. And so you can kind of do a plug and play. You can pick what services you want, what you don't want. We also have leasing coordinators. We also work with local leasing agents if you just want someone to find a place, a tenant for you. And then on top of that, we also do self-guided tours if you want self-guided tours. Those ones are very strict and structured. It's identity, biometrics, identity verification before the person goes in, confirmation they've locked up. Oh, wow. We're on the phone with them, et cetera. So we have all these additional services, and what I always say is one size doesn't fit all. We have self-managing owners who start on our software-only package, and then they're like, "I just had twins, and I need your biggest package because my weekends and my time is not gonna be spent on managing my properties." Yeah. And so that's why I always say one size doesn't fit all. Yeah.

Christian: [18:07] Yeah. That totally makes sense.

Shannon: [18:09] Wow. I, that is so much that you guys offer. Yeah. That's incredible. Sorry, that's a lot. No, I'm, like, amazed and so appreciative, 'cause as the person who takes on most of the management on our end, it is a lot. And what do you feel like are the biggest mistakes or, like, pain points that people who self-manage have, and how do you guys address those?

Dana: [18:30] Yeah. So you're right. Self-management, there's some people who need, like, the highest package. Managing operations don't come to them very easily, right? Mm-hmm. And so I think there's a couple of trends that we see, and this is where, like, a rental assistant is really helpful. One, they get very emotional. So let's just say something happens. The tenant has an extra person who moves in or a pet that wasn't on the lease, and it's caught in the inspection that, you know, our team says, like, there were three, you know, leashes hanging, but they said they had no pets.

Shannon: [19:06] Mm-hmm.

Dana: [19:06] There's certain things like that that, that come up. That's where your rental assistant is gonna be your middle man or the mediator, depending on the situation. Everything reverts back to the lease. You need the most concrete lease, where you just say, "Hey, you're in violation of the lease. We're gonna serve a three-day notice or seven-day notice." We have the process servers that do that so you don't emotionally have to go and get involved. And so we just want it to be very, for you, very much of this is an investment. This is not, um, from that perspective, something to get emotional about, and that lease contract is gonna be it. The other one that I see as a mistake, like, if you … Uh, it always happens in the vacancy, so when you haven't placed a tenant. It's either, one, you choose a bad tenant, so you don't run the background and credit check. We always … You'll see in the process we go through, it's like run it on everyone in the property. You don't want to know that a husband and wife moved in and the husband had great credit, you know, no evictions on their record, but the wife was a, a murderer and murdered 12 people and, you know, whatever happened, right? Like, you need to just know what you're getting into beforehand. It's why you say the screening is really important. Even if you use our self-guided tour technology, like, our team knows humans still need to be involved. So we say, "Great, do you want to do a Zoom with them?" You can just say, "I'm a managing member of my LLC," and get on a call with them. But do you wanna get on a call? Our team will also say, "Hey, that person did showings, but like right… Uh, did a tour, but like right off the bat asked for like 5,000 things, complained about X, Y, and Z." Like, just objectively we're sharing with you what experience there was. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I think if you're human, but still follow everything objectively, that's super important. And then the other thing with vacancy, besides a bad tenant, so we try to reduce that risk as much as possible, the second one would just be too long with vacancy. Mm-hmm. And that's where someone has some sort of personal attachment to the property, or they're not looking objectively at the rental rates, or they haven't structured it right. For example, they don't allow pets in their property, but in their area 50% of tenants have pets. Yeah. Like, that person's just gonna have an emotional support letter by the end of the day, so you might as well allow it and charge pet rent. Yeah. And so there's certain things like that that our leasing coordinator is trying to help structure and make it where you reduce your vacancy, and after reducing your vacancy you have a really strong, qualified tenant. And I think if you do that, it's kind of like a relationship. If you get in a bad relationship, it's really unhealthy. Everything goes downhill. But if you get in the right relationship, it's like, "Hey, this is pretty easy." Um, you know, things just, just flow.

Christian: [21:52] Yeah, that makes sense. So I know that there's a lot of landlords that are probably on the fence trying to figure out if they should self-manage or not. What kind of advice would you give them to help them weigh their options?

Dana: [22:08] Yeah. It… The first thing would be, like, what are you doing today?

Christian: [22:12] Mm-hmm.

Dana: [22:12] So I would say if you have a process that works, for example, you have a manager that works, you trust them, you don't even care about the 10% you're paying them every month- Mm-hmm don't, don't, like, try to fix, uh, uh, don't try to fix something that doesn't need fixing. Like, that's my first thing, is that, um, in the industry, like, if, if your current process works, don't try to break it, right? You may try to A/B test it. The next property you purchase- Mm-hmm … you might say, "Hey, let me try something else and compare the two." But, like- Yeah … don't try to blow something up. That's my first. And then the second is just really asking yourself what is important to you, and making that personal decision yourself on it. Mm-hmm. Because I think a lot of people when they think of self-managing, they think it's a lot of work. And what we hear from our customers in our customer reviews is, like, wow, actually self-managing I spend a lot less time on my properties, because they're in the know of everything, so there's no surprises. Right. There's no emotion, because, like, they've been part of every decision. And- Yeah … and so it's just, it's very smooth. And so I think from that perspective, it's kind of figuring out what is right for you a- and going from there. I would say education is also important. So listening to podcasts like this, et cetera. I think the more you can get educated, the more excited you'll get about real estate. You'll purchase more, and it gets easier as you n- buy more properties. Like, we have customers with 400 properties they self-manage, and they get a lot of tax benefits, let me tell you, off of that.

Christian: [23:45] Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon: [23:46] Well, I wanna be that person.

Christian: [23:48] I know, exactly.

Shannon: [23:49] That's so… Yeah. So you guys get to see all the maintenance requests. Mm-hmm. So I wanna know, I wanna, I want the tea. What are the most common maintenance requests, and do you have any tips on proactive things that landlords can do just to kind of prevent issues or proactive maintenance tips for, for the home?

Dana: [24:07] Yeah. So plumbing is hands down number one. Plumbing has always been number one, it will always be number one. We are very structured in our process. So there's, like, discretionary where we're not gonna send someone out. We're gonna log in and say, "The next time we send someone out, we'll get that fixed." That'd be like, you know, if there's, um, something on the wall or the carpet's coming up, or something that doesn't- actually impact them living in the property. Then we have obviously standard requests, we have urgent requests, and then we have emergency requests. So like an urgent request would be no hot water. This needs to be fixed in two days at least. Like w- we'll try to do it in 24 hours so you can take a shower.

Christian: [24:48] Mm-hmm.

Dana: [24:48] But no water, that would be an emergency where it has to be fixed within two hours. It's dispatched in two hours and closed out within four. So we have a very like strict and structured process from that perspective to deal with all of these. There's a lot of questions that you ask. So I think if you're a landlord and you've never done it before, like our repair coordination team, that's all they do every day. So they'll be able to problem solve for you and save you money. Some examples of that is if someone says like, "Hey, my toilet's not working." It's like the first question is, "Great, is there another toilet in the property?" Because it's an emergency if there's only one, but if there's two it's urgent. We'll get someone out the next morning, but we don't have to send someone out at 11:00 PM and have your bill be starting at $500 'cause it's an emergency at- Yeah midnight. Another example is heat and air conditioning. And so in those cases what we have found is usually if you send someone

out at 11: [25:47] 00 PM or midnight, a lot of times they still can't fix it. They've got to get some part or something else. So now you have this huge bill and you haven't solved the root cause, which is the tenant is cold or too hot. Yeah. And so what they usually do in those situations is they say, "Okay, great. We found a Walmart that's open 24 hours near you. Get a heater. Put it into the bedrooms. We'll reimburse you for that." That is gonna cost $80 versus a $500 emergency service call. We'll have someone out in the morning. So we're telling the tenants, "We feel for you and we're gonna make sure you're comfortable."

And then someone's out at 8: [26:24] 00 AM the next morning, and then the owner doesn't get slapped with a huge bill. The other one is renter's insurance. So most owners don't know this, but renter's insurance will pay for a hotel room for tenants. And so as long as your lease requires renter's insurance, if it's an emergency, they will foot the bill. And so that helps the tenant feel comfortable, and that helps the owner feel comfortable, and the owner never had to get involved in that booking. The tenant books it and reimburses it with their renter's insurance. I do have some funny stories for you. I can tell you one if we have time. Oh, yes.

Shannon: [27:00] Yes. Yes, you do.

Dana: [27:03] You sometimes get… And I, I had, uh, one of our owners like, I don't know, it got forwarded to me somehow, but said, "Wow, your repair coordination team goes above and beyond." And there was an example where this tenant- They were just very catty and like w- just e- everything was an emergency and, you know, a fire drill, right?

Christian: [27:27] Mm.

Dana: [27:27] And so one of them was their microwave wasn't working, and so they said, "This is an emergency. This is, you know, uh, urgent." And I think it was, it was during the holidays, and so it was one of those things, it was during Thanksgiving. So it was like one of those things where it's like, great, we can get someone out on Monday. You might not have a microwave for three days, and it was a built-in one. So it wasn't like they could just go to the store and, and buy a new one. But the first time that someone can come out is it's, you know, Thursday Friday we can't get anyone out, so we can get someone out first thing on Monday. And they were like, "This is urgent. I… Or this is an emergency. I cannot heat up my pizza." And so our repair coordinator- Our repair coordinator sent a YouTube video, and you sent a YouTube video and clear instructions on how to heat pizza in an oven, and was like- Mm-hmm … "Here is how you can heat pizza in an oven. Please give me a call." Ooh. "I'm here to assist you. If you need anything, I'm here to assist you and help you along every step of the way until this person can come and fi- fix your microwave." And so they'll do certain things like that where it's like they wanna make sure the tenant knows they're 100% there. But it's never like a tenant couldn't post that in social media and be like everyone would just rave on them, right, about- Yeah,

Christian: [28:51] exactly. Geez … the repair

Dana: [28:52] guy. And so there's certain things like that that they deal with, which I think the team just like loves going almost above and beyond on it just because of it. Mm-hmm. And then as the owner, you can see every message, every thread. So you see everything going on. You kind of get like this summary email of everything that went on.

Christian: [29:10] That would be a fun one to talk about with the family at Thanksgiving dinner when this is going. Oh my God. "Oh my God, this is what's happening now." Exactly. Exactly. That's

Dana: [29:19] so funny.

Christian: [29:20] Oh my gosh.

Shannon: [29:23] Oh, that's hilarious. Okay. Thank you so much for coming on today. I learned a ton. I, I can see the huge, huge value that your platform has. I'm-

Christian: [29:31] I also see moving trucks heading to our house so that we can move to Hawaii permanently. Oh my gosh. Hawaii. Yeah.

Shannon: [29:37] We don't. Yeah. We do not see that. Yeah. We don't see that. I

Christian: [29:39] see it. I see it right now. I'm manifesting this.

Shannon: [29:43] So how can… I think we're gonna put the link in the show notes. In the show notes, yeah. Because we have, you have a discount, right, for our listeners? Ooh.

Dana: [29:51] Yes, we do. So we have 50% off your first two months. Okay. You also get 14 days totally free, so you can just try it, see how it works for you. Do mention, though, Awesome in Re- um, Seattle podcast. Do mention that when you go through the process of how you heard about us, and then our team will give you the coupon code for that.

Christian: [30:11] That's awesome. 50% off your first two months. That's a huge savings. That's amazing. That's awesome.

Shannon: [30:15] Thank

Christian: [30:16] you. And, and you- So could someone use it the first two weeks and then sign up so they really get a month and a half or-

Dana: [30:21] Yeah two

Christian: [30:21] months, two and a half months? Yeah, exactly.

Dana: [30:22] Exactly, two and a half months.

Christian: [30:24] There you go. Good deal. Fair price of one.

Shannon: [30:27] Yeah. Amazing.

Christian: [30:28] Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been super enlighting- enlightening. I learned a ton. We're definitely gonna check this out for ourselves because this is becoming… We've been doing everything solo, and it is becoming cumbersome and annoying and quite the process at times.

Shannon: [30:45] Well, yeah, and I want your people to talk to my, my college student tenants- … because their maintenance requests- Yeah … can be some great stories for you.

Christian: [30:53] Oh, yeah.

Shannon: [30:53] Uh, period.

Dana: [30:54] We, we want more of those, so just send them our way.

Christian: [30:58] Yeah.

Shannon: [30:59] Yes. Yeah. They, they love to say, "Oh, man, the power's not working. You need to have an electrician." And it's like, "Did you try the light bulb? Is it burnt out?"

Dana: [31:07] Yeah. They're

Shannon: [31:07] like, "Oh, no, we didn't think of that."

Christian: [31:09] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [31:09] Okay.

Christian: [31:10] Yeah.

Dana: [31:11] That, the breaker- Yeah … all the troubleshooting. You know- Yes … 7%, 7% of requests in our system are closed out just due to troubleshooting like that. Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [31:20] Mm.

Dana: [31:20] So your college students are not alone.

Christian: [31:23] Yeah.

Shannon: [31:23] Yeah, that's about 50% of their requests, so.

Christian: [31:25] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, last week it was all the outlets in the kitchen aren't working. And I said, "Okay. Did you try the GFCI outlet?" And they're like, "I don't know what that is." I don't know what that is. So like you said- Yeah I found a, I found a YouTube video, YouTube Short, so it wasn't even long, and it showed what to look for and how to do it. And- Yeah … they text back. They're like, "Oh, yeah, that fixed it." Yeah. It's like, perfect.

Dana: [31:44] Yeah. A You- a You- full YouTube video would be too long for-

Christian: [31:48] Oh, yeah … a

Dana: [31:48] college student. It's advanced.

Christian: [31:49] Exactly. It's gotta be like- It's gotta be a

Dana: [31:51] Reel … 15

Christian: [31:51] seconds. Yeah.

Shannon: [31:52] Yeah.

Christian: [31:53] Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Dana, for joining us today on the Awesome in Seattle podcast. Again, in the show notes we will put a link to Hemlane with that two-month 50% off coupon. But also if you just go to hemlane.com, you can mention Awesome in Seattle, get that deal, take full advantage. And really, I think we're gonna switch over and start using this ourselves- Mm … because this just makes so much more sense. It would take a lot off of our plate.

Shannon: [32:18] My plate.

Christian: [32:19] Really, your plate. I hear about it, but I feel like it's on my plate.

Dana: [32:25] We would love that.

Christian: [32:26] Um, and yeah. Thank you so much. Until next time, this, uh, we'll see you in another week or two here on the Awesome in Seattle podcast. Thank you again, Dana.

Dana: [32:35] Great. Thanks for having me.

Christian: [32:37] All right. Bye.