Seattle’s booming economy is fueling new housing formation and record levels of rental housing construction. Metro area job growth outperformed the national average since 2016 with many additions in high-paying sectors, such as technology and life sciences.
In fact, CoStar calls demand growth “outsized” in the Puget Sound, a trend expected to continue, especially near downtown and Eastside employment centers. The high-paying tech sector continues to outperform other sector.: Amazon has plans to add 20,000 new workers by 2022, while Facebook and Google () could add a similar number of workers during the same time period. Here are some key metrics on the state of the Seattle rental housing market:
Tech employees need places to live, which has sparked unprecedented demand for Seattle rental housing. Seattle has more cranes in the sky than any other in the country. Seattle rental housing inventory increased 14% over the past three years, impressive for a city of Seattle’s size. Supply continues to flood the local market: Approximately 28,000 units, or 10% of the total inventory, was added from 2016 to 2018. Tens of thousands more units are expected over the next few years. In addition to the downtown area and Eastside submarkets, projects in outlying areas like Pierce, South King and Snohomish counties, are also rising.
Amazon is a major engine of economic growth in the region. As a result, developers are focusing on building in neighborhoods with easy access to the online retailer’s offices. For instance, Holland Partners opened the 325-unit Westlake Steps in Westlake in August 2017, just steps away from Amazon offices. The project was fully stabilized a year later.Transit-oriented projects have also grown in popularity. In South Seattle, developers are targeting Columbia City, Othello Station and Beacon Hill. A majority of these rentals are located 20 minutes from downtown along the light rail line. As the light rail expands both east and north, transit-oriented projects will continue to rise in tandem, even though the lines aren’t expected to open until 2023 and 2024, respectively. For more information on the state of Seattle rental housing, download our latest State of Mynd Report.
In our most recent blog series, we have been talking about Seattle property management. Since we think like investors, we want to make sure that you, as a Seattle real estate investor, has all the tools and resources you need to ensure that your residents have a great rental experience.Joining us is been Enrique Jevons, who’s an expert on the subject of Seattle investment properties. Not only does he manage 850 rental properties for Mynd, but he’s also busy investing in his own real estate. Enrique owns 73 rental properties, so if you have a question about Seattle real estate investing, he’s the expert to ask.Today, we’re focusing our attention on maintenance. Property managers are charged with responding to routine maintenance issues and emergency maintenance issues. Unplanned emergencies are usually more expensive, more time-consuming, and have to be handled immediately.We asked Enrique to share what he would do to handle a maintenance emergency properly.
All sorts of emergencies can come up. The most important thing for a owner is to be prepared. Be prepared for anything and everything. There are possible emergencies you probably haven’t even thought of yet, but you still need to have a response plan in place.For Enrique, just about everything has happened over the years that he’s rented out homes. Sadly, he’s had three different residents die while they were in his properties. That’s not something that most rental property owners prepare for; what do you do when a resident dies? What do you do with that resident’s belongings, and who do you have to call?That’s not a maintenance emergency. But it does address the absolute need to be prepared. If you are knowledgeable about what needs to be done and you have a process in place, you’ll be in good shape. These processes need to be created even if you can’t imagine a situation where you’d actually need them. Preparation will stop things from slipping out of control when the actual emergency occurs. You’ll already know what needs to be done.
It’s important that you have someone available 24 hours a day and seven days a week to respond to any potential emergency maintenance situation. We have found that many owners think they don’t have to worry about this. They have a single-family home that’s in great shape, and they don’t think that anything can go terribly wrong.The reality is, something can always go wrong.When a hot water tank decides to give out, you’ll need to react quickly to stop the water and minimize the damage. These things rarely happen during business hours. A water tank has never been known to wait until 9:00 a.m. on a Monday to suddenly blow. The timing is never good. So, you have to be prepared and you have to have someone available to answer the call and respond to the situation.A lot of owners may think they can handle these things on their own. Self-managing owners are more than happy to give their residents a cell phone number and be the person who is called anytime there’s an emergency at the property.But, sometimes you go to the movies and you don’t have your cell phone available to you. Sometimes, you will be out to dinner or at a cruise ship or the phone will be dead or left at the gym or in the car. You might be backpacking in the words where there’s no signal or skiing down a mountain top.You’re busy living your life.No single human being can be available 24 days, every day. This is impossible. If you’re asleep at night, even if the phone is on the nightstand right next to you, you won’t necessarily hear it when it rings. So, have someone available.People think they’ll handle on their own. But sometimes you go to the movies and you’re not available. Or you’re out to dinner or on a cruise ship or backpacking or skiing or whatever. You’re living your life. No one human being can be available 24 hours a day 365 days a year. If you’re asleep at night even if the phone is near you, it doesn’t mean you’ll wake up when it rings. So, have someone available. Even better – have a team.
A lot of owners will commonly give their residents the phone number of their handyman. Enrique admits that he did this himself when he was managing just a few units. All of his residents had the same cell phone number, and his handyman would take the calls. Usually.Again – he’s one human being. Sometimes, the cell battery would be dead and it would be a few hours before he realized it. This problem will keep happening if there’s only one person responsible for taking the emergency calls. When emergencies do happen, they are real emergencies. They usually deal with something major like water or fire or something equally as catastrophic. The resident is going to be shaken. Emergencies are a big deal, and they’re usually expensive. They get more expensive when you don’t address them immediately.That’s why you need a team.There has to be a team of people available to respond to these emergencies and take these panicked calls from residents. Maybe you’re set up to employ a call center. If you don’t have access to a call center, you might want to explore working with a professional property management company. They are usually reliable when it comes to emergency response.Even with a management company, however, make sure you’re hiring someone who has a team of people available to answer those phone calls. One person being responsible all alone can lead to endless rings, frustrated residents, and deteriorating property.Some owners are content to work with a real estate agent as a property manager. Maybe the agent who helped you buy the investment home has offered to find you a resident and manage the property. They might be licensed and capable. But, that one human being won’t be available all the time. It’s so much better to have a team of people so that no emergency phone call gets missed.Another risk in having your real estate agent manage your property is that an agent isn’t going to be as experienced as a professional property manager in all the things that can possibly occur. The list of things that can fail in a house is long. You could have a dishwasher begin leaking to the point that your entire kitchen is flooded. You could have residents lose heat in the middle of the night during one of the coldest weeks of the year. Maybe there’s a plumbing problem that went undetected for weeks or months and now it’s coming to a head, and everything is flooded and floorboards are rotting.Everything in the house has a lifespan. Property managers understand this. They spend every day of their professional lives dealing with appliances and systems and maintenance vendors and contractors. They know the law and they know what residents need in order to feel safe. A habitable home isn’t a suggestion – it’s a legal requirement.Weather can also play a role and cause emergency maintenance issues that you might not have expected. Property managers in Florida are prepared for hurricanes. Here in Seattle, we think about earthquakes. They’re not common, but they’re also not unheard of. So, it’s important for us to be prepared for earthquakes. When something weather-related happens, it’s happening to everyone. Getting a plumber to your house in the middle of the night is challenging enough. Getting a contractor to your property after an earthquake when everyone else in the region also needs a contractor is nearly impossible.This is where a property management relationship can help. As property managers, we work with the best local vendors and contractors to protect your residents and your valuable investment. When there’s an emergency and we need those vendors right away, they’re willing to respond to us. This is a benefit that not a lot of individual owners or self-managing rental property owners can access.Unforeseen circumstances are difficult to plan for, but you still have to be prepared. Have a plan in place and make sure you’ve communicated all emergency plans to your residents. When something terrible does happen, you’ll still have a mess to clean up, but you’ll also have a process to follow that makes the whole thing more tolerable.It seems simple, but if you don’t handle an emergency right away, you open yourself up to habitability issues that can turn into big fines. At the same time, you could be putting your residents in jeopardy. We can help you avoid that. If you have any questions, please contact us at Mynd Property Management in Seattle.
As we work through our series on answering questions about real estate investments in Seattle, we’re discussing some of the questions we hear most frequently from new investors, experienced investors, and people who are thinking about investing in Seattle. This series of blogs should help you no matter where you are in your real estate investing career and how much experience you have.Alex Osenenko is talking with Enrique Jevons, who is also with Mynd Property Management. If you don’t know him already, Enrique has a lot of depth and a lot of expertise on the subject of investing in Seattle real estate. Not only does he manage 850 properties in the Pacific Northwest, but he also owns his own rental homes. He owns 73 of them, in fact, so there’s not a single reason to believe Enrique wouldn’t know how to help you make better investment decisions.We’re talking today about how to be a successful real estate investor in Seattle. Alex asked Enrique to share the top five reasons that some investors are successful but others are not.Let’s take a look at those five reasons and see what we can learn.
It may seem obvious, but this can be overlooked by smart investors: you need to know where you’re going. What are your investment goals? You cannot get to your end goal if you don’t know where you’re heading.This shouldn’t be a vague idea of what you want to do as an investor, either. Be specific and intentional and deliberate. Write your goals down. Make sure you have a clear idea of why you’re investing, what you hope to get out of it, and where you see yourself in one year, five years, and 10 years. These investment goals will drive the decisions you make as you buy property, sell property, and manage property.
Most real estate investors are smart, talented, and entrepreneurial. You’re a rockstar on your own, right?Right, but you cannot be good at everything yourself. Even if you are good at everything, you can still be more successful when you have a talented team of equally brilliant people working with you. A successful real estate investor will have a team of people to rely on during every step of the investment process.Know who those team members are before you need them. Relationships are critical when you’re an investor. You want to have a good attorney in your list of contacts before you need an attorney. It’s important to have a plumber working with you before your residents call in the middle of the night to report a leak or a flood. Establish these relationships quickly. Don’t try to do everything yourself. If you want to succeed as a real estate investor, you have to be willing to farm out the work so you can protect your own time and your own talents.
Sometimes, you can be your own worst enemy. If you’re wondering why your investment properties aren’t performing the way you want them to, take a hard look at whether you’re making the process more complicated without realizing it. A smart investor knows how and when to get out of the way.It’s important to take your ego out of the investments you’re making. Sometimes, you’re convinced that you’re right. But, you’re not always right. If your attorney makes a recommendation, there’s a reason for it. Trust what your attorney is telling you because attorneys have knowledge and resources that you do not. Everything pertaining to your investment property is ultimately your decision. But, a lot of people make huge mistakes getting in their own way. They think they know better - no matter what the issue is.Don’t tell your painter how to paint. Don’t tell your contractor how to follow plans or where to buy supplies. You have to know when to get out of the way.Make sure you’re always treating your investment as a business and not as an extension of your personality. This seems like it should be obvious, but a lot of investors are emotionally attached to the properties they buy, and they have a hard time making business decisions. You need to think about this rental property as a business – always. If you’re not treating your rental home as a business, you need to start.This stumbling block is most common with single-family homes, especially if the property owner once lived there. It might still feel like your house. But, all decisions need to be made based on the numbers. Data and numbers should drive decisions and not your emotions.
Next, a successful investor has three things:
It’s possible you have all three of those things yourself. In that case, you’re going to have little to worry about as someone who is investing in Seattle rental properties.However, if you don’t have all three of those things yourself – don’t worry. You can still be a successful investor. The only difference is that you have to partner up with a person or an institution that can provide the thing that you’re missing.It’s okay if you lack the money, for example. There are plenty of banks and lenders who can provide the money part of the equation. So, maybe the partner in this scenario is a bank or a financial institution. You can take the time and use your expertise to find the right investment property and decide how you’re going to pay for it. Then, you’ll go to the bank and you’ll procure the funding.Decide what’s going to be an effective use of your time when you’re considering these three things. Maybe you’re an outstanding painter, so you’d surely have the expertise to paint the property you just bought before you put it on the rental market. But, you could be short of time. You want to get that property out on the market quickly so you don’t face a long vacancy period. Even having the expertise to paint, you should still hire a painter. That’s because in this scenario, what you’re lacking is time. Just because you know how to paint doesn’t mean you should be the one painting. You have to decide what effective use of your time is. There are some things that only you can do. There are other things that plenty of different people can do.So you need time, expertise, and money – but you shouldn’t count on yourself to deliver all of those things every time you invest. Be willing to work with partners, especially when the result is more time, expertise, and money.
The fifth thing that successful investors need to make money on their Seattle rental properties is simple. It’s a little bit of luck. This probably doesn’t sound like a brilliant investment strategy, but the truth is there are going to be a lot of things outside of your control. You’ll be lucky and unlucky during the course of your investment career. Make sure you know how to manage yourself and your finances and your properties during those lucky times and unlucky times.Sometimes, there are market forces that will just help propel you along. You’ll feel like you’re hardly doing any work at all, and investing in rental real estate is the easiest thing you’ve ever done. The market allows for this once in a while, and so does the tenant pool, and so do the general economic conditions. But, it won’t always be like that. At other times, you’ll feel like you are constantly running into the wind. During those periods, it’s going to be harder to make any money and you’ll wonder why you bothered to invest at all.Just because something is hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. There is money to be made in every market, whether it’s a strong market or a weak one. You simply have to stay educated and informed so you know how to handle things that are beyond your control. You need to be flexible and willing to shift a little if the market demands it.Sometimes, investing in Seattle real estate will be a lot easier than other times. If you’re someone who likes to buy and flip houses, you’ll be especially susceptible to market conditions. During those times that the market is on a tear and everything is going up, you’ll be able to easily cover the mistakes you might have made. But, if the market does not help you make money from those flips, you might want to hold your assets for a while until you can make some money again.Luck is a bit of being a successful investor, and it’s smart to accept that.These are the five common things we see with nearly all of the successful investors we work with. If you’d like more information about how to make smart investment choices with Seattle rental property, contact us at Mynd Property Management.
We had a great conversation with Enrique Jevons about what it takes to be a successful investor in Seattle rental properties. He’s a good person to ask. Enrique runs the Pacific Northwest region for Mynd Property Management. His team manages 850 properties. More impressively, he owns 73 personal rentals, so he has seen a thing or two in the investment world.It helps to have Enrique approach our questions from both sides of the coin. Not only does he effectively manage rental properties for other people, but he also has a ton of personal experience that helps him identify the things that work and the things that fail. He is quick to understand what’s needed to manage successfully and to make some money off of Seattle real estate.A common question is something many real estate investors fear. It involves failure. What we want to know is – why do investors fail? Everyone has their own unique path to failure of course, but Enrique has noticed some trends. We asked him to share those trends with us, and on today’s Seattle real estate investing blog, we are asking him to list the top three reasons that investors in Seattle fail.
One thing about being an investor in Seattle is that there are a lot of city ordinances, and not all of them are easy to understand and follow. We know this is not a problem that’s unique to Seattle. Cities and states all over the U.S. are adopting new laws and altering the laws that are currently on the books. This could cover everything from rent control to screening processes and evictions. There’s a lot to know.In Seattle, following all the laws and remaining successful as a real estate investor has become more difficult for some people. One of the main reasons an investor can fail is that they’ll get fined for not doing something correctly or lawfully, and those fines can be prohibitive as well as punitive. One major fine can completely shut you down.Many of the penalties in Seattle are extensive and expensive. The average cost of a mistake in the leasing of your property is around $5,000 or $10,000. In some cases, it’s even higher. Enrique recently talked to a fellow investor who flips houses, and he recently received a complaint against him because of a mistake he had made or a law he had misread. The fine imposed on him is $20,000. That’s pretty incredible, and no matter how successful you are with your properties, it’s hard to bounce back from a $20,000 fine.If you don’t know all the rules, you’re certainly at risk for making an expensive mistake, and that mistake can immediately lead to investment failure. To make things more difficult, it’s not like all of the rules and requirements are published in a single repository. As a rental property owner, you have to pay attention to all city, state, and federal laws as they apply to your investments. But, there’s no single resource, and the laws are changing all the time. It can be confusing.There are also micro-communities that have their own rules and requirements. Consider HOA and community associations, for example. Homeowner associations have their own sets of covenants and restrictions, and if the property you own is in an HOA, you are subject to following them and so are your residents. There are also separate requirements for neighborhoods throughout Seattle. If you don’t know them, you can lose a lot of money on these fines.It doesn’t matter if the law you are found to be violating was unknown to you. Even if you had no idea; not knowing the law is not an excuse.When you don’t know the law, you also increase the likelihood that you may get sued. A resident can sue you for not getting a repair done quickly enough, and that’s going to be expensive, time-consuming, and stressful. Maybe you did not realize that in Seattle, all hot water and heat-related repairs have to be started within 24 hours of being reported. If you were traveling and you didn’t get your resident's voicemail reporting the issue until late, you could be liable for breaking that law. Even if you get the work going as soon as you receive the message; you’re required to start within 24 hours. The law does not care if you were on vacation or sick or tending to other matters.This first reason for failure is a big one. Make sure you educate yourself on all the local laws and regulations and if you’re not sure you have the time or interest to keep up, you absolutely need to work with a Seattle property management company that can keep you in compliance and out of legal hot water. Don’t fail as an investor simply because you didn’t know you had to start a repair sooner than you did or because you weren’t sure about the differences between an emotional support animal and a pet.
A great way to fail as an investor is to try and do everything by yourself. This is a trap that many new investors fall into; they want to go it alone from identifying the investment opportunity to closing on the sale, preparing the home for rental, and moving forward through the management process.Do not try to do everything yourself. You have to realize that no matter how much you know, not everyone is an expert in everything. That’s why we hire doctors and attorneys. Not many people know how to argue a case in court or remove their own spleen. You have to let professionals do what they do best so that you can focus on what you do best.Hire the rockstars who are knowledgeable in their own areas. Instead of trying to do your own taxes, work with a CPA or a tax attorney so you can be sure you’re not losing money or miscalculating your income and expenses. When you’re preparing your investment for the rental market, hire professional cleaners so you’re not the one scrubbing toilets and waxing floors. People often think they are saving money by not hiring professionals and by doing everything themselves. But you’re not saving money. You’re losing money and you’re also losing time. These things can set you up for a major failure that you probably never anticipated.
Finally, investors will always fail if they don’t know their market. Seattle has a much different rental market than Memphis or Orlando. It’s important that you understand the properties here, the market trends, and the resident pool. If you don’t know the market, you’re not going to make good decisions.Make an effort to gather all the market data possible. Perhaps you’ll read an article that tells you rents in the Seattle area are going up 10 percent this year. So, you raise your rent 10 percent on all of the leases that are renewing. Well, that’s a great way to chase away good residents. Just because the average growth in Seattle was 10 percent doesn’t mean it pertains to your neighborhood or your property type.Maybe you decide to raise your rent three percent because that’s the general cost of living increase. That’s a terrible way to settle on rental value. There are so many micro-economies within major economies. Your neighborhood will be impacted by its own nuances. If you don’t really understand your market, you have a good chance of making mistakes. You’ll raise your rent too much or you won’t raise it enough. Then, you’re stuck playing catch up or you’re stuck with a vacancy. With the vacancy of course comes additional costs. You have to start over and find another resident and do the marketing and take care of the turnover maintenance. It’s a huge expense. It can cause an investor to fail.Educate yourself about the rental market and the sales market as well. Chasing down investment opportunities just for the sake of investing is a great way to fail. Remember that you need an investment plan. You need specific investment goals that define what you’re doing and why. If you get off track because you’re chasing something that isn’t right for you, it’s a surefire way to fail as an investor.Everyone has their own reasons for failing as an investor. One simple mistake does not need to knock you off track permanently. But, if you want to reduce the chance that you’ll make a terrible mistake that puts an end to your investment career, pay attention to these three things. It’s a good starting point, and it tells you what you want to avoid.We don’t like to see anyone fail. So, if you have any questions about investing in rental properties in Seattle, contact us at Mynd Property Management. We would love to be your Seattle property management resource.
Once again, we are talking about the Seattle rental market and how to invest our money in real estate. The expert who is leading us through this series on Seattle property investment is Enrique Jevons, who manages the Pacific Northwest office for Mynd Property Management. He and his team are responsible for more than 850 properties, and we’re growing fast.More important than Enrique’s professional experience is his personal experience. He is an investor himself, and he personally owns 73 properties. At one point, he owned more than 100 rental homes; he recently sold a percentage of them. He invests in both single-family homes and multifamily buildings, so he has a wide amount of experience that stretches over the last decade.We’ve been asking him to weigh in on some of the questions that real estate investors ask us most frequently. These are questions that come from new investors, experienced investors, and people who are not renting out homes yet but are considering a real estate investment.Today’s question is how investors should go about choosing a professional property management company.You may be rolling your eyes because of course, we ARE a property management company. But, when it comes to helping investors choose the right property manager, we aren’t biased. Why? Because we care about the industry as a whole and we care about the Seattle community.Mynd Property Management belongs to the National Association of Residential Property Managers or NARPM. This means that we are focused on servicing our clients with the highest possible standards. But, it also means we work hard to make sure the industry wins. We are interested in elevating the way property managers deliver their services.When a bad property manager is out there (), they erode the trust between rental property investors and property managers. That hurts all of us. So, we don’t want you to feel locked into a position where you have to do everything yourself just to avoid a terrible property management experience.So today, we are asking Enrique – as an investor – to tell us how he would go about choosing a property management company for his rental properties.
First, look for a company that you can imagine working with for a long time. You want to establish and develop a long term relationship with this company. It’s similar to hiring an employee or a general contractor. When you hire an employee, you want to check a few things off your list. You want to make sure they are outstanding people. You want to make sure they have a relevant background and experience doing what you need them to do. And, you want to make sure that person is an overall good fit. You’ll ask some questions and do some checking to make sure you can work with that person for the long term.Make sure you can get along with your property manager on a personal level. There are all sorts of management companies with all sorts of excellent property managers. You don’t have to feel a personal vibe with someone when they’re just collecting rent and responding to repairs. But, when it comes to long term planning and being on the same page in terms of processes and systems, you have to know that you’re going to be able to work well together.
You also want to hire experts who are already willing to show you the processes they follow and the systems they have in place. You don’t want to tell a property manager how to screen a resident or where to find a vendor. You want to trust that your property management company already has that covered.However, when we say it’s similar to hiring a general contractor, it’s because you want to be able to tell your property manager exactly what you need and expect. If you don’t, there’s no telling what you’ll end up with. For example, if you’re hiring a general contractor to do work on a property you buy because you want to flip it, don’t just hire the contractor and then wait for them to get to work. You have to show them the plans and you have to periodically check in to see how the work is coming and if they need anything to get the job done.Otherwise, you can show up on the last day of the work, when you believe the project is completed, and when you walk in you’ll see that the wrong carpet is on the floor or a mystery paint color has been put on the walls. The general contractor is not completely to blame in this scenario; when there’s a lack of direction they’ll do what they think you wanted. Or, they’ll do what they have always done with other properties.We’re using this example to demonstrate how important it is that you can work well together and communicate. When something goes wrong, it’s not always because you hired the wrong person. Sometimes, it’s because you didn’t provide enough direction. So you need to focus on the combination of hiring the right person and providing the right direction in which you want them to go.For an employee to be successful, you have to check in once in a while. This is a partnership. You cannot be successful without your property management company, and they can’t be successful without you.
When you’re evaluating the people you may hire to service your properties, the price will eventually play an important role. Just make sure you know what you’re looking at, and when you compare different price structures, make sure you’re making valid comparisons.No one wants to be gauged. But at the same time, you will get what you pay for. With property management, you’re hiring people in the service industry. You have to look for value rather than simply low prices because this isn’t a commodity. You aren’t buying a car or an appliance.Because you’re hiring a set of professionals for an ongoing service, there are a lot of different components to property management, and all of them have their own value and pricing standards. You may think you are paying for a full set of services, and you may not realize until it’s too late that there is a whole list of essential services that are not included in your property management fee.Make sure you know what’s included and what’s not included when you’re talking about property management prices. If you’re working with a property management company that has all-inclusive pricing, you might pay a lot more every month than you would with a property management company that allows you to pick and choose the services you want.Transparency is critical. Find out if you can add items on that aren’t included and if you can, what that cost will be. Take eviction guarantees as an example. Many companies will have a full eviction guarantee that ensures you will not ever have to pay for an eviction, no matter what. Other companies will have a limit that they’re willing to meet. So, maybe they’ll pay up to $2,000 of your eviction costs. Both of these services are very different. So, ask your property manager if they guarantee against evictions and if they do, what that means exactly. Will you still have to pay for eviction or for the placement of another resident, even if you’re enrolled in a protection plan? Maybe eviction protection isn’t offered at the price range you’re looking for, but you might be able to get it for an additional price. Discuss it with your property manager. All potential management companies should be willing to have this discussion.As you begin or finish your search for a Seattle property management company, remember these three tips that come straight from a professional investor:Treat the process like you’re hiring an employee. You’re looking for someone you can work with for many years. Check in with how they’re working and whether they’re meeting your expectations, but then get out of the way and let them do their work.Be mindful of pricing. There are bound to be deviations from company to company. A property manager might advertise one fee but in reality, other things that you need will end up costing you extra. Before you sign a management agreement, make sure you understand the full menu of services they provide and their associated costs.One final tip we have is to look for pricing on the company’s website. If the pricing isn’t there and it’s not published and transparent, someone is hiding something or they don’t care enough to share the information with you.Now you have an idea of how to pick a property management company.We’d love to earn your business. So, if you have any questions or need any help, please contact us at Mynd Property Management.
The Seattle rental housing market remains heated, with both domestic and foreign investors actively acquiring properties in the region. In terms of job growth, the metro area has outperformed the national average over the past few years, with many additions in lucrative industries, such as high-tech and life sciences.
Well-heeled newcomers are contributing to outsized demand for rental housing, a trend that is expected to continue in 2020, especially near employment centers in the urban core and on the Eastside. However, not everyone works for tech firms. As a result, there has been greater demand for lower-end rental units in the CBD and peripheral submarkets, as well as nearby cities like Tacoma. Although Seattle has become increasingly unaffordable, new legislation incentivizes developers to build more affordable units in exchange for higher density in many neighborhoods.
Click here to download our fourth quarter 2019 rental market report for the Seattle.
Laws are constantly changing, many of which can have a negative impact on you. Our guest today is Enrique Jevons, Regional Director for Mynd in the Pacific Northwest. Enrique is here to discuss with us a law that recently passed in the state of Washington, changing when a tenant can be evicted from a rental property.Steve Rozenberg: Hey, everyone. My name is Steve Rozenberg with Mynd Property Management. I'm joined here with my good friend, Enrique Jevons, who is the Regional Director for Mynd for the Pacific Northwest. Enrique, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate it.Enrique Jevons: Yeah. Thanks. Good to see you again soon.Steve Rozenberg: So today what I want to talk about is a law that recently changed. I want to make sure this is correct. I understand that you no longer can issue a three-day notice to vacate in the state of Washington. Is that correct?Steve Rozenberg: Yeah, exactly. So just this last year, another law was passed. This was a statewide law and it changed the notice to vacate the Pay or Quit Notice. And it changed it from a three-day pay or quit, which is what most states across the country have. There are variations out there. It's up to each State to decide what they want to do. But that is, on average, I took a look at other state and it is pretty average.Well, Washington now change it to be one of the two most restrictive states. It's now a 14-day notice to pay or vacate. So 14-day notice to pay or vacate—to pay or quit. It's one of those things where you have just got to make sure that you are staying on top of all the laws that occur, that are applicable to you, whether it's a federal law, state law, city ordinance. You got to make sure you're on top of these things—HOA’s, condo association rules. Because if you fall out of compliance, it can be really expensive.If you, just out of pure ignorance, you've been serving for many, many, many years, a 3-day notice to pay or quit, and the person is late and you send them that 3-day notice pair quit, now they can come after you. They can sue you for that. So you want to make sure you don't put yourself in that position. So now, state of Washington, 14-day notice to pay or quit. It's more restrictive. It doesn't mean you can't evict. You can still evict the individual, but it's all the more reason to make sure you get that notice to them right away as soon as their rent is late. No waiting around because it is going to be a little bit longer now to get that individual out.Steve Rozenberg: Is there a reason behind them doing it? Was there something that happened, or is it just they voted and that's what they voted for.Enrique Jevons: The primary reason why it came about is that the cost of housing is just going up. So you have a lot of people, especially in the city of Seattle, but there's a lot of other cities within the state too, where just with the cost of housing rising, and also with the homeless population rising, people are looking for answers and they're also, unfortunately, blaming, a lot of times, all of the wrong people. So are blaming landlords for homelessness. Well, landlords aren’t causing homelessness. If anything, landlords are providing housing.Steve Rozenberg: They’re providing housing for people, yeah.Enrique Jevons: That's really the reason why this, this came about. Okay, so we have a tough situation there. But, as I mentioned in previous conversation, hey, at least we don't have rent control. State of Oregon passed statewide rent control. So there's a lot going on in lot of states. It doesn't mean you should sell your real estate. Now, real estate is still, right now, one of the number one ways to create wealth. So you just have to be smart about complying with the law and making sure you're aware of the law. If you're not going to be able to keep up on the law then you really need to hire an expert, such as a property manager. A property manager, whose sole focus is property management so that they will also keep you out of hot water.Steve Rozenberg: Yeah, that is so true right there. So, Enrique if somebody wants to talk to you, I mean, obviously this is serious stuff it's changing all the time. This is an ever-fluid market and ever-fluid industry and you've got to be up on the laws. It's so important. If somebody wants to get ahold of you and learn more about the laws that have changed, what's coming down the pipeline or just want to hand over their properties to someone like you, an expert in the Pacific Northwest, how do they do that?Enrique Jevons: Sure you can email me. Definitely feel free to email me any questions. I'm happy to shoot off answers for you. Enrique.jevons@mynd.co is my email address. So it’s e-n-r-i-q-u-e.j-e-v-o-n-s at m-y-n-d.c-o.Steve Rozenberg: If you want to join our Facebook group at Mynd, it's called the Mastermynd Real Estate Investment Club. Investors just like Enrique and myself are in there, along with a lot of other investors, talking, engaging, chatting on. So please join that and if you'd like to know more about Mynd, go to our website mynd.co. M-Y-N-D.C-O. Everybody, thank you for watching. I am Steve Rozenberg. My good friend, Enrique Jevons in the Pacific Northwest. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.Enrique Jevons: Thanks, everybody. Bye.A changing law can have a major impact on any business. This is especially true when renting a property. A recent law was passed in the state of Washington giving tenants 14 days to vacate a property rather than the national average of 3 days.Passed due to rising rents and growing homeless population throughout the state, this law gives tenants more time to vacate a property and, ultimately, puts the onus on the property owner. Laws such as this one prove that every property owner or manager must always keep up-to-date on changing laws and how those changes may affect them, both positively or negatively. Neglecting to do so will inevitably cost needless time and money in the long run.
Repairs are a given when owning a property—especially when owning a rental property. From roofs to appliances, something will eventually need repair. Our guest today is Enrique Jevons. Enrique is the Regional Director for Mynd for the Pacific Northwest and is here to discuss that investors should expect to save for when owning a rental property in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, overall.Steve Rozenberg: Hey, everyone. This is Steve Rozenberg with Mynd Property Management and I am joined here today with Enrique Jevons who is the Regional Director of the Pacific Northwest Property Management Division of Mynd. Enrique, thank you so much today for joining me. I appreciate it.Enrique Jevons: Yeah. Thanks, Steve. Good to be here with you.Steve Rozenberg: So what I'd like to talk about today is, if I'm an investor and I'm looking at buying a property, what can I expect are the normal things—average that will break in a rental property? Now, I say that with it with a grain of salt because we all know as investors, things break all the time that we don't expect. But you know there are going to be some standard things that we know are going to be of challenge that maybe we want to put in a reserve amount contingency fund knowing that that's probably going to be an expense for us down the road. Can you give me a couple of things that you think are standard that are going to need more attention than others in the Seattle area?Enrique Jevons: Yeah, so a couple of things along those lines. One that I always highly recommend to people is, you have got to make sure you budget in enough money for repairs. Don't ever think that even—let's say it's a single family home where you use your primary residence, you lived in it. And you lived in there for 10 years and nothing ever broke and so you think that nothing's ever going to break in the future. The reality is, stuff does break. Especially anything mechanical anything that has moving parts.Steve Rozenberg: If it has an on or off-swing, it’s going to break.Enrique Jevons: It's going to break, yeah. So, appliance-wise, my experience is dishwashers, as far as appliances go, dishwashers seem to be the first item to give out. And then I would say, second to that is refrigerators and hot-water tanks. Hot-water tanks definitely have a certain life expectancy. You can't expect a hot water tank to live on forever. So these things are going to happen. But if you're budgeting, I would always recommend 5% set aside for repairs and another 2% for capital improvements.So capital improvements, the roof, the hot water tank, other—flooring, things like that. You always also want to set money aside for that in order to have a reserve available. A reserve can either be cash in the bank. It could be a line of credit. Just make sure that you've got it available so an emergency happens, when something big gives out on you, that you have that money to be able to get it repaired.Steve Rozenberg: Let me ask you this. With all the moisture in the Seattle area, is mold something? Mold remediation. Is that something you have got to be cognizant of when you're buying a property? And do you get an inspection? Can you explain that a little bit?Enrique Jevons: Yeah, so definitely mold is something that is probably not necessarily unique, but certainly more of a challenge. And in wet locations like Seattle, you get a lot of rain. And so, as a result, you get more mold than when I was in the Bay Area.And also water intrusion. So in basements. That is a bit more common of an issue that you’ve got to deal with. Also, mold is now, nationwide, a big issue. So just as, years ago, it was asbestos. Asbestos was the big scare and you had to make sure that you never touched it. Always divulged it, type of thing. Well, now mold seems to be the big issue. And then we get tenants who call and say, “I've got black mold.” And we get there, you realize, it's just surface mold, meaning that it's just in the shower or wherever—underneath the kitchen sink, a wet location where the individuals allowed condensation to occur. Or maybe it's a window and they've allowed condensation to occur on the window and they don't clean up.So it's really more a matter of educating the tenant on how it's their responsibility and they need to clean it up so that does not become a problem. But if it’s another source, So, if it's a roof leak and the water is coming in from the outside or it’s a basement leak and you have got water coming in, then that’s the mold that you start to see on the ceiling, basement, wherever it might start appearing, that you go to attempt to clean it off, it doesn't clean off, or it's in a location where you realize that I really shouldn't be having mold problems, living room type thing, then you have got to make sure you're remediated.So you got to get rid of the source of the water. Somehow waters getting in, you have got to first attack that and then make sure you do a good job of cleaning up because the worst thing that could possibly happen is you try and just paint over it, cover it up. Then the individual gets sick. If that individual gets sick, they go to their doctor and they say, “yeah, I reported mold to my landlord.” And the doctor says, “well, yeah, you've now got asthma or you've got breathing problems as a result of prolonged exposure to mold,” holy cow, you're going to be in a world of hurt as far as the potential liability of somebody suing. And certainly, having documentation from a doctor that you have asthma now and having documentation that you submitted a maintenance request to have mold taken care of and it wasn't promptly taken care of…Steve Rozenberg: Mold definitely has to be taken seriously. I've learned there are about 200 different types of mold. Some people say black mold. It's not normally the black mold that they're afraid of. But because mold typically is black, it is black mold by color, but it's not the black mold that everyone is afraid of. However, you're right. And my recommendation is, and I know we kind of got a little bit off things, but it's important that if you do have mold or a situation, get a professional in there, in my opinion, and find out exactly where it is. What is the cause of it? Because sometimes, as you know, that comes down rafter lines. And it may not be where you think it is. It may be starting up on the flashing of the fireplace and running down the line. So you’ve really got to be careful. Water, I think, is the most dangerous thing in a rental property that can hurt you and from my experience.Enrique Jevons: Yeah, no matter where the water is coming from, whether it's a shower curtain not properly closed all the time and it starts to make the linoleum start turning into a deep purple color and you wonder what's going on there. Well, that is because you’ve got mold growing on the backing of the glue and such on your linoleum. Which is then a problem because then you’ve got the bigger problem spot underneath.So the whole moral of the story is, make sure you have funds always available to use that you can take care of these problems and make sure you always attack the problem professionally. Attack it right away. Don't delay. If your tenant, your property manager contacts you and says, “hey, this salt water tanks leaking,” saying to the person, “well, I need to get three bids on replacing the hot water tank.” You know what? That maybe is not the best decision because maybe you could save $100 here or there, but the reality is, chances are it's going to be so much more expensive of repair because you didn't get somebody out there immediately to care of the issue you were trying to nickel and dime.Steve Rozenberg: You may have a property code issue. Some states have, and some locales have, property code issues of timelines that you have to get certain things fixed in. You don't have the ability to wait two, three weeks to get bids. I know in, for example, Texas, you have 72 hours when a hot water heater goes out. Otherwise, you have to put them up in a hotel.Enrique Jevons: Okay, so Washington State is even a little more restrictive in that respect because there's two things. It's hot water and heat. The repair must be started within 24 hours. It doesn’t say completed. But those two items, specifically, are mentioned in Washington State law in the residential landlord-tenant act. And so again, you have got to know the law. You’ve got to make sure you take care of things right away. Otherwise, yeah, paying for a tenant to stay in a hotel.Steve Rozenberg: Well, Enrique if somebody wants to talk to you more in depth about mold or things breaking or having Mynd manage their properties or just have a conversation with you because you're like the most interesting man in the world, how does someone get ahold of you?Enrique Jevons: Ah, yeah. I feel like I've had everything happen over the years. Right now we've got over 900 homes and apartments that we're managing in Washington State. We're taking on additional several hundred and in this next year. So I have a tremendous amount of experience. I would say just about every situation. So please do reach out to us. Feel free to email me, I'm at enrique.jevons@mynd.co. I’m happy to reply to your emails. I know you've got a Facebook page going that I really enjoy so you can reach us there, as well.Steve Rozenberg: Our Facebook group is Mastermynd Real Estate Investment Club on Facebook. Enrique and I are both members up there. We post good information. We have properties on there, hot properties. We break down deals. We do webinars, all of that in there for free exclusive to our group. Again, Mastermynd Real Estate Investment Club. Also, if you want to know more about Mynd Property Management, go to M-Y-N-D.C-O. I am Steve Rozenberg, and I'm here with Enrique Jevons. Enrique, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time today, buddy.Enrique Jevons: Yeah, thanks.Steve Rozenberg: Talk to you guys later. Bye-bye.Enrique Jevons: Bye.Saving for inevitable repairs and maintenance is the smartest decision a property owner can make. As such expenses are an inevitability, having funds available to make those repairs immediately can save thousands in the long run. And while appliances and other mechanical repairs are inevitable, preventative maintenance can save money, as well. Likewise, as certain repairs, like hot water heaters, have to be replaced or have the work begun within a certain amount of time, every investor should keep up-to-date on laws to stay ahead of the game and keep their tenants happy, overall.
Many rental tenants have and pay fees for having pets; however, new changes to federal law have the potential to change this fact completely. We are speaking today with Enrique Jevons, Regional Director with Mynd for the Pacific Northwest, about emotional support animals and how changing laws can affect how landlords can charge tenants for keeping an animal in a rental property.Steve Rozenberg: Hey, everyone. My name is Steve Rozenberg and I'm the Vice-President of Investor Education here at Mynd Property Management and I'm joined here with my good friend, Enrique Jevons, who is the Regional Director for the Pacific Northwest area. Enrique, thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate it, buddy.Enrique Jevons: Yeah, it's good to see you again, Steve. Thanks. Good to see you.Steve Rozenberg: So let's talk about emotional support animals. I know this is something that's been popping up. It's getting more and more prevalent and it can be some choppy waters if you don't know what you're doing. And I know in the Seattle area, Pacific Northwest, it's definitely something that's on the radar. If somebody has an emotional support animal, what are some of the rules and regulations that I need to know about as an investor when I have a tenant that has this?Enrique Jevons: Yeah, so with the emotional support animals, it's one of these really well-intentioned laws that unfortunately is being grossly taken advantage of. So essentially, you've got three different classifications going on. There are pets. Pets you can prohibit and you can charge pet rents depending on the particular city. They might have restrictions against pet rent. But in general, pet rents are allowed. Pet deposits are allowed, in general, unless a particular city ordinance that prohibits it. But the second classification is service animals.Now service animals are something we've all grown up with. It’s an animal, typically a dog, that has been trained for a very specific function in order to aid someone with a disability. Of course, the blind dog is probably the most obvious, but then there's also dogs that have been trained to, for example, their sense of smell can alert an individual who has diabetes if their blood sugar level is going low. So that’s another example of a service animal. So that's a trained animal. Service animals are allowed to go anywhere. There are no restrictions.So service animals can go to a restaurant. It can go to a grocery store. It can, of course, stay with you in a home. You're not allowed to either charge pet rent, pet deposit, any monetary fees whatsoever. You cannot charge in relationship to a service animal. if they damage the home, yes, you can charge them for damage. If that animal is biting, acting aggressively, yes, you can then impose your restrictions on your lease against an animal, even though it's a service animal because the individual must still maintain control of that animal.But, and then the third classification now is the emotional support animal. So the emotional support animal is federally now protected. So it is nationwide and it is protected in regards to housing. So an emotional support animal, you still are not allowed to bring into a restaurant, although, unfortunately, a lot of people do. I'm starting to see their hand-carried-around little poodles in Home Depot and other locations. While those are emotional support animals, technically that's up to the commercial establishment, whether or not they want to allow emotional support animals. But there's no law that says they do; however, there is a law—HUD—that requires housing providers to permit emotional support animals.So with emotional support animals, they don't have to be trained on anything, which means they don't even have to be a specific animal. So it can be a parrot, a snake, kangaroo, dog, cat, whatever because it does not have to be trained it all. The only requirement is that a medical professional writes a letter stating that you may benefit from having an emotional support animal. Well, how easy is that? I mean, that's obviously super easy, to go to any kind of medical professional and say, “you know what II'm not feeling it. I need, I need something…”Steve Rozenberg: “…I need this parakeet to walk me off the ledge…”Enrique Jevons: “…otherwise, I get lonely. And so, that person just says, “well, I believe that this person may benefit from having parakeets.” So it's a really tough one. Now I have, of course, spoken with lots of landlords who say, “oh, well, this is what I do to get around it.” My recommendation to you is, be very careful. I've spoken with my attorney about that asking that very same question. What can I possibly do to get around this. And what he stated to me is, it's not worth it. It's not worth the amount of assets that you've got. It's not worth getting into a lawsuit over because, he said, generally speaking, the tenant is always going to win. All they have to do is show the judge a letter from a medical professional that states that they may benefit, those are the key words, they may benefit from having an emotional support animal.So you cannot charge any kind of fees. You cannot charge deposit. You cannot restrict them. It's a real problem. So, but I would say, speak to an attorney if you think that you're going to try and get around it.Steve Rozenberg: My understanding, as well, is that you cannot ask them what's wrong with them at all. You can ask for documentation. I just need to see documentation that you have one. And then my suggestion to people is, at that point, I would go to fair housing.gov () just to make sure that all of your ducks are in a row, that you don't say the wrong thing, that you ask the right questions. And I think, more importantly, you have got to remember that you're running a business and you've got to remember that you being right does not mean that you're going to be right, legally. Just because you showed that they didn't really need that support animal and now you're in legal trouble is probably not the best way to handle this situation because the law says that they can have it. That's the law. We're in the landlord-investor business. It's the sandbox we’re playing in and you have to respect that.Enrique Jevons: Yeah, that's an unfortunate thing because your insurance company is not going to protect you. They're not going to cover if you get sued for discriminating against somebody who has an emotional support animal. Your insurance company is not going to help you with that one. You're just going to be hanging out there all by yourself. And you got to realize that just by virtue of having a property. You've got assets and there are also people who know this and target, specifically, owners who in their advertisements say no pets in their advertisement. All they have got to do is record themselves. They call up and say, “hey, I've got emotional support animal.” And if you say if you answer back, “no, you're not allowed,” or, “no, you got to pay pet rent,” right there, they’ve got proof that you’re discriminating.Or if you were to ask them, “well, what do you need the emotional support animal for?” Yes, again, you're not allowed to ask that question that you can't say, you know, “are you nutso? Why do you need that parakeet?”Steve Rozenberg: I get it, I get it. Well, okay. So obviously, you're the expert. So if somebody wants to know more about emotional support animals, service animals or managing their properties in the Pacific Northwest, how does somebody get ahold of you?Enrique Jevons: Enrique.jevons@mynd.co is the best way by email. So, Enrique.jevons@mynd.co. If you don't know how to spell it, if you type in any variation you Google Search me, you're going to find me since it's a unique enough name, which is nice. So do look me up. I'm happy to answer questions like this one and any other.Steve Rozenberg: And if you want to join us on Facebook, we do have a Facebook group just for investors. It's called the Mastermynd Real Estate Investment Club. Specifically, for investors. People like Enrique and myself are on there. We're engaging, conversing. We'd love for you to join. And if you want to go to our website, it's M-Y-N-D.C-O. I'm Steve Rozenberg. This is Enrico Jevons, I want to thank everyone for watching and we'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye.Enrique Jevons: Thank you. Bye, everybody.Laws surrounding emotional support animals have changed the rental landscape. As with service animals, tenants can no longer be charged for keeping emotional support animals. And as there is no requirement that an emotional support animal undergo specific training, such animals can be varied and outside of the purview of a rental agreement. Likewise, it is important for landlords to remember that questioning a tenant over the nature of an emotional support animal or their reason for having it is out of the question. As such, it is crucial that property owners and managers remain up-to-date on any changing laws or regulations that may affect the relationship with their tenant or the property, itself.
Selecting a tenant can be one of the most important decisions a property owner can make, but it is not so easy as picking the best one. Our guest today is Enrique Jevons, Regional Director with Mynd for the Pacific Northwest. Enrique is here to discuss his top three things to pay attention to when searching for a new tenant.Steve Rosenberg: Hey, everyone. This is Steve Rosenberg with Mynd Property Management and I'm joined here with Enrique Jevons with Mynd Property Management, as well. And he is the Regional Director for all of the Pacific Northwest and Enrique, thank you so much for joining me today.Enrique Jevons: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Good to see you again. Steve.Steve Rosenberg: You too. So what I want to talk about today is, if I'm an investor in the Seattle Northwest area and I'm looking at selecting a tenant, what would you say are the top three things that I should be paying attention to make sure that I try to find that needle in the haystack, the good tenant that's going to stay forever, not be a problem, that kind of person. What are those three things?Enrique Jevons: Yeah, definitely right now for us because I—one of the things that I always do whenever a tenant goes bad, they don't pay the bug out on the lease, I always go back to the application and look. Were there any red flags that we missed?So, after years and years of doing just that, the one thing that really stands out more now than ever before is the FICO score as far as the ability and the willingness to pay rent. So the FICO score is, fortunately, something that's very easy to set a standard. You apply that same standard to all applicants. So I highly recommend that you make sure that on the application that you pull that includes pulling a FICO score.So that's going to be the number one determining factor for how good they are at paying their cell phone bills, how good they are paying any other debts that they have. That's going to show you how good they are at paying their rent on time.Second to that then is going to be their income. So you definitely want to set a standard of how many times income you want to have for your property. So, whether it be two times income, two-and-a-half, three times, more, there is no restriction on what you can place. And it's also a nice equitable standard that you can apply across the board and you're not going to run into any fair housing law restrictions against that. So you want to make sure that you do implement that.Now, some locations, for example, the state of Washington just this last year passed new state law. And this is why it's exceptionally important that you're always familiar with and up to date on all the applicable laws where your properties are. And if you're not, then, of course, you need to team up with somebody who is an expert. Of course, that would include a property management company who's always going to be on top of all the new laws. But Washington state has a new law now that all sources of income do count and must be allowed.So you can no longer restrict against, for example, Section Eight vouchers. So you must still accept Section Eight vouchers. You can still, let's say you have a three-times rent income, you can still impose that restriction, but that restriction is going to be on now only three times what the individual’s co-payment is. So their co-payment is $100/month and the voucher takes care of the rest, they must make $300/month in income from another source. All sources of income must be allowed with that. And I know, this is a bit of a side note but it is something that comes up on preferences. What is not allowed by fair housing laws, and this is actually nationwide fair housing laws, is you may not discriminate against, with the source of income. That is, you can't favor certain people.So, for example, and a common one is people think, “oh, it must be legitimate to go ahead and allow military discounts. You figure, “well, you know what? I'm in the military. I would love to have somebody else who's in the military. I rent one of my places or just in general, I'd love to have a military family rent one of my places.” Right, sure. That's great. But if you offer them a discount, you don't offer somebody else, then unfortunately what you're doing is you're discriminating against anybody who is not in the military or veteran or whatever your discount might happen to be. Or you want to give a Microsoft discount or you want to give a Google employee discount. Those are all types of discrimination because unfortunately, you’re discriminating against anybody who's not a member of one of those.Steve Rosenberg Wow, okay.Enrique Jevons: So some kind of watch out for there. Third item to look for is how long a person stays at a location. So if they're bouncing around three months, six months, one of the questions you can be like, “were those just short term portrait rental housing you were at or you just breaking your lease every single time?” And of course, the shorter than stay or if they have no rental history can be very legitimate. Can be a great person straight out of college. I just have no rental history.Or their rental history is unverifiable because maybe they lived in Germany and they now have a job with Amazon. They're being relocated and you've got documentation showing how much money—the job offer letter—they’re going to make. But you just can’t verify it. Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be bad. It’s just going to be a higher risk because it’s just not verifiable. And so, it’s something to take into account is, how long have people stayed at their former residences.Steve Rosenberg: Okay, so that's good. So basically what I hear is the three things, if I'm an investor, that I need to look for is number one, FICO score. Number two, debt-to-income ratio. What they make and how much they're making. And then, I'm sorry, what was the last one?Enrique Jevons: Yeah. And then number three is the rental history.Steve Rosenberg: Rental history. Thank you. Yeah. So all of that will give you a good picture. And just as we close this out, I think it's important to say that people realize that what you do for one you have to do for all. Basically you cannot, if you have certain rules and restrictions on FICO score, debt-to-income and rental history that's got to be across the board. You can't just specialize anything. And that's where people get in trouble is they think that they're doing someone a favor.Like you said, honestly, I never would have thought of the military as something but you're right. That definitely could be. Basically discriminatory practices against one set of people or in favor of a set of people so there you go.Enrique Jevons So you can go to a restaurant and get a military discount or a senior discount, those sort of things. But when it comes to housing, housing has much more restrictions. So you’ve just got to be aware of the law. And make sure you’re not running afoul of the law.Steve Rosenberg: Wow, that's great. Well, Enrique if somebody wants to get ahold of you up in the Seattle area, what's the best way to contact you, either email or phone would you say?Enrique Jevons: Definitely email. So definitely email is always best way to reach me. So enrique.jevons@mynd.co. You can also just do a Google search for my name, since it's unique enough that you'll be able to find me that way as well.Steve Rosenberg: Very unique. And if you want to join our Facebook group here at Mynd, it's the Mastermynd Real Estate Investment Club on Facebook. Closed group. Lot of investors in there. I know Enrique is in there. I'm in there because we are investors and you'll be able to actually converse, engage and have discussions with us and other very engaged investors, like-minded investors. And if you want to check out our website, mynd.co, M-Y-N-D-.C-O. Enrique, thank you so much, and I would like to say everyone, Goodbye.Enrique Jevons: Yeah, thank you, Steve. Bye.Choosing a tenant for a property can be quite difficult, but this does not always have to be so. There are many tools and strategies for property owners to use when searching for the best tenant for their property.Foremost, a potential tenant’s FICO score can give an investor insight into how prompt that person is at paying their bills. Likewise, setting a standard debt-to-income ratio for a property can help make sure any future resident is actually able to afford their rent payments. And lastly, checking a future tenant’s rental history can give an investor some insight into what sort of tenant this individual may be. And while none of these tools are foolproof, they can give an owner or investor a better understanding of the individual and if they will be a good fit for the property, overall.
