5 Landlord Mistakes That Cost You Thousands
Calvin Hexter (0:00-0:17): Garnet! Investors purchase the property with the intention and buy and hold, and then it seems like they forget how to manage the property and then it can all go to absolute shit. So today what we’re talking about is the five biggest mistakes.
And and we could have went ten or twenty or thirty biggest mistakes because there’s so many mistakes that landlords make and we’re hoping to uncover them to help you as a landlord or property manager to prevent yourself running into these same mistakes. I’m here with Garnet Koria, the owner and operator, uh co-owner of AG Property Services, a very affluent, very successful property management group here in Edmonton. Garnet, how you doing?
Garnet Coria (0:48-0:50): Very good, Calvin. Excited to be here.
Calvin Hexter (0:50-1:12): Property managers do not have it easy. If you wanna see some of the worst Google ratings in like the history of Google Ratings, I swear to God property managers always have the worst. Because you’re either pissing off the tenant or you’re either pissing off the landlord that hired you. How do you do it and how do you balance that relationship? Because it’s it’s difficult to achieve the win-win in all scenarios. For sure.
Garnet Coria (1:12-1:13): Yeah, I mean it comes down to just
I’d say number one is is communication and and open communication and just explaining things to both sides. Um, ’cause yeah, again, when some tenants are uh not happy with you know, when an owner doesn’t wanna do some cosmetic re renovations or things that they don’t think are are are functionally working, um, it’s always tough, like you said, just trying to mitigate and trying to balance both sides so that there there is a win win.
Calvin Hexter (1:38-2:02): Yeah, yeah. Not a lot of people can do property management and if property management’s one of the main reasons why you as an investor are avoiding buy and holds, that’s where you hire it out. That’s where you get professionals that have systems, plans in place to to allow for any scenario that might take take on, right? And I do think that, you know, here in Alberta, property managers probably have it
Would you say slightly easier to be able to to have more freedom than if you were in Ontario or BC?
Garnet Coria (2:10-2:11): I would agree with that, yeah.
Calvin Hexter (2:12-2:14): Why why do we have it easier in Alberta?
Garnet Coria (2:15-2:44): Um, I’d say one of them obviously is just our our legal system and the process. I mean, when we were out in Ontario for uh for a conference a few months back, we were just chatting with some of the investors there, and you know, some guys are talking about trying to evict their tenants for twelve or eighteen months, right? So you gotta imagine tenants that’s not paying rent, you’re bleeding every month, um, you know, you’re trying to scramble and find out how you’re gonna be paying these mortgages. But then on top of that, after the tenant leaves, you probably have a whole whack of renovations and repairs you’ve you’ve gotta take care of, right? Whereas in Alberta here
you know, we use generally we’re in, you know, we have an RC just hearing within three to four weeks. Um so it it’s obvious just the turnaround time is just a lot, a lot quicker
Calvin Hexter (2:54-3:09): here. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So many different advantages and we’ve just skimmed the service on it. So Garnet, what are the top five? Let’s start with number one. What’s number one mistake that landlords make when it comes to property management?
Garnet Coria (3:09-3:14): Well, Calvin, you’re gonna like this one. Uh number one I’d say is um, when owners are not working with an investor focused realtor. I’d say that’s the first number one problem because you know you’ve th it it’s really important that you’re working with someone that understands uh markets, current market conditions, uh areas within that city in the market that you’re in. Um, you know, you’ve you’ve got a great city map of kind of the A, B, C, D areas of the city. So if you haven’t connected with Calvin and his team about that, definitely reach out to them. They can send you a map kind of of Edmonton. Um, because it’s it’s it’s really well done.
Um and again that the part of the reason why that’s just so important is you want to make sure that you’re um lining up your your goals as an investor, right? I mean there’s what are the four things that you look at? You’re looking at for uh appreciation, um looking for cash flow. Um what were the other ones, the other two that you had
Calvin Hexter (4:03-4:06): done? Tenant tenant profile and vacancy. And so
Yeah, one of the exercises that we do is you put those in order of what’s most important to you to least important, and that will help guide us into locations that will best suit your goals. And I think to your point, I actually would have never guessed the number one that you picked, but it makes actually a lot of sense because think about how hard you have at Garnet is where they come in and they expect that they’re gonna get the same results or this type of results in this location and type of property they purchased. Yeah.
with the strategy they decided and they were never set up f for success in the beginning. I mean how do how do you even accomplish what their expectations are if they didn’t purchase the right in the right location based on their goals, the right type of property to allow them for a certain type of cash flow
And you know, y sometimes you could be held in a really tough position. I mean that just shows how much harder it actually is. It
Garnet Coria (4:59-5:00): it does. We
Calvin Hexter (5:00-5:11): we make your life easier if if we’re purchasing in an area where it’s like, hey, we can expect roughly this amount of cash flow, this amount of vacancy, rental already approved by the property manager prior to you purchasing.
And maybe even more conservative, knowing that the rents might be going through a little bit of a contraction here in in the later half of this year. And then you’re ending up with actually being able to produce the results they expect as opposed to them getting into a property and then just being pissed off at you and thinking that you’re the problem when they never actually set themselves up for success in the first place.
Garnet Coria (5:30-5:52): That’s exactly it. And I mean, um, and not to say, I mean, again, we manage lots of properties in those C and D areas because again, Austin the cash flow is a little bit better in those areas. And I got some investors that they’ll only buy in D areas because they’re just heavy into cash flow. They want to hold these things long term for fifteen, twenty years, so they’re okay with that. But you just gotta understand that, you know
The way to really generate wealth is obviously, you know, there’s there’s cash flow, there’s the mortgage buy down, but then also that appreciation, right? So some of these areas in the D areas, and again, even C areas, C areas sometimes become C plus or maybe a B minus over time. And we’re seeing a lot of that on the west west side of the city with a lot of development, right? Where a lot of guys are are looking at the long-term play with uh with the LRT and everything that’s coming in, and and and on these infels. But again, those are still kind of the C areas, I would say, or C plus. Um
But yeah, these D areas, I mean some of these guys have held them for ten, fifteen years and they’ve whatever they whatever they paid for it, they’re kind of selling for that in, you know, seven or ten years down the road, which is kind of unfortunate. But again, they’re just banking on me. They got higher cash flow and they’re okay with that. Um and then also just the mortgage buy down too, of course, right?
Calvin Hexter (6:38-6:42): Definitely, definitely. Okay, so we got number one. What’s number two?
Garnet Coria (6:43-7:09): So number two, um, so when you’re looking at deals, underwriting them, um, or you know, or at least to put an offering and you’re in the conditional phase, um, making sure you’ve got a good team when it comes to inspectors and trades, I would say. So that will really help you be able to come up and underwrite this deal. And it’ll actually help you could actually actually end up saving you thousands of dollars in negotiations, right? Because your inspector was good, he was really thorough, was able to find things.
with a building, um, make you aware of potential things that you need to budget for in the future. Um, make sure you’ve got money f set aside for those capital expenditures and they so you don’t have any surprise where you buy the building and it’s like, oh, you know, now I’ve got
You know, I’ve got to do the roof on this thing. I wasn’t aware that there was a leak. And you know, this could be a seven hundred or eighty thousand dollar on on the on this roof, right? And you gotta replace it. So yeah, making sure you have those and a good inspector, and then obviously trades too that you rely on, right? Do you have a good plumber or handyman, uh electrician, things they can give you pricing on on some of these issues and do the walkthroughs with you um to really give you an idea so you can um create a budget because again.
Not uh no one wants to wake up and be a slumlord, but that happens because of just poor planning and you know, they just didn’t have things set aside to plan for uh for for these repairs and and maintenance and things like that, right?
Calvin Hexter (8:01-8:16): And so number one and number two definitely fall within the poor planning or poor due diligence that’s administered by the buyer entering into this purchase. And getting into the wrong purchase can be more expensive.
than not getting into it at all. And, you know, you talked about, you know, another common trend is having the right team, not only with the agent or whoever’s gonna be representing you, and ensuring that there’s some level of confidence of what you’re getting into and it does relate back to your goals. But also, again, are you getting, you know, a contractor in there, you know, uh your team members so they’re able to spot some of the larger capital expenditures, maintenance items, so then you have less surprises. What’s number three?
Garnet Coria (8:46-9:01): Number three is of course vacancies. So those those can be expensive. Um and again this also kind of comes back to buying in the right area, right? I mean, again, we’re gonna see a lot less turnover or, you know, more stable tenants, I would say, in those
A and B areas versus again in the C and D A C and D areas, you’re gonna be see a little bit more trans people, or you know, sometimes in these buildings. Unfortunately, the reality is you’re gonna s your good tenants end up often leaving those C or D areas because you know they’ve maybe got better better employment or their relationship status has changed and now they’re making a jump into maybe a better a better area, or you know, they wanna start a family and you know being in that C or you know or D area is just not not what they or they want to be, right? Um
Um being proactive with vacancies. So for us, like our lease renewal notices, we like to get those out usually about sixty days before. So we can have a conversation. You know, if you’re l if your costs have gone up, having an honest conversation with the tenants saying, Hey, you know, you know, proper tax insurance, you’re you know, we just renewed the mortgage, it’s gone out X a month, um, X amount. But, you know, again, just having that open conversation with them, explain to the tenants, here’s the reality of it, you know.
Personally, I like to keep my rents. Have I got good tenants in there? I’m okay with being fifty or seventy-five bucks below market to keep a good tenant in there. So in instead of increasing, you know, doing a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollar rent increase, just tell them, hey, you know, here’s the we’re here’s where the market is, and maybe have a conversation. Send them some comps that you can find and rent faster. Um and say, hey, you know, we’re you’ve been a great tenant, we’d love to keep you, but the reality is this is a business for us. Um we need to increase the rents, and maybe you only do a $75 rent increase or $100, right? Um, and then
Again, most tenants are very appreciative and generally the tenants are aware, like again, if you’re a good landlord, the tenants are willing to take those increases ’cause they know if they have an issue, you’re gonna take care of uh take care of the issue, right? So, um, you know, for them they see some merit in the increase and uh again there’s no guarantee that they go rent from another landlord and they’re as good as as you, right?
Mm-hmm. Yep. So trying to manage manage that. So of course, and then for us as a third party, it’s always a little bit difficult because we are, you know, trying to manage the expectation of the owners to, you know, maximize the rents, but we also don’t wanna push tenants out of properties that are good, reliable tenants and stable. Um so you know, uh some ways that we do that as well is you know, if tenants are looking for like a shorter term, you know, a six month.
Sometimes we charge a little bit of premium for that for owners too. Um, you know, so maybe a six month lease they’ll do at up you know only a fifty or a hundred dollar increase. But hey, you know, maybe we’ll keep it the same for another year if you’re willing to sign a one year um extension with us, right? So we just wanna limit those vacancies because at vacancy turnover you’ve gotta deal with
Um, you know, there might be paint touch ups that need to be done. Maybe blinds that are just old and yellow and brittle from the sun need to be replaced. You notice, you know, kitchen faucets that are leaking or old. Um, there’s just a whole whack of little things that just can add up. So it’s not even just that expensive the turnover, but then you also might end up having a vacancy or two week vacancy between tenancies and something like that, right? So it just it it can compound, right? Where it’s just that end up being a costly turnover for you to improve that property, right? Whereas
The current tenant in there, he might be okay with this squeaky washing machine or the squeaky fan that he didn’t report, but at move out, you do the move out inspection, it’s like, oh, you find all these little things that again, the tenant was okay living with, but you’ve got to fix them and rectify ’em now trying to to re rent that property, right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Calvin Hexter (12:17-12:35): And you know, these are just some of the the great points that Garnet is touching on today and you’re gonna be able to meet Garnet at Recon September sixth and seventh as he’s a proud sponsor of ours and we’re we’re so happy to work with Garnet and we always trust anybody we ever send Garnet ’cause I know that they’re always gonna be
gonna be happy and I think you always have the best intention with everybody you work with, right? You truly care and it and it comes across in your work on a day to day basis. So you’re gonna have the ability to see Garnet on stage, learn from one of the best property managers in the business. Ask any questions you need to help you out. Maybe it’s an introduction and the ability to to get him to even manage some of your properties. But I know that he’s he’s a great resource and it’s all about having the right team and that also starts with property management as well. So
We’re excited to see everybody at Recon. Tickets are selling very, very fast. So we are uh we’re getting close. We’re getting very, very close. Now, this segment is sponsored by Recon. So we’re gonna play a little game called This or That. And Garnet’s gonna go ahead and tell us which has the greatest turnover. And if he doesn’t have an answer, he has to announce something, anyways. It’s only A or B. Garnet, are you ready? What has a greater turnover?
North Edmonton or South Edmonton?
Garnet Coria (13:34-13:35): I would say North Edmonton.
Calvin Hexter (13:36-13:41): Okay. What has a greater turnover of leases west or east?
Garnet Coria (13:42-13:44): Um are we talking northeast?
Calvin Hexter (13:45-13:50): Uh we’re gonna go general central east to central west.
Garnet Coria (13:50-13:53): Um more term I would say would be the west side.
Calvin Hexter (13:54-14:02): Central West. Okay. So central east would be like Capilano, Fulton, all right stuff. Over. Okay. And that would be
Garnet Coria (14:02-14:06): like versus Central Park. Um, you know, West Jasper, things like that.
Calvin Hexter (14:07-14:09): St. Albert or Sherwood Park?
Garnet Coria (14:09-14:23): Ooh. Both are like those I love both those areas. Um there’s there are definitely fewer rentals, I would say, in St. Albert versus Sherwood Park, I think. Um, just based on a portfolio that we manage.
Oh that would I that’s honestly that’s it’s
Calvin Hexter (14:28-14:29): only this or that. There’s no in between.
Garnet Coria (14:29-14:31): Okay, well let’s go with uh Sherwood Park.
Calvin Hexter (14:31-14:37): More turnover. More turnover in Sherwood Park Yeah. Okay. Saint Albert or South Edmonton?
Garnet Coria (14:38-14:40): Uh South Edmonton.
Calvin Hexter (14:40-14:46): Okay. And again that’s where you have the higher turnover. Okay, so Saint Albert’s winning. Saint Albert or Central East?
Garnet Coria (14:47-14:49): I would say Central East.
Calvin Hexter (14:49-14:58): Okay. St. Albert versus we’ll just bundle it all. Versus Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Leduc.
Garnet Coria (15:00-15:08): Uh most turnover? I would probably say in those areas, we’re probably s would say Leduc.
Calvin Hexter (15:08-15:15): Okay. So the reigning champion of where you’ve experienced the lowest turnover is.
St. Albert. No kidding, hey? Interesting.
Garnet Coria (15:18-15:30): And part of the reason too is I find that a lot of the families that grew up and lived in St. Albert, they just they love it there and they just don’t want to leave. So we get a lot of young young professionals or young people that are starting out, they just rent a basement suite. But uh
Yeah, it’s just a lot of the family they’ve grew up there and they just wanna stay there. So again, there aren’t a whole lot of rentals up there. So again, we do see a little bit of a a premium for the rents up there as well. But of course, that comes with, you know, the costs are obviously a little bit higher than if you’re to looking at buying an empty and things like that too.
Calvin Hexter (15:48-16:00): So Of course. So we can’t not continue this segment because once we talk about location, we talk about property types. So we’re gonna go with turnover and so what has the higher turnover? One bedroom or two bedroom apartments?
Uh
Garnet Coria (16:01-16:02): one bedrooms for sure.
Calvin Hexter (16:05-16:06): Two bedrooms or three bedrooms.
Garnet Coria (16:07-16:08): Uh two bedrooms.
Calvin Hexter (16:09-16:15): Two bedrooms will have a hig higher turnover, okay. Um townhouses or apartments will have a higher turnover. Uh
Garnet Coria (16:15-16:16): apartments.
Calvin Hexter (16:17-16:19): Townhouses or half duplexes.
Garnet Coria (16:22-16:22): Uh townhouses.
Calvin Hexter (16:24-16:27): Okay. Half duplexes or single family detached?
Garnet Coria (16:29-16:30): Uh duplexes.
Calvin Hexter (16:31-16:33): Main floor units or basement units?
Garnet Coria (16:34-16:35): Basement units.
Calvin Hexter (16:35-16:39): So main floor units would see the least amount of turnover.
Garnet Coria (16:39-16:42): When you’re comparing to a basement, yeah. For sure.
Calvin Hexter (16:42-16:53): Okay. And so would you say the the reigning ca uh champion would be a single family home that has not been divided would be the reigning champion for the least amount of turnover?
Garnet Coria (16:53-16:54): I would agree with that.
Calvin Hexter (16:54-17:04): And then if somebody purchased that single family detached in St. Albert, would you say that they are set up they could be set up for for some really good success on the lowest turnover?
Garnet Coria (17:04-17:05): I would say so, yes.
Calvin Hexter (17:07-17:09): I feel like you’re on the stand right now. Uh
Garnet Coria (17:10-17:12): that’s so much valuable
Calvin Hexter (17:12-17:12): information.
Garnet Coria (17:12-17:35): It’s just once you’ve got families that are again, love the community that they’re in, kids start to go to school, like they’re there for a long period, right? Like we’ve got lots, you know, and obviously lots, but probably have about ten or fifteen single family houses that are rented in St. Albert. And uh generally I say the average is three to five years and then we start to see that turnover. Versus, you know, a basement suite or main floor suite, it might be, you know.
Between one to three years kind of thing. Whereas yeah, with the single family, there’s more like three to five years, I would say.
Calvin Hexter (17:41-18:01): Completely agree with you. One hundred percent. I have rentals in St. Albert, so I get to experience firsthand. My first rentals were in St. Albert in twenty thirteen. And so I I I got I don’t want to say I got lucky, but I made the right choice early on. I just overspent on my renovations and didn’t do proper burrs early on, which which bit me in the butt. But at least I got their location right based on my goals.
But again, the location doesn’t mean you have to purchase St. Albert, right? There’s D areas that might actually give you better results than than what St. Albert is is is able to give you. Every area is gonna have different pros and cons. Now, Garnet, what’s number four? What’s what’s uh what’s the number four biggest mistake?
Garnet Coria (18:19-18:37): Number four is uh when you’re looking at deal, let’s say there’s existing tenants in place. Um so two things. You’re looking at the types of leases that are gonna be in place, whether it is a fixed term lease or a month and um a periodic tenancy. And the reason for that is if you’re look let’s say you’re you’re buying a multifamily building
and you’re expecting to be able to go in and just push the rents. Um, because maybe at the current rents it just doesn’t make sense. You’re gonna be bleeding cash every month. You really need to understand when the last rent increase was, if they were all on month a month, because we’ve got to wait for three hundred and sixty five days to pass before you issue another rent increase, right? Um
Or if they are month-month, there’s been no rent increase for a while, you can go in there and obviously issue your 90-day rent increase. But at least then you can plan and budget for that. And number two would be during the um conditional period, just making sure that you’ve got your um movement inspections.
uh in place for the existing properties with tenants that are in place. Because if you buy a property and you don’t have a an original move-in, you’re buying that place as is in the condition today. So again, if that place is beat up, damaged, um, at the end of that tenancy, you’re you’re basically gonna be responsible to uh, you know, to bear those costs and you won’t be able to charge back any repairs or cleaning or painting without that original movement inspection.
So making sure you’ve got that. I see that unfortunately, you know, some of these other multifamilies have been managed, you know, self managed by owners in the past and they just aren’t great with paperwork. So, you know, they kinda basically just did a uh took a few photos and handed over the keys and they thought that was an inspection. But you need to have a formal inspection that’s handwritten or sorry, that’s actually documented and both parties are signing off on agreeing to the condition because otherwise
Like I said, you’re basically buying the property and as of today, whatever the condition is, my recommendation if you don’t have a movement inspection, that’s fine. Yeah, again, that might be a negotiation tool for you to kind of, you know
reduce the the price on some of these units if they’re in rough shape. But my m our process would be going in and doing an inspection on possession day um and document all that, have the tenants sign off so it’s up to date. And that way any damage going forward past whatever’s already there, then that’s something that you would be able to deduct or charge for, right?
Calvin Hexter (20:27-20:32): So you’re saying it’s never too late to do an initial walkthrough if it wasn’t done
Initially at the stage that it should have been. Yes,
Garnet Coria (20:36-20:53): that’s right. Yeah. And again, if you are going to be doing that, um, and purchasing their property that that’s fine, like you said, but go in and do that because you what you don’t want is again, it’s already in rough shape and then two or three years down the road, now it’s like, okay, they moved out, didn’t do that inspection two or three years ago and now this place is absolutely trashed and now you’re
Unfortunately, you’re gonna have to flip the bill on that and you can’t charge in the back. And you can’t you can’t hold the damage deposit either, right? That has to go back to the tenant then.
Calvin Hexter (21:00-21:05): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So number four was the rent increases. Number five is
Garnet Coria (21:06-21:14): N number five. Sorry, yeah, number four was kind of the rent increases and understanding that yeah, it was c a combination of just having the movement inspections and understanding the least.
Okay. Yeah.
Calvin Hexter (21:15-21:17): What’s number five? Number
Garnet Coria (21:17-21:34): five is ensuring that the repairs and maintenance are actually done correctly the first time. Cause those can cost you thousands of dollars. When you’re going back trying to uh fix things that were done previously by someone else, or you know, we hired someone that wasn’t uh trained properly, that can cost you a lot of money, right? Um
So yeah, just making sure that, you know, the plumbing work was done correctly. Um, the roof, if it was replaced, making sure that you’ve got that inspected to make sure it was done correctly too, because we see that pretty frequently, where it’s like, Oh yeah, the roof was replaced four or five years ago. But in reality, you know, they basically just re roofed over the old roof and it wasn’t done properly, right? So um things like that, making sure, you know, down spouts are actually connected, eaves aren’t plugged, uh you’re gonna deal with you know water is is gonna be your
biggest enemy when it comes to properties, right? Whether it is plumbing related or rainwater. Um so making sure that that’s dealt with. Um grading around the building, make sure you don’t have negative grading where water’s, you know, running back towards, you know, window wells um and around around the property.
Um and then yeah, j when you’re doing renovations, like making sure you’re using good quality materials. I mean, there are some things that maybe you you can choose to save costs on, but like number one thing that I see people cheap on on and it ends up costing them more money in the long run is flooring. You know, by using cheap flooring vinyl plank, you know, if you can get stuff for
a buck, buck fifty or two bucks you would get it on sale fr from a flooring store, whatever the case may be, but often there’s no warranty on that stuff. The locking mechanisms where they join up start to snap and that just becomes a nightmare to deal with when you got tenants living in a property and now, you know, what do you do? So those those can be big problems. So yeah, just making sure that um repairs and maintenance are done properly the first time, ’cause again, going back and trying to redo them
Um or trying to fix what was done previously can end up costing you more money in the long
Calvin Hexter (23:07-23:17): run for sure. Yep. Can be very expensive. Yep. Yeah. So if you listen back to these five things, you have a higher probability of success and you’re probably
setting yourself up for greater victory than majority of the landlords, right? And you’d like to think that most property management groups handle all five to the integrity and confidence that Garnet is is is stating.
But I can tell you that they’re not. Just because you’re hiring a professional service doesn’t always mean that you’re getting the professional service. And so it’s still important to do your due diligence with whoever you hire, whoever you bring onto your power team. I usually recommend get referrals. Find out who people are using, get their feedback, how has it been, how long you’ve been working with them, what are things you like, what are some things that you’re challenged with.
And then have a call with them and and make sure that you have a good, you know, that you feel confident with their services. And so, Garnet, I love uh I always love our conversations and I you got any fun stories for us? Anything that you’ve experienced recently? Could be fun, it could be scary, could be gross. Give us your best story, your best property management story.
Garnet Coria (24:18-24:19): Okay, um
Let’s see here. I mean we’ve got s I got I I got a few of ’em. Um we took over management of a property where the owner was living out of Providence. Uh he was managing the property for we were probably six months into that lease. And six months in then things started going sideways. I think they were tried subletting the property, the tenants weren’t responsive. So he had a friend or family member go over to check on the property, and sure enough there were
you know, five or six occupants in this house now instead of it just being the couple that was supposed to be there originally. Um so yeah, when we took over, um obviously went and did our inspection and there was um one room down there that was basically kind of blocked off and they it was there was no flooring or anything. It was just a blank
you know, basically had a door, but it was unfinished, still concrete floors. But they were allowing the dogs and the uh to go down there and that was kind of their their bathroom. So they was just poop all over on the f on the floors in there. Um so again, self-managing is not always um the easiest thing to do from afar. Um but again it again this this property specifically was in a D D class area, right? So you’re just
gotta understand they do need a little bit more you need to be a little bit more hands on when you come when it comes to those C and D areas, I would say. Um so trying to to manage p manage a property from uh from out of province in a D area might not be the easiest thing for you to do unless you’ve got, like I said, a good
team that you can rely on or handyman someone that’s willing to do some of those those checks and inspection and things like that, right? Yeah.
Calvin Hexter (25:56-26:10): Speaking of an out-of-province investor purchasing in a D area, we had an investor purchase a property in in one of those communities and they uh they got possession, but they left the property vacant for uh two months.
And the two months were November and December. We gained possession in October. And so naturally what happens is in the colder months people need places to stay and they won’t always ask your permission to stay in your property. And if they know it’s vacant, because they’ll know it’s vacant if they see nobody there. So they had um numerous people break in
and live in the home and it took for the city of Edmonton, I think Edmonton police to call the owner, pull title, call the owner, let them know, like, hey, you you have people living in your house that probably shouldn’t be there. Owner obviously is alarmed, but again they left it empty for two months ’cause they weren’t really sure what they were gonna do. And so the city of Edmonton boarded up their or th I guess the city boarded up their
The home and uh they broke in again, so then they had to board it up further, and then there was another break in, so then they had to put a fence around the property. Apologies. And uh and it got to the point where they stripped everything inside the house that had any type of value. There was a toilet on the second floor.
that was completely full of uh unflushable waste matter and uh it was just an absolute complete mess. And so they purchased this home and the you know it depreciated so fast because they never they never got that team to help them with the next steps. And so it really can be putting yourself in a tough situation and vacant properties in the wintertime or the colder months you definitely want to watch out for all you want to watch out for.
But especially in the colder months ’cause it can be very, very challenging. So vacant properties in cold weather in the winter, in my opinion, there’s only bad things that can happen in the most case, whether it’s furnaces freezing up, whatever it is. So don’t recommend it. If you need to get those vacant properties tenanted, give Garnet a call.
Garnet Coria (27:59-28:04): That’s right. And quick little note, if it’s vacant, make sure you shut the water off.
to those so that if something does freeze it’s doesn’t become like
Calvin Hexter (28:08-28:33): there’s a house in St. Albert, interesting enough, this this couple went away to Florida for two months and in the first two weeks that they were gone the pipes burst because they never um the so it’s very common where you know your exhaust or your intake with your furnace can get clogged and if your intake gets clogged with ice through condensation, very, very common, your furnace will shut down. And then if your furnace shuts down
the temperature in your house cannot get um controlled and so your pipes will start to freeze and if there’s water in those pipes the water will expand and it’ll burst and whatever the water touches will freeze. And this entire house was like an ice castle. And so their house naturally was only worth like the the the cost of the dirt that was on. And it went from probably being worth four hundred and thirty thousand to like two hundred and seventy thousand. And because
They weren’t checking up on the property within 48 hours or 72, depending on what your insurance policy is. I don’t think insurance even covered them. So think about how expensive of a mistake that was. And so I like to share those stories so then you as investors can listen and not make the same mistakes. And we’re gonna talk a lot about, you know, mistakes that investors make and and and so much more at recon. Garner, what are you most excited for about recon for twenty twenty five? Because this is the second year you’ve been a part of Recon. Um
Garnet Coria (29:32-29:57): This one, uh I’m excited to also just be in the room with uh, you know, other like minded investors, but I I think this is just gonna be a different style of event compared to other, you know, real estate vents out there, right? You know, doing the deal tank, um, you know, these these these breakout rooms, you’re gonna have direct access to all these investors that are have their hands in a whole bunch of different things, right? Whether it’s burrs or you’ve got flips, you know, wholesalers, um, you know, it’s it’s it’s it’s gonna be exciting.
Calvin Hexter (29:58-30:17): Absolutely. Our theme is deals this year, so we’re doing a live deal tank, which is essentially the real estate version of Shark Tank. And we’re gonna have deals both from Residential Infill, you know, multifamily creative that are only available in recon. And I was advised we’re gonna have maybe twenty to thirty of those deals. Um
I think all off market actually. So very excited. Garnet, we’re gonna see you guys very soon. AG property services. Give them a shout. Ask them questions or see them at the event. Introduce yourself and get that partnership started. Garnet, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure chatting with you. And we’ll see you very soon, okay?
Garnet Coria (30:34-30:36): See you soon. Thank you.
Calvin Hexter (30:36-30:36): Of course.
Garnet Coria (30:37-30:37): Cheers.
