A Podcast | Peter Tverdov

Pete Neubig: [00:00:04] Welcome back, everybody. I got Peter Tverdov here out of Jersey. So for my members, we actually do have some NARPM members north of DC or Virginia. Guess so. Pete, thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate getting to talk to you. So thanks again for being here.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:00:21] Yeah, Pete, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be on.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:00:24] All right, man, well, I'm excited to talk to you because what got me interested in speaking to you or interviewing you was how you want to focus quality over quantity. And the main way you do this is what you call portfolio grading. So before we get into the hows and whys of portfolio grading, why don't you tell me a little bit why you feel it's important to focus on quality over quantity? This is the age old debate that we have at these conferences, right? How many doors you have versus how profitable or why do you have so many doors? So tell me why you fall on the side of quality over quantity.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:00:58] Yeah. So there's a couple reasons. Um. One for me. We have a huge sign in our office that basically says time is your most valuable currency. And I'm a big, big believer in that. And I pound that into the heads of anyone who works for me. And, you know, with that being said, I want to be as efficient as possible with our portfolio and. You know, also there's like I said, a lot of things go into it. So, you know, I want to keep my staff happy. And, you know, I've had staff one, right?

 

Pete Neubig: [00:01:31] You don't want to have a lot of churn because you're having to deal with crazy situations, owners, you know, residents and so forth. You know, that's a big one, right?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:01:41] And then obviously there's profitability. So I'll go into detail how we break down everything but. The owners that are taking up our time. It's not that we don't want to talk to them, but it it's just we're running a business, right? So it has to be worth our time. So. You know, if there's an owner that's causing a lot of problems, the properties are hard to rent, the tenants are difficult, and we're not making money. Why are we even managing that property? It's not worth it. So, um, we started to do a little bit of that in 2022. And this year in 2023, we did a ton of it. Frankly, we've we've cut probably like 10% of our portfolio. And. It's not upset about it in the least. Like really happy about it. We're still growing, so it's not like we've shrunk, we're still growing, but we're definitely a lot more efficient. Um, having done that and.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:02:36] Efficient means money, right? In most cases, efficiency means dollars in your pocket 100%.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:02:42] Yep.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:02:44] All right. So let's talk a little bit about this. So basically you want to keep your team right. You don't have a lot of team churn. You want to be profitable. And chaos means you don't make any money. So if you bring all these doors and you can't manage them. And so there's and then but you still want to grow. So it's not always quantity over quality over quantity. But there is a you have a specific recipe that you're following for growth now I'm sure like like all of us, you had to grow right before you could start, before you could start trimming the bush, so to speak. So let's talk about what you did, because you just said you churned about 10%. So let's talk a little bit about what you call your you call it portfolio grading. So talk to us a little bit about what made you come up with this. And then let's let's get into details of how you do it. So if somebody else is listening that they can actually take this and have an action item when they after they listen.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:03:34] Yeah. So I'm a big fan of doing it. We do it once a year. And what we do is we sit in the meeting room and both the property managers are really now like, we also have assistants because we're kind of like a hybrid structure. So any property manager who talks to tenants and owners is going to be sitting in on this meeting, and we grade from A to F. And so.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:03:58] All right, so just curious, do you have a like what time of year are you doing? Is it at the end of the year type stuff typically.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:04:05] Yeah. Like we'll do it in November of this year just because December there's so much end of the year stuff. It's like spilling over into other months now. It's crazy. That's actually you.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:04:15] Know that's a great point. So if you're thinking about doing an end of year grading, do it in November, not December, because then you have also people taking vacations in December and you have a lot of end of year stuff. So all right. Awesome. So okay, so November you sit down with your team. Anybody who has interactions with owners and residents, it sounds like.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:04:32] Exactly. And so what we do is, you know, we come up with a list of the properties, you know, all the clients, whoever the property manager is and we have an owner rating, then we have a property rating and then we have a time rating, which I'll talk about in a minute. And each one of those we grade A to F. All right.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:04:51] And no resident rating. Just just owner property and time.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:04:55] Correct? Yeah. No, no, no resident rating right now. Um, although I guess that's something we can look into. Although you got to keep in mind, I'm in New Jersey, very, very tenant friendly state. Not as easy to get rid of as tenants as other states might be. Um, so anyway, we greet him to a like an owner is basically, you know, they love us. They've left us a five star review easy to work with. They just completely trust us. Uh, a b rating very similar. They're easy to work with. The only thing they have not done is just left us a five star review.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:05:31] So A is kind of a raving fan and a B is easy to work with. And they like you. Maybe they've even given you good customer satisfaction surveys, but they just haven't gone public with it or haven't referral.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:05:42] Exactly. Yeah. So our A's and B's just completely trust us. They don't micromanage. They let us do our thing. They just trust us. The biggest thing and. You know, and they're a pleasure to work with sees. It's either the owner's cheap or a pain in the ass. And an F is the owner is cheap and a pain in the ass. Okay, so so we'll grade all the owners. Then we'll grade all the properties.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:06:11] Just curious. You went from C to F, but you left out D and E. Is there any other things that make a difference between D and E versus F? Or you just go a, b, c f we go ABC f.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:06:22] Yeah. No d all.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:06:24] Right. No D's no D's given here. All right. Everybody gets a curve.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:06:27] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:06:29] Now let me ask you this. Now you're asking your team. You know, you're going down through all these different owners and you're asking them are they, you know, an A, B, C or F right now. Is there any way now you can quantify the A's if they've given you an online review. That's easy to see. But how do you quantify a C versus an F? How do you know if somebody is cheap. Do you like do you do you take notes throughout the year like and you notating in your database like this owner would refuse to do X, Y, and Z. Do you have like maintenance? Like how do people make their case? Is it just by feel like, is there any data that that goes into this?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:07:09] Um. Yeah, I'd say it's just by experience because, you know, we'll, we'll we'll have discussions about it because the good thing with us is, like I said, we're a hybrid structure. So we do what I call like a sandwich management. So we basically have a senior property manager and then an assistant property manager. So there's always two people managing managing a portion of the portfolio. Um, so we're going to get input from two people. And then plus like I'll give input based on what I've seen throughout the year.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:07:38] But when you say somebody's name and only half the team groans, it's a C. When you say somebody's name and all the team groans, it's an F. Is that kind of I t's. But no.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:07:50] Honestly though, like the F's like the F's make themselves F's. The F's are the clients who like when they call. You're like, oh my stomach hurts. Yeah, yeah. Like you're like, oh God. Like you're constantly walking on eggshells. Like we don't want or need clients like that. Like we. And when you're a good property manager, you do a great job. You make your clients a lot of money. It's a thankless job. So I like to tell our clients, like, we all need to be, you know? Rowing the boat in the same direction. I can't have you fighting against the current. So that's kind of like.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:08:22] I used to tell my my owner clients when I was onboarding them. When I was doing it personally, I would tell them there can only be one manager, right? So it's going to be me or you, which one do you want it to be? So. But your team, basically they're on the front lines. You don't know who a C or an F is, right? Like you're kind of elevated now. So if you're listening to this and you're the owner of a of a company, you're not managing properties anymore. The team is the one you have to really rely on. And that's that's really in your case. Is that correct?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:08:49] That's very true. So I'll give you a quick story. So we had a client wanted to fire a year ago. And like out of the blue I just like sent them an email. And like in a nutshell, I was like, you're fired. Like we're giving 30 days notice. And they called me up, like. And before they called me up, my property manager was so happy, like I had made his day. He was ecstatic and. You know. Then the client called me up and, like, begged to stay and like, you know, I promise I'll change and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like a typical romance story and then changed for a little bit. And then in 2023, they went back to their old habits. And, um, you know, long story short, we parted ways this year and my one property manager was so darn happy about it. And it made me realize, like, you know, I got to listen to to my staff like they're, you know, they're the boots on the ground, like, I have to. I have to really trust them. So if they're like, Pete, this this property is not a good property or this client's going to be a problem, you have to trust your staff enough to say, okay, you know what? You're right. Like, let's get rid of them now if we can or if not, let's bring on new doors. And as soon as we do get rid of this, this portfolio.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:09:55] All right. So that so that's how you do your, your owners. Right. So you're leaning heavily on experience with the team and then they're grading their owners. Now let's talk. You talked about properties next. So let's talk a little bit about how you grade properties.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:10:09] Yeah. So with with properties um again like like an A or a B property is just it's something like we would want to show in pictures to people like, hey, like this is one of our nicer properties. This is like a gold standard property, you know, that's like what an A and B is. Then a C is just, you know, it's like an average rental. It's it's not good. It's not bad. It's just, you know, it's just average. And then the F is just the ones that are embarrassing to show or now, now at this point we'll get feedback from our leasing agents because we'll know properties that take a long time to, to get filled. And that was my question okay.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:10:45] Yep.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:10:46] You know and then like, we'll know like we can't fill this because the place is a wreck. The place needs to be updated. And, you know, we've done a pretty good job convincing owners to upgrade their units when they become vacant, you know? And some are more willing to do that than others. But after a while we tell the owner, like, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Owner, this has taken us forever to rent. It's not in your best interest to to keep it the way it is because you're not getting maximum rent. If you let us do what we can do, we'll get you max rent. It'll be it'll be a better rental, a safer place. Um, so that's, you know.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:11:22] So it's not it's not just based on like an area like if you have nicer areas, typically you're going to have your A and B's in those nicer areas. But you could have a C because it might be a property that's not upgraded and the owner's unwilling to upgrade it. Is that kind of is that right or. Yeah.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:11:37] Yeah.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:11:38] I mean so there's kind of there's kind of like rules that can tell you if it's an A, B or C, I'm guessing like based on rent amount, I guess would also be an indicator if it's an A, B or C.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:11:49] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So like an A is like top line rent places. Just beautiful beautiful property. Yeah.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:11:56] Gives you different. It gives you different challenges. Right. The resident wants everything done. It's like almost like concierge type stuff. Concierge type type management. The B's are kind of your three bedroom, two bath house in a in a in a good school district. C's are going to be your working class folks. Right. And then tell me what a D is to you. Because I have I have what it is to me.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:12:18] They're just embarrassing. Like I don't I don't want our name on it.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:12:21] We buy ugly houses, guys like.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:12:23] Yeah, well, so the one thing that our management company does, it depends on the town. We put our management sign on the property or like we'll put it in the lawn or in some areas because the area's not great. We'll drill it into the side. It um I don't want if you're leasing.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:12:40] Agent needs a, a flak jacket and a gun. It might be a D, right. We we. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:12:48] I mean, we have some of those like where we where we. And that's kind of why we, we cut. That's a great example because you know we're sitting there talking and we're like wow. We don't feel comfortable with them making up a name here. Sally going to this property at night to show it. Yep. That really is.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:13:06] That right there. What you just said is the thing we used to talk about all the time at Empire. Can one of our female agents go to the property at dark? And if the answer is hell no, we couldn't take it any like we took them to grow the business at one point, you know, but we could no longer take those properties. So I get it now. Okay, so you got your a, B a through I guess is their properties too.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:13:28] Like well yeah. Again like it's the grading scale is like a a b c f f okay.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:13:36] Yep ABC f yeah I'm using D but actually it could be f.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:13:39] Yeah. So like okay. Yeah like C you know C would be like it needs updating but it's livable F is just it's embarrassing. Like it's you know and they still rent sometimes but it's just completely embarrassing.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:13:51] Or so like. So I'm thinking of properties that I used to manage back in the day. Right. It's a it's a bad area. It's unsafe. It's it's you can't the lease the lease is just it's just a piece of paper to, to the potential residents that are going to move in there or you can't lease the property. It's functionally obsolete right here in Houston. We we cannot rent one bedroom condos like they're really difficult to rent. So those would for us those would be the properties for you. They might be A's and B's depending on where they're located. Right. So so those are all the considerations that your folks would take in when they, when they would grade those properties then.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:14:32] Yeah. And the other thing I would add, Pete, is what's nice is we'll get feedback from our vendors who also go to these properties.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:14:39] That is brilliant.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:14:41] Because they'll they'll come in and they'll be like, guys, that place is a disaster. And like they don't always say that. So when they say it we're like, wow, okay. Like we really need to put, you know, more focus and attention on this place.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:14:53] Do you also look at he number of maintenance requests that came in from, from a property to determine what the what the rating would be? No, because I had one property, 52 work orders and 52 weeks that to me.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:15:08] Yeah, we have an ape. We have an A or B property, I would call it an A. The tenant moved in and I think they submitted like 17 work orders in ten days. And I sent them an email like ripping them. I was like, what's wrong with you? Like that's ridiculous. So like I would I wouldn't grade it on that because tenants, you guys know, tenants can be crazy.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:15:26] No, not our tenants. All right. So anything else to add on the on the property side before we get to the time side, which this is the real one, it's that I'm real interested because I didn't do time. So anything else that we need to discuss here. So I got the I got the owners, I got the I got the property.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:15:44] Now let's do time.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:15:45] All right. So so tell me. I'm like, this is I'm like, I'm on the edge of my seat here. So tell me about the time. The time deal.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:15:50] So one of my property managers Andrew, he's he's like my number two guy, kind of like, you know, number two from Austin Powers. Um, so he, he came up with this and it was, it was brilliant because he was like, you know, we were grading in the beginning. He's like, Pete, you're not talking about time value. It's like she was like, shoot, you're right. So again, we do it A, B, C and F. Basically the way we graded it is if we grade the time rating of this property as an A, that means we forget we even manage it. Okay. 

 

Pete Neubig: [00:16:23] Okay.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:16:25] A b means like it needs our attention periodically. You know, sometimes a work order comes in every now and then. Uh, c we're constantly talking to the owner. About repairs. And we're we're constantly having to make phone calls with the owner on repairs. And then and then F is the property has now become a noticeable amount of our time. We've spent a lot like we noticed, like how much time we spend on these properties. And I have a couple in our head that like immediately like come to the, you know, come to mind. So. That's how. That's how.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:17:04] When you look at this. So there's no like punch and clock punch out. So when I, when I sold my, my business to mind, they were trying to figure out, um, the how to actually, you know, get the amount of time it took for every property. And they're like, like punching in, punching out. And it's almost impossible to do. So your, your team again, you have to lean on your team here I'm guessing. Obviously you can run a work order report which is going to be very helpful on this, right? Um, now are there any anything else that that you can tell like that takes up time, right. So we know work orders maybe properties turning to often there's an eviction going on. What else. What else is taking time that your people like. Oh my goodness this takes time all the time.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:17:51] I mean, the big thing is the condition of the property. That's why we go back to the property rating. Like the properties that are rated, you know, F or C, the time is also usually rated F or C.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:18:01] Got it.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:18:01] You're not going to have.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:18:02] Owner might be an.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:18:03] A but the but the time property okay.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:18:06] Yeah. You're not going to have a crummy property not have problems right.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:18:11] Okay. So I got to ask you this a little bit off base, but do you guys have a ticketing system other than work orders and you create a work order for maintenance? Do you guys have a ticketing system for, like, lease renewals and things of that nature? Um, like we used to use HubSpot. There's there's other there's other softwares out there, um, that that at least tells you how many tickets came in, not just maintenance, but for the whole property, anything like that.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:18:38] Oh, I see, that's interesting. Now, we don't have anything like that. I mean, we have, you know, processes and procedures in place, but no ticketing system.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:18:44] Okay. Yeah. I think like Zendesk is, is one of one of the ones that people use. And I'm sure people listening right now to like this and they're yelling at me at the radio right now telling me what other softwares are out there. Um, I'm a big fan, and I think one day I'm gonna actually do a whole, a whole podcast on on ticketing versus like everything in your in your email box. All right. So. Because the ticketing would literally help with all of this, right? Because you can see all the tickets for all the different properties or the owners or whatever. All right. So now you have your, your, your owner, your time and your property. Now tell me, obviously if I have F's across the board, that person's gone, I'm guessing.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:19:27] Yeah. So what we've done is when we get something like that and I realize, like, we got to pull the plug, we'll email them and say, hey, listen, whatever I come up with, you got two options. Number one, you could make all these repairs that we've been recommending that you don't want to do, or you could sell the property and we could help you sell it. You know, am am also a broker, and I sell a lot of investment property. Um, but we cannot continue to manage it. It just does not fit with our, you know, with what we're looking to do in the future. I don't like to say like, yeah, your property's a piece of crap. I hate you like, that's, you know, that's dumb. But, um, I.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:20:03] Mean, you're a jersey, so you could probably get away with that.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:20:08] Yeah. Uh. We're definitely very direct up here. I will say that.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:20:13] All right. So. So if there's across the board like that. So you're trying to get the sale, like, hey, let us find you something better. It's not you. It's your property. It's it's not you, Mr. only even though you were an F2. But it's your properties, right?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:20:26] So going to give you a great a great story of this. So two years ago we had this is I think 2021 is the first year we did it across the board. I emailed the owner like, all right, let's sell it. They would not listen to me to upgrade their property. So we we listed for like half $1 million. It sells for 488. I wound up selling it and representing the buyer. So I got both sides of the transaction. As a broker.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:20:47] That's a win.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:20:48] For the buyer. Client listened to every single thing I told him to do with the property. Okay, a year later he spent, I think maybe 20, maybe 25,000, I doubt it. I think he spent $20,000. Right. So do the math. 4080 plus. 20 year later, it appraises for 600 and the rent increased like 1200 a month.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:21:07] Wow. So you basically took a property across the board and you turned it into basically an A and maybe a B, a a a owner, B property and a and a a in time.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:21:20] Yes. And so that's when I realized, like, those are the clients I want because they listened to me. And then they, they see like oh crap. Like Javadov is right. Like they. Everything they told us that was going to happen happens. Those are the people I want to work with. I don't want to be fighting with them. Or worse yet, with these owners, they basically treat you like a puppet, so they micromanage. And like we've had we had an owner earlier this year ask us to negotiate with the state inspector about like what repairs needed to be made. I said, dude, there's no negotiation.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:21:52] Like with the state inspector. Yes.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:21:55] I was like, no, no, no. You smile and nod. And when he told me that we met as a team, I was like, we got to get rid of this guy. And he's he's.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:22:02] He's a he's a he's a lawsuit waiting to happen. So, Peter, do you prescribe to there are no bad properties, only bad owners.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:22:12] No.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:22:14] Okay. Tell me, tell me what first came in your mind when I said that?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:22:18] What first came into my mind is one of my clients who. I'm selling his whole portfolio. He's an.Um. Is begging me to sell a property right now. Begging me. And I won't take the listing. It's boarded up and right next door. They're dealing drugs. I don't know how the heck that property is going to sell. So I could buy that property. And I go above and beyond with my personal properties. That's the way it's going to be in hell.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:22:43] Yeah. I'm so Liz Claman, who's incoming Northam president. I think she's Northam president this year I forget sorry Liz, but she she said to me, she goes, she goes, there's no bad property. It's only bad owners. And I said, man, you've never been in the fifth Ward in Houston, Texas, because I can promise you there's some bad properties there that wouldn't take best owners in the world. I'm like, listen, if I got to go in there at my AK and my nine mil strapped and, you know, and have some cover, I'm like, that's a, that's a property I'm not going to take. So just laughing. All right. So now what happens if you have. To 12% of your company is across the board, or a couple of C's and a couple of F's. And and like, the team really wants to get rid of a big amount of your, your portfolio. Do you cap it?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:23:37] I. So I think that's that's tough. It's easier said than done. Um. You know, there's obviously different theories on this. I think what you have to do, number one, is you have to tell your your sales team, your if you have one or if you're the OEM, you have to raise your standards and say, hey, we're not taking garbage in. And what we do is like, we'll get. We'll get like some F's or C's, and we tell the owner like we're not managing it like this, and we also have a construction arm. Or we'll say, hey, listen, we could we could do whatever you want with this property. We could do new construction, for crying out loud. But like, we could gut it. We could do kitchens, bathrooms, whatever. But we can't take it like this. And we've gotten some clients where they're like, okay, can you paint it? Can you do kitchens? You know, no problem. So I think it starts there. It's like what type of property you're bringing in because you never you don't know what type of owner you're bringing in. They'll, you know, be sweet to you and yeah, no problem. And then you don't you don't know what you're doing. Yeah.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:24:33] Think there's some I think there are some red flags. Of course they're, they're, they're just something that you have to really have a sharp ear or eye for when you're bringing in an owner. Right. Again, the guy who doesn't want to change locks and it's the law, right. Like that might be that might be a red flag. The guy who one doesn't want to put utilities in his name, even though he just bought the property and he's forcing you to do it. The guy who wants three, $3,000 in rent, even though the CMAs are 2300. So I think there's I think there's some telltale signs. How do you deal with that? Because you're obviously, you know, or you or the of the owner of the company wants to bring in more properties, or do bdrm gets paid on bringing in more properties? Um, how do you, um, how do you kind of soften that blow between sales and operations? Right. Because you don't want to deal with all bad properties and but you also need a couple of wins for your for your sales team. Do you have specific like do you have specific like guidelines on what type of property you'll take?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:25:38] Yeah, I mean, it's through training with our like, they've gotten a lot better with with knowing like what kind of property you know, we want to bring on. Um, you know, because it's, it's a reflection on them too, if like, they bring out a property and three months later we're wanting to cut it. Um, you know, so if they're unsure, sometimes, you know, they'll they'll reach out to me. But you.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:25:56] Pull the commission if you cut it within three months. Come on. Are you from Jersey? Of course you do.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:26:04] Yeah. Take him out.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:26:05] Back and you say, hey, hey, hey. Bada bada bing. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take your commission back.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:26:12] Oh my God. Yeah.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:26:14] I mean, we haven't really had anything happen like that yet, thank God. Um, but, yeah, it's a fine line to, you know, to walk for sure.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:26:24] Yeah. So your sales people then, are they in these meetings? Do you, do you bring the sales people and the bdms in the meetings at the end of the year, too? So they get an understanding of what? Of what a bad property looks like and a bad owner or, or now you're going to start doing because I just brought it to your attention.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:26:40] We do now.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:26:44] Yeah. I'm with you, man. Um, when I was growing my business, I would take, you know, my my business partner was in sales. I was the operations guy. He's like six four, 240. Like, I wasn't going to wrestle him. So, like, you know, like I had to, like, acquiesce sometimes, or I was going to, you know, I was going to do maybe a running race like, hey, well, let's race for this one. We'll arm wrestle for the last one. And he wins that one all the time. We'll do a 50 meter race and I'll typically win that one. But it became a challenge. It became a big problem for us because sales just wanted to get the yes. And they would just bring over properties like my team just did not want to manage. And we actually had to create like, here's the list of properties that are yeses, that are no's and everything is gray. Then the sales manager and the operation manager, which ended up being the two owners. Until we actually got managers in place, we would have to like, you know, determine why we would take it or not take it. And it was it was always a challenge, especially on those ones that are gray, you know. Yeah.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:27:46] Yeah for sure.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:27:48] All right. Man. So, um. You cut 10% of your portfolio one year. Is that correct? Yep. If somebody listening to this and they do this, what are your recommendations? Is ten too much? Did you were you able to handle it at your level? You have about 300 and something doors at the time. So you cut 30 properties basically around that time.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:28:11] Yeah. But yeah yeah for sure. Well so the other thing I didn't get to touch on is we also break down the revenue per unit. Uh. And we. So we also manage student rentals and that kind of skews our revenue per unit. So we broke down what's our revenue per unit with student rentals. And what is it with non student rentals. And then we had those two averages. And then I was looking for like all the properties that are under those averages. Okay well how can we bring them up. And then it was oh yeah that lady doesn't like to fix anything. Yeah. That guy always claims he doesn't have money. So you know, I was like, these are these are pigs. So just for sake of argument, I can manage ten doors and make $100 per door.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:29:02] Which sucks right? Or you can manage making up a number two doors for $500 per door. Right. So what I what I realized is, like, if we could target different owners where we're making the same exact amount of money for, for less door count, less oversight, that's that's huge. That's a huge win for for operations, for everything. Now we're more efficient. We're more profitable. So that's another way we kind of, you know, peeled everything back. So that's why I'm I'm all about being as efficient as I can with our portfolio. Because like you're right in the industry, that's just how people like you don't go up to someone's like, hey, what's your revenue per unit? You say, hey, what's your door count? So I'm not impressed when people like, oh, I have a thousand doors. I spoke with somebody the other day. They were like, they like, yeah, I got this hundred and 50 door portfolio making $6,500 a month. I was like, doing the math. I was like, that's terrible. I'll never do that.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:29:51] Right? Right. Yeah. You know, it's funny when people say, you know, well, what's your door count? They obviously they're trying to, like, see how big you are. What, what the only reason why I look at door count is to know what are your operations look like? Right, because my operations at 300 units looked a lot different than when I was at a hundred units, and it looked a lot different. I was at a thousand units. Right. So if I'm asking you what your door count is, I'm, I'm. The revenue profitability that's not really actually connected to your actual door count, because you can have a lot of doors and make less money. Matter of fact, I actually did that. I had more doors and made less money. When I when I had less doors, I was actually more profitable. Right? So I was actually one of those guys that, that, that actually did that. But from a, from a operational point of view, it's really fascinating to see what people are doing at specific sizes, what the org structure looks like, what the automation looks like, what you know, what they're paying people and all that good stuff. Yep. So I love it man. Well listen, I appreciate it. We are going to hit a break here and then we're going to come back for the lightning round. Peter are you ready for the lightning round.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:30:59] I'm ready.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:30:59] All right, man, let's, uh let's take a quick break. I could literally talk to you all day about this stuff, but we're we're up against it. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:31:09] The lightning round. Here we go. All right everybody, welcome back. We got Peter and Jose in the in the hot seat for the lightning round. All right man. You ready?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:31:21] I'm ready.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:31:22] All right. What software do you use?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:31:24] Appfolio.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:31:25] What is your current org structure?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:31:28] Hybrid.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:31:30] Do you use virtual assistants? Yes. Do you have Bdms?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:31:35] Yes.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:31:36] What is one piece of advice you would give someone just starting out in the business?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:31:42] Ooh. Um. You got to work your ass off to grow. Period.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:31:51] Grow. Okay. You're from Jersey, so you better get this one right. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:31:57] Pete, I am so sorry to disappoint you. But my wife and I ordered it every Friday for about 18 months, so I'm going to have to say yes.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:32:06] Oh my God. Oh here's. My. It just hurts my soul. What was your first job?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:32:13] Uh, so before I did this, I worked in investment banking and Wall Street for, like, 11 years. First job, I guess, was with my dad. He used to be a landscape contractor when I was a kid.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:32:23] Oh, wow. That's cool. Well, probably not for you with your dad. What is something most people don't know about you other than you being an investment banker?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:32:33] Uh.The last three years, I have seriously learned a lot of Spanish from watching telenovelas on Netflix with my wife. True story.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:32:45] Really?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:32:46] Yep.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:32:47] You know, it's funny. I actually want to learn more Spanish. So that's the. Is that it? That's the deal.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:32:52] Well, first of all, the shows are so much better than American TV. I really don't watch American TV anymore. And just you put on the subtitles, you will learn a metric ton of Spanish, I promise.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:33:02] All right man, I'm in. I'm all in on that. Okay. Let's see. What book are you currently reading or what is one that's impacted your business or life?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:33:10] Uh, the book that's most recently impacted my business is the Pumpkin Plan. I forget the author, but it basically relates to the topic we're discussing today in a nutshell. He researched how people grow these Guinness Book World Record pumpkins, and it's kind of what we're talking about with killing your, you know, cutting the weeds and feeding like the good owners and the people who want to grow and do things the right way. Excellent book for business. And then the one I'm reading right now is called Glow Kids, which for any parent, I suggest you read it. It's basically about how bad smartphones and tablets are melting the minds of young kids. It's a very interesting book.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:33:49] Gary. What is one challenge you're currently facing in your business?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:33:59] Growth. Yeah, we want to grow and we want to do it the right way. So it's been hard to it's not been hard to bring in new doors. It's been hard to bring in the right doors to make sure we're not turning around and dumping them in six months.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:34:11] Yeah. What do you prefer, dogs or cats?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:34:14] Uh.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:34:16] And if you're eating pineapple on your pizza, you're probably a cat guy.

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:34:19] Yeah, yeah. Cats.

 

Pete Neubig: [00:34:23] Oh, man. Thanks so much for being here, Pete. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

 

Peter Tverdov: [00:34:28] Uh, very active on Instagram. Pete does real estate. I post on there like, a couple times a week. That's the best way to hit me up. Um, more than happy to chat with people.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:40] All right. And if you are, if you're listening to this and you're not part of I don't understand why you're not a member yet. So please go to Na Na. Org or give them a call at (800) 782-3452. And if you are being if you're stressed in your business, you need to grow. You're doing too. You have too many hats and your your payroll is too high. You might need a VA. Give us a shot. Solutions.com. We are the only online platform that is free and is dedicated to the property management industry. All right everybody, have a great, great day and we'll see you next time.