How to Scale Commercial Real Estate

Today’s guest is Anton Ivanov.

Anton Ivanov is a US Navy veteran, real estate investor, entrepreneur, and founder of RentCast.io and DealCheck.io.

Show summary:

In this podcast episode, Anton Ivanov, a seasoned real estate investor, shares his expertise on optimizing real estate operations. He advises on the importance of delegation, professional property management, and maintaining a CEO mindset. Anton recounts his journey from house hacking to managing a diverse portfolio, emphasizing starting small and learning progressively. He highlights the need for efficient turnover processes, tenant retention, and aligning rental rates with market trends using tools like RentCasio. Anton's strategies have notably increased revenue without new acquisitions, showcasing the value of operational efficiency and cost management for sustainable growth.

Links:

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/21693881

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Delegating and Focusing on Improvement (00:00:00)

Introduction and Background (00:00:26)

Starting and Growing Real Estate Portfolio (00:01:18)

Focusing on Improving Operations (00:02:48)

Transitioning to CEO Role (00:03:35)

Professional Property Management (00:04:50)

Minimizing Vacancy and Tenant Retention (00:09:14)

Implementing Systems with Property Managers (00:13:45)

Lease Renewal and Rent Adjustment (00:18:14)

Vacancy Minimization (00:20:36)

Lease Renewal Strategy (00:22:13)

Action Items for Revenue Growth (00:25:13)

Expense Reduction (00:27:27)

Contact Information (00:28:56)

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Connect with Anton:

Email: [email protected]

RentCast

Facebook: https://facebook.com/RentCastApp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RentCastApp

Web: https://rentcast.io

DealCheck

Facebook: https://facebook.com/DealCheckApp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dealcheckapp

Web: https://dealcheck.io

Connect with Sam:

I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/

Email me → [email protected]

SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f

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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:

Anton Ivanov (00:00:00) - You know, ultimately you are in charge. It is your business, it is your assets. But you need to be able to delegate and kind of step back and focus more on areas that need improvement, as opposed to just doing everything yourself.

Sam Wilson (00:00:13) - Welcome to the how to Scale Commercial Real Estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.

Sam Wilson (00:00:26) - Anton Ivanov is a US Navy veteran, a real estate investor, entrepreneur and founder of rent, Cascio and Diehl Checchio Anton, welcome back on the show.

Anton Ivanov (00:00:36) - Thanks for having me, Sam. Great to be here as always.

Sam Wilson (00:00:40) - Absolutely. The pleasure's mine. Anton. It, uh. I didn't look it up here ahead of time, I can't remember. It's been a couple of years since the last time you were on the show, so it's great. Great to have you come back on. I don't remember the episode number. So here, maybe we'll include that there in the show notes, in case you want to go back and kind of hear Anton's, uh, first podcast with us, where he breaks down a lot of the ways he built this business and some really other cool, uh, things that he's done there in his real estate investing career, which we're not going to really get into too much today.

Sam Wilson (00:01:07) - However, Anton, for every guest who comes on the show, even returning guests, there are still three questions I asked them in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?

Anton Ivanov (00:01:18) - Absolutely. So we started investing, uh, me and my wife about, uh, it's been about ten years now going on that, uh, we actually started very small. We started with house hacking. Uh, you know, we bought a one duplex that we lived in. One of the units rented out the other. We moved on to some out of state turnkey investing in single family properties. And then most recently, we were buying commercial multifamily in, um, commercial and like, fourplex residential multifamily in Kansas City, Missouri. So we've had kind of a very, uh, more slower growth, I like to say it, but it was more manageable. Uh, it helped us make, you know, some smaller mistakes, learn from them, and then move on to bigger deals over the years.

Anton Ivanov (00:01:59) - And we've covered a lot of this with you, Sam, on the last podcast. So, um, again, I'm a big proponent of kind of not jumping into necessarily the biggest deals, uh, if, if, you know, if, if you prefer starting smaller and learn from that. Um, and yeah, we've been super happy with that, uh, lately and kind of what I wanted to focus on this show. We've, we've spent a lot of time on focusing on improving our operations, um, and kind of increasing the cash flow. The existing units we have, we have, uh, 42 units right now spread out across, uh, three places, Atlanta, uh, San Diego, and then the bulk of our portfolio and, uh, Kansas City, Missouri. Um, and yeah, just the market recently has been a little bit tougher. You know, obviously we have still prices are pretty up there. They haven't, uh, softened up, as I would expect them by now.

Anton Ivanov (00:02:48) - And then the rates are high. It's just kind of a tougher environment, in my opinion, for acquiring new rentals. So I think it's a great time to focus on operations, because I think it's oftentimes neglected by some investors that just kind of focus on more and more deals, more and more units in their portfolio. Uh, but I think you can get a great ROI in your time and kind of effort by just focusing on what you already have.

Sam Wilson (00:03:12) - Man, there's a lot to be said for that, and I look forward to jumping in to getting kind of the nitty, your nitty and gritty details on how you guys have done this. I guess before we get into that, though, 42 units spread completely across the country. I mean, yeah, Kansas City, San Diego, and if you're if you are managing operations, it sounds like you're, you're self managing these properties.

Anton Ivanov (00:03:35) - Um, so no. And actually that that takes me straight into our first point is, uh, you know, I look at, you know, when you first starting investing in real estate, you're kind of more I would say, uh, you know, boots on the ground.

Anton Ivanov (00:03:48) - You're more involved, especially with acquisition and management. I think it's important as you transition to larger volumes of units, you know, ten, 20, you know, 40 like US units, especially if they're spread out across the country. Um, I think at that point, you kind of stop being maybe like the workhorse of your business, of your real estate, uh, you know, venture empire, if you would, and you kind of start to become the CEO, right? Where you're, you know, ultimately you are in charge. It is your business. It is your assets. Uh, but you need to be able to delegate and kind of step back and focus more on areas that need improvement, uh, as opposed to just doing everything yourself. So one of my, you know, first tips for kind of improving operations at scale, uh, again, is not necessarily doing it yourself, but finding professional property managers. So we've used professional management for all of our units. Funny thing is, when we bought that duplex that we house hack, that was our first property that we bought, we used the property manager for the upstairs unit, even though we lived in the building.

Anton Ivanov (00:04:50) - And it sounds kind of stupid, maybe silly, you know, like, hey, why don't you just manage your your right there. It's the unit above. But I had this vision of kind of growing our portfolio to 40, 50 units, and I wanted to start getting experience with working with property managers, kind of seeing how that plays out, which prepared us to, uh, later buy out of state properties that I was not going to manage myself. So I think it's important, you know, I I've met folks who self-manage, especially if they're local. The buildings that they own are local. It can work. But I just think it turns into a full time job very quickly, especially if you have a lot of units. I think you can free up your time. Uh, and if you find a good manager, you know, and kind of work with them. Right. It's it's also another thing I would say about property managers. Uh, it's it's not really a give it to them and forget.

Anton Ivanov (00:05:40) - Kind of arrangement, which I think some people expect. Um, and, you know, in an ideal world, maybe it would be. But everybody is different. You're you're different from, you know, Sam from, uh, from me the way you want your units managed. And, yes, a property manager has their own, like, procedures and steps, and they like to do things a certain way. That doesn't mean that you can't go to them and say, hey, look, I know you guys like to do it this way, but here's how kind of I would like to tweak the process. Like, again, you're basically the CEO. You know, they're working for you. You're paying them. Um, and I think as the CEO, you have the full right. And kind of not to micromanage them essentially, nobody likes that. You know, they don't want you to be there just making every little, you know, second guessing their decision and stuff like that. But know if you feel like things are not going the right direction, step in there.

Anton Ivanov (00:06:28) - You know, do a monthly phone call. This is what we do with our property managers, even if things are going smoothly, just to check in and see how things are going, any big issues, anything we should be concerned about? Look at trends and let them do the work. Uh, especially if you own out of state properties.

Sam Wilson (00:06:43) - That's really great advice, and I bet most people don't do that who are out of state owners is having that monthly check in. Yeah. How do I mean and I also wonder if, you know, how did you convince and or get on the calendar of your property manager saying, hey, I want this monthly check in because I bet some property managers out there that would be like, hey, Anton, it's great knowing you, buddy, but I really don't want to spend 20 minutes with you once a month talking about your properties and go away. So, uh, how did that conversation.

Anton Ivanov (00:07:16) - Yeah, well, two things. So I think as you, uh, you know, as you scale your portfolio, the more units you own in a certain area, the more units you have each property manager manage.

Anton Ivanov (00:07:25) - Uh, you kind of become a more valued client. Right? So if, if you, if they're just managing one house for you, you're absolutely right. They may just not be inclined to spend as much time with you because you're like one out of 500 or something units. But as your units grow, you have, you know, a dozen 20, 40 plus units. Uh, it becomes much more easier, at least in my experience, to get on their calendar, uh, have them be a little more responsive. Um, and I would take advantage of that. You know, I would. You are a more valued client. They should spend more time with you. Um, so that's kind of one thing. I think it's natural for that to just happen as you grow your portfolio. The second one does come down to property managers and not being able to basically, you know, fire one if it doesn't work out. I had to do this in some of our markets, you know, some property.

Anton Ivanov (00:08:13) - There's so many property management companies and some are like you said, they're just like they don't really want to like stir the boat. They just kind of want to collect their cut from from the rent every month. They don't want to talk to you, you know, like they don't want to talk to the tenants. Um, and in my opinion, those are usually not the best property managers. Like, I don't think, again, a property manager should be like, always, you know, shaking things up, but they should be responsive. Communication is like one of the keys that I always looked at in property managers. If your property manager is not responding to your emails, phone calls, whatever, I bet they're not doing that with the tenants. Also, like there's probably some some like communication issues with the tenants and that's what you don't want. Because to me, like how they talk to me is, you know, kind of relates to how they talk to the tenants. And I want a property manager that will talk to the tenants, be responsive, like stay up to date, because that's how you increase tenant satisfaction and retention, which actually takes me to our next point, uh, very, very nicely.

Anton Ivanov (00:09:14) - How do you improve operations and kind of efficiency of your portfolio is minimizing vacancy when you have a portfolio at scale, a large multifamily commercial portfolio? What I've found and I've talked to a bunch of investors is vacancy becomes your biggest expense. It's not your taxes, it's not your insurance. It's not your it's it's actually vacancy. If if you have 40 units and ten of them are vacant, you know, that's like a 25% reduction in your income, it becomes huge. So focusing on minimizing vacancies. And there's many different aspects to this right. This it's both basically you know when you do have vacant units, uh, you need to get efficient at filling them. And this comes down to having a very good unit term process. You know, you're not like messing around, finding a contractor doing scopes of work. Like we've got it down to a science where basically we have a portfolio like our bulk of our portfolios in Kansas City. We have a standard list. Like I'm like, hey, here's basically a punch list, right? Here's here's what you go through.

Anton Ivanov (00:10:15) - Uh, they we have a standard set of contractors where they agreed on budget and materials. Like, we like to standardize, we paint like, you name it, like it's it's such a well honed process. And again, that's something that's easier to do at scale. You know, if you own a single family here or single family, there is kind of a little more individual work. Like what does this house need when you have commercial units, you know, larger special talk to folks that have 100 plus years. When it's right there. Like I can't be going and doing a personal inspection, or every manager is going to do an inspection, like have a standard set for how you turn a unit. So when a unit does become vacant, they give you the keys. It's like, boom, we done the inspection, boom, we've scheduled the work. We had contractors lined up, you know, a week too. It's it's done. The work is done. We can release it. We already know what we're leasing it for.

Anton Ivanov (00:11:04) - Uh, we already have a kind of a marketing plan. We know where to pose these properties. And, you know, with the unit is vacant for a weeks, you know, 2 or 3 weeks, like max, where as a as opposed to sitting there on the market because, again, every month you're not collecting rent, you're losing a ton of money. Uh, and it's kind of like a hidden expense, right? It's not like on your operating expenses, on your CapEx or anything. It's it's it doesn't show up there. But but when you're not collecting rent, that is an expense. So huge, very huge minimizing vacancies. The other thing I will say, kind of where we started with the whole vacancy, is the whole tenant. I call it like tenant retention. Right. Uh, general concept, but it basically involves keeping tenants happy. It's it's a multifaceted thing. It's it's hard to like, point it like, hey, do this and your tenants will be happy.

Anton Ivanov (00:11:53) - But having a good property manager like we started talking can go a long way. You know, tenants, in my experience, most of them like they're not like super picky. Like you'll get 110 and out there, that's just kind of a pain in the butt. Uh, excuse my language, but but most people, you know, if if they have an issue, uh, they understand, like, things break, right? You know, dishwashers break, whatever garbage disposals break. They just want good communication. And we've heard that time and time again from our tenants. Like, they love the fact that. So we have like, programs where they can text, they can use a website to submit maintenance requests, like it's easy to get Ahold of our managers, our maintenance departments. And I think that alone can go a long way to like, keeping tenants happy and keeping them in your units as opposed to like you know, always moving out because they just, you know, they ask for something to get fixed.

Anton Ivanov (00:12:44) - And it's been weeks before somebody even called them back. Like, that's not the experience you want. So, uh, just work with your property manager, establish some programs that can be very simple, like you don't have to send them gift cards or like, you know, I've heard, like some landlords do, like crazy stuff like that, you know, they'll, uh, send them a birthday gift, send them a Christmas gift if you have the capacity and kind of to do that, like. Yeah, I think it'll be great, you know, at least a little postcard or something like that. But even just the basics, you know, be responsive if they have issues, you know, work with them on the issues. Just be reasonable with the tenants. Uh, keep them happy. Put yourself in their shoes. I think that can go a huge way to to reduce your vacancies.

Sam Wilson (00:13:24) - You've brought up a lot of things that I would feel are more on the property manager. Things to do, such as? Right.

Sam Wilson (00:13:32) - Having text message, you know, hey, I can text and say, yeah, something broke or this or that. How are you incorporated? Or how are you having these discussions with your property managers and saying, hey, these are systems we want to implement.

Anton Ivanov (00:13:45) - Yeah. So that that yeah, you're absolutely right. So I'm not doing these myself. I'm not out there like with my phone number giving giving it to the tenants. No, this is exactly like the first thing I think, you know, having a good, good, good property manager, having a good relationship with your property manager and then finding one that is willing kind of to work with you if they don't have these systems to implement them. That's like one of the keys. And that's why I started with that as my number one point, a property manager at a scale like with a with a larger portfolio can make or break, you know, your basically success, your long term cashflow. So again, it's you know, it's more like an art form.

Anton Ivanov (00:14:24) - I can't tell you like, hey, you know, go on Yelp or something like that. Look for these keywords. Find a property manager like it's it's it's been like a bit hit or miss for us. You know, we've we have started with some companies that were doing okay. Then we got to a certain point with kind of our larger volume that we found. Hey, you know what? This is just not working. I would say the best thing that helped us was a I only ask I only find property managers now through referrals. Uh, we haven't entered a new market in a while, but I would never, like, go on Google or Yelp or whatever and just grab a random company. I just think that's, you know, your the chances of you finding a really good one are pretty low. Um, I would definitely. If you're in a new market, you've never invested there before, I would try to network and connect with other investors, property groups, like whatever, find a little circle, you know, little local meetups, and then ask who they use for property managers, find out how big their portfolio is.

Anton Ivanov (00:15:18) - Uh, so it kind of matches what you're doing, because, again, a property manager who, like, specializes in single family is going to be different than somebody who manages like 100 plus unit, you know, apartment complexes. Like you need to find a manager that like, fits what you're trying to do. Um, and then again, it's just about establishing a relationship, you know, when you come into it. I would ask him questions. Like, hey, uh, you know, how open are you guys to doing a phone call with me every month? Like, it's it's a question that you can easily ask during, like, your initial vetting process with the property manager. Uh, you know, all these questions like, hey, how do you guys handle maintenance? Like, is it a website? It's just a forum. Like, do they have to call? Uh, so I actually have, I think like a property manager checklist or interview, uh, questionnaire. Maybe we can throw that in the show notes that like covers a lot of these bases.

Anton Ivanov (00:16:06) - And it will just should give you a better understanding of how they do things. Because, yeah, you want to find a company that already has a lot of this stuff in place. And really good property managers, they do like they're not going to be, you know, like set and forget. They they will have these programs because it's in their best interest to like the like most property managers don't collect money when the units are vacant. They want to keep the tenants, you know, to keep them happy, keep the owners happy. So a good property manager company is probably going to have a lot of this stuff already. It's just again, a matter of finding one, which is not easy, but it is possible, right?

Sam Wilson (00:16:39) - No, I love it. That's, uh, that's very, very helpful finding a property manager that you think you said it. But just to recap, but find the property manager that that matches the property type you're looking for them. Exactly. And has experience in that because there's like like you said, there's it's a wildly different skill set for a 100 or 200 unit apartment complex than it is perfect.

Sam Wilson (00:16:58) - Yes, 100 single family homes spread around the city. So that's, uh, that's really, really helpful. Can I go back to. Yeah. The vacancy. Yeah. First thing that you hit on as a way to, you know, improve operations. And of course, you know, I also like what you said there when you said that, hey, you know, you're you're if you're not collecting rent, it doesn't show up as an expense other than your top line revenue number is smaller, but there's not exactly there's not like a line item says, hey, you didn't collect rent and here's how much money you lost. Yeah. Which would be kind of helpful, I would think.

Anton Ivanov (00:17:30) - Yeah. Well, we tend to put it up higher like before the operating expenses. Right on the like the NOI worksheet. So.

Sam Wilson (00:17:37) - Right. Right, right. Yeah. Somehow it needs to be like above the top line. Like here's your minus for all your vacancy. Right. But anyway, I digress.

Sam Wilson (00:17:44) - The question I had for you outside of, you know, uh, quick turnovers, that sounded like one thing that you said that you guys are really, really honing in on is if you have a turnover. Yeah, it's done very, very efficiently. What else are you doing on that front in order? And of course, you know, your second comment which was retention, which is also, you know, part and parcel of minimizing vacancy is keeping the tendency you have. Yeah. Is there anything else on that minimization of vacancy that you guys are actively doing that maybe our listeners could employ?

Anton Ivanov (00:18:14) - Yeah, I would say, uh, and kind of this I actually had a third point that this will take us in there nicely. So this is more on the retention side. So again, keeping the tenants happy with simple things like communication, maintenance. Uh, the other thing where I think landlords struggle and we have to is the whole like lease renewal and rent like, like where to keep the rent because you know, yeah, if the tenant is happy, a lot of times, though, it still comes down to what are you charging in rent? Uh, you know, if, if, if you're, like, overcharging them way above market, they're going to shop around.

Anton Ivanov (00:18:47) - They're going to move. Right? So, uh, but where do you do it? Or. I've met landlords that are like, on the opposite, they'll be like, I haven't raised rent for this tenant and ten years, you know, and, and and I'm happy and they're happy I think, you know, with that there's, there's a medium right there. So, uh, my philosophy is I do want my portfolio to kind of keep track with the market rents, right, or over a long period of time. So I'm not a big proponent of not raising rent for tenants for like decades. It's just I think there's really no reason to do that. Uh, yes. Maybe you will lose some absolutely exceptional tenants. But if you actually do the math of how much rental potential rental income you lost over the course of, whatever, five, ten years, you didn't raise the rent on them, even if you fact, you'll have a turnover and the new tenant, it will work out better in your favor, in my opinion.

Anton Ivanov (00:19:38) - You know. Right. It comes down to a little bit into like your personal philosophy and all that stuff. Uh, but just mathematically, I think you'll do better to keep track with the market rents for your portfolio overall. Now, what we tend to do for, for our own portfolio is we would be a little more aggressive when leasing new units, right? So if we have a vacant unit, we'll do a market analysis. Now by the way I'll do a self, you know uh plug here. So we have a rent Casio platform. Uh you go and rent Casio. You don't need an account uh, if you have a residence. So it's currently only for residential properties like apartment complexes. We don't quite support industrial or warehouse or retail on the commercial side yet, but if you have residential, you know, both small multifamily and larger commercial properties you can plug in and address, you know, the, like the property size type, and it will give you a rental analysis, like a rental CMA report with what the rent should be, what are the rental comps and stuff like that.

Anton Ivanov (00:20:36) - So there's like really no excuse with today's tech is. Getting to with not knowing what the, you know, current market rents are and a good property manager should have a like a ping on that as well. Like they should know. You know what what kind of properties would rent for. So basically when we're leasing new units, you know we already had a vacancy. We did a turn especially it's kind of like a, you know, a decent rehab. It's in good shape, will be a little more aggressive meaning like will list it pretty close to what we think market rent is maybe a little bit under, but it'll be like pretty up there. And you know we'll kind of judge rental demand. Obviously that's another thing with kind of working with your leasing agent for minimizing turnover is is like I've seen property managers that will just throw a rental number on there like they think it should rent for, I don't know, 1200. Uh, and then they'll list it and then it's like crickets and, and they just keep the listing on and they keep the listing on.

Anton Ivanov (00:21:27) - Maybe they get one showing like. No, like we tell the leasing agents like, hey, if, if, if you list it for a week, you should get like at least five, ten showings, whatever it is, depending on the year. Like you should get interest. If you're not, then it's too high. Like it's it's as simple as that. It's not like your pictures or you know what I'm saying, because markets also change so rapidly. Like you can look at long term trends, which was shown on the Rent Cars website. You can actually look at like zip code and where the rents are going, but they change like too quickly. They're seasonal, you know, there'll be less demand in the winter, like for example, around the holidays. Usually nobody's moving. Then there's like more demand, like in the summer when people tend to move. Right. So you just have to be like really on it. You're leasing agents should be not necessarily you personally, but uh, just do little adjustments and then you get more showings.

Anton Ivanov (00:22:13) - You feel kind of the vacancy. So we're a little more aggressive on the leasing of new units. Were a little less aggressive on renewing leases. So we typically do one year leases, sometimes two. But we'll be we'll kind of look at the tenant. And if they're paying their good if their rent is kind of pretty close, like if it's a new tenant, maybe they at least a year ago. Sometimes we'll skip a year. We just won't even do an increase. I'm not a big fan of like just doing $50 a year every year, like something regular. We will actually see what they're paying, what their history is. Uh, what would we lease that unit for? Uh, if it was like, you know, vacant if we just did market rent and if it's within like 10 to 12%, I mean, like 10 to 15, even sometimes 20% within market, we will leave it alone. We will maybe bump it up, but we will kind of always trail the market rent on lease renewals basically by about like 15%, sometimes even more for good tenants.

Anton Ivanov (00:23:09) - So we'll kind of keep it up, but we will be much less aggressive. And that kind of gives you a spread. Because if that tenant was to go and be like, you know what, they give me a little increase. Like, I don't know, $100, $150 a month. And what are they going to do? Like think about it. They're going to go and shop, right? First they're going to be like, you know what, I don't want to pay more because it's like human nature. Why would I pay more? They'll go do a market analysis for the same kind of unit type that they're in. And if the market rent is really like ten, 15% higher, they probably won't really find anything that is better than what they're paying. And they'll be like, well, I guess, you know, it's inflation. And you know, people expect rent increases, right? They just don't want to be in a position where like, uh, you know, they feel like you're overcharging them.

Anton Ivanov (00:23:54) - So if they go and they find a bunch of other units for leasing for less, or maybe they're just better conditioned leasing for the same. So just put yourself in the tenants position. Again, my preferred strategy a little more aggressive on vacant units, a little less aggressive on, uh, existing tenants and lease increases. Uh, but, uh, you know, find a strategy that works for you. Communicate that to your property manager, like your property manager should be on it. It shouldn't be like, oh, what should I lease this unit? Like we have a process like go to rent cast or whatever platform they like to use, you know, find the rent estimates. You know, look at the tenant. Is this a lease renewal? Is this a new tenant? Right. Like have kind of almost like a workflow checklist whatever that, you know, that they know. Uh, but let them do it, you know, once once they're comfortable with. And we had great success with this.

Anton Ivanov (00:24:42) - Like we got our leasing agents and they like it too, by the way. Like, you know, property managers do like systems. They have a lot of units. They kind of they don't want to be overthinking too. But if you get them on a system, I actually found that they're very responsive to it provides like overall a good company. Like they're, you know, they're honest. They want to work. Uh, they like these systems. They, they like that, like, hey, I do do do do this. And my owner is happy. The tenants are happy. Like, we're done. You know, it's, uh, I've, I've haven't had personal issues once. You kind of get them on board with that man.

Sam Wilson (00:25:13) - That's great. So we got three action items here. Yeah. In order to. And it all comes. Well, you know, one is minimize the vacancy, two is retain the existing tenants that you have and then three is inside of retaining those existing tenants.

Sam Wilson (00:25:27) - Um, you know, it's it's paying really close attention to how your units are priced and when who the tenant is. That's, that's currently there. And or if it is a unit that you're filling. So that's really, really helpful. What has been your. I know you'd mentioned this maybe off air and maybe you didn't mention it on air, but I think you told me that there was a certain percentage that you've really increased the top line revenue to your business without adding more units here, just implementing this strategy.

Anton Ivanov (00:25:54) - Yeah. I think I haven't like done the math exactly today, but I think over the last. So we haven't bought new units I think for two years. And it's primarily because of Covid and kind of the market was really up there, you know, with the prices, then the rates start going up. So we've really focused on operations because I feel like as a real estate investor, you always should be focusing on something again, like you're the CEO. Like you shouldn't be just sitting around, you know, collecting your paycheck, which is nice, but, uh, and a great time if you feel like the market is a bit saturated, you know, not not the best interest rate environment.

Anton Ivanov (00:26:27) - Focus on operations. We've grown our, uh, top line revenue and our cash flow because of that by over 20% by doing these tips. So by focusing on vacancies, working with our property managers, uh, and, uh, you know, kind of really keeping up with market rents, I think over the last couple of years, we've increased cash flow by over 20% without buying a single unit. And I think unless you're like, really? On what I, what we just talked about, probably almost any investor, any building, any asset can use something from that. And these are just like a few tips. You know, there's obviously like cutting costs and and improving your like maintenance and all that stuff that you can get into. But I would basically look at your, uh, you know, your profit and loss for, for each asset or for your whole portfolio and just work through every number like it starts with rent, then it's your vacancies, you know, then you jump into your expenses and just look at, you know, criticize every number, uh, like, you know, can I increase this number? You know, if it's rent, can I decrease this expense number, like scrutinized, like just brainstorming.

Anton Ivanov (00:27:27) - It's actually kind of cool and and, like, fun, in my opinion. Like, you'll be surprised. Like, we've even, uh, this is kind of a little off side, but we've done, like, things like, we went to our utility provider, uh, for trash, like, for trash collection. We said, like, hey, we have all these units, like, we have 30 plus units. You guys are servicing. Can we can we get, like, a 20% discount? And I don't think we got 20%, but we got like 15% discount for like, no reason. Like it's just a matter of just, you know, just asking for it, just brainstorming it. Increase your top line or decrease your expenses and just see your cash flow, you know, balloon without actually increasing units. And then you can apply this over and over again to new units you buy down the road. So it's like you're setting your current portfolio for success, but you're also preparing to basically maximize the profit and cash flow of future acquisitions, which I think is huge, especially like, you know, if the if the environment of the market is a little more tougher and maybe investors are passing over these buildings because they're like, hey, the numbers don't really work, you can look at them and you'll be like, you know what? I can make this work because I have this whole toolkit for improving my income and reduce my expenses.

Sam Wilson (00:28:35) - Anton, thank you for taking the time to come back on the show today. This was certainly insightful. I love the way you guys think about property management, how you interface with your property managers. Again, you've given us several just awesome, uh, very, you know, tangible action items, steps that we can take here. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?

Anton Ivanov (00:28:56) - Yeah. So check out our I already mentioned our Rent Casio platform. Uh, great for looking up rents and tracking your portfolio. We also have our deal checker platform. That's for for property analysis on new acquisitions. And if you want to get Ahold of me, just send me an email to Anton at Rent Casio. I actually reply, I get a ton of emails, but I reply to all of them. Just may take me some time. If you have questions about our software or about real estate, feel free to hit me up.

Sam Wilson (00:29:21) - Fantastic will include that there in the show. Notes Anton. Dot what was it?

Anton Ivanov (00:29:26) - Anton at rent Casio.

Sam Wilson (00:29:29) - Anton at rent Casio. I know I was messing that up somewhere. That's okay. Thank you again for your time today. I do appreciate it.

Anton Ivanov (00:29:36) - Thank you. Sam, it's always a pleasure.

Sam Wilson (00:29:37) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do.

Sam Wilson (00:29:41) - Me a favor.

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