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We educate investors and potential investors on the in's and out's of investing in rental property. We focus on residential and multifamily investing, but include commerical, storage, mobile home parks, and more. We interview industry experts on tax strategies, property management, vendor selection, syndications, capex, and more.
Hey, investors. Welcome to the Retire on Rentals podcast. I'm your host, Nicholas Cook. And in this show, we explore how to optimize real estate investing, create passive income, discuss operational tactics in ways you and your family can retire on rental income. If you wanna invest in real estate or currently do, then this podcast is for you.
Nicholas Cook:Alright. And today's guest is Christopher Braddock. He's actually somebody I've wanted to talk to for a long time. He is working behind the scenes at Sleep Sound. He's actually our portfolio manager.
Nicholas Cook:So he oversees the entire property management team. I figure who would be a better person to talk about you know, boots on the ground tactical approach to, you know, owning and managing multifamily property. Chris has got a ton of experience. We'll dive into that a little bit. And then we'll just kind of unpack the whole, you know, strategy, I guess you might say, that we have when we take over an asset or acquire an asset or whatever it happens to be.
Nicholas Cook:Chris, you know, thanks for being here today. I know you've got a full plate, so thanks for penning down some time and sitting with me to go over this and talk to our talk to our guests.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for the invitation. I'm excited to
Nicholas Cook:be here. Awesome. Cool. So, Chris, before we get into some of this stuff, why don't we give people a little bit of background
Christopher Braddock:Sure.
Nicholas Cook:On you, like, how'd you get into property management? It's obviously something you probably didn't grow up planning to do. And then maybe what you did before you ended up here at SleepSound.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Definitely. So the reason I actually got into property management was because I wanted to own my own properties. Yeah. So I thought the best way that I would be able to learn that skill and manage my own properties one day would be to go into property management.
Christopher Braddock:So I started working out at a multifamily property in Hillsborough, is about twenty, thirty minutes outside of Portland, working as a leasing agent. It was about a 350 unit property and learned absolutely everything I needed to about leasing and touring and filling apartments and the rent ready process. And from there, about a year later, I became a assistant property manager, at Quantum Residential.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:And then I kinda moved up the chain. I was there for about three years in total, starting as an assistant property manager, becoming a property manager, and then eventually became an assistant regional, manager. So I learned a tremendous amount. It was all multifamily properties with our smallest unit our smallest property being about a 100 units.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Our largest property being about 350, 400 units.
Nicholas Cook:Units. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:But it all goes back to, you know, before I even graduated college, wanting to know the ins and outs about property management and owning your own property and what's involved in that process. Because my goal is still twelve years later is to own my own properties eventually.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Well, where does that come from? Like, what made you decide you're like, hey. I wanna own real estate. You know, some people it's they grew up around it.
Nicholas Cook:Some people played the, you know, board game monopoly. Other people, you know, read a book. And so where where did that kind of desire come from?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. That's a good question. It really actually came from just the the strategy of diversification. You know, I've always known that I wanted to own my own properties since I was about eight years old. Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:I actually had my dad introduce me to his stockbroker at the time. And we picked three stocks together and I can still name those stocks and I still have that same exact portfolio of, you know, purchasing ConocoPhillips, Nike, and Apple.
Nicholas Cook:Oh, yeah. Some good ones. Big names. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Apple by far has turned out to be the the best investment. But as I got older, you know, I I enjoy having a portfolio, but it's very hands off. Mhmm. And I wanted a tangible asset that I could look at, that I could see, appreciate in in value, and work with renters, and get cash flow, pay down your your debt and mortgage loan.
Christopher Braddock:And it's it's something that eventually, I think it's a good starting place to move from, you know, single family, having one property to maybe a duplex. Mhmm. And just kind of building up from there. So I still have that original intent in mind and just diversification of my own portfolio.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Yeah. Well, obviously, you've learned a lot on the operations side, so that's gonna make things a lot easier Definitely. Doing that. You know, whether you end up managing those directly yourself or you, you know, end up having someone else manage them, you know how to oversee and interview those managers to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Nicholas Cook:And so it sounds like, you know, with assets that are, you know, when you get into a couple 100, you know, unit buildings, you're typically talking about oftentimes institutional grade assets, you know, depending on the cost per unit and things like that. So one of things I wanted to have you on and talk with you about today was, you know, we've got, you know, a lot of commentary on on property management, on real estate in general, but it really comes down to a lot of, you know, difference of opinions, strategy, and, application of ideas from you've what you've got. People kinda sitting in the back office oftentimes, the asset managers, who've got a spreadsheet. Right? They're trying to make that spreadsheet a reality.
Nicholas Cook:And the person who's delivering on that reality is really the property management team or the property manager. And so a lot of this is just more about helping people understand those two different roles, and understanding some of the challenges with each role. So that way, whether they're sitting in an asset manager role or a property manager role or maybe they're just an owner trying to watch what's happening, they kind of understand what's what because there are just a lot of different things out there, lot of opinions, whether it's on, you know, Twitter, X, you know, LinkedIn, that kind of stuff, that are often critical of, you know, property management structures, different things like that, but also sometimes critical of asset managers. So it's good we're all part of the same ecosystem, and both roles are important. So just from your perspective and and your work, and since you obviously originated dealing with much larger assets, what is your kind of perspective on that asset manager, property manager difference in kind of the the goals of those roles and relationships?
Nicholas Cook:Maybe you could speak to that.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Absolutely. I think, you know, starting out, especially when I when I was a leasing agent that, you know, 350 unit property, I really got a good perspective of the different types of institutional investors. At the time, you know, it was a company that originated out of New York and they owned assets all over The US. Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:And their strategy, which I'm sure we'll get into later, is buy and hold versus, you know, short term Yeah. Method. So their perspective is a lot different than some of the owners that I've been working with recently Mhmm. Who are more short term focused. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:But I think the biggest thing is something you already alluded to, which was about the spreadsheet. They have investors that they need to speak to and be able to show return on investment, appreciation of property, cash flow, and they do. They sit behind a spread and they have this kind of perfect world mapped out in their head about what their reality is. But when you're actually, quote, boots on the ground and you're at the property, you're seeing, you know, the lobby might need a cleaning or the common areas might need a cleaning, and that could cost a 150, $250, especially in the fall time, late fall, early winter. You get a tremendous amount of leaves that are in the lobby, for example.
Christopher Braddock:And now you have to spend 250, $300 just to have the common areas and everything cleaned when in reality that might have not been something that the asset manager thought of.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:So our our goal as being on-site personnel in property management is to be able to enforce the lease agreement.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:It's to be able to care for the property. It's to maintain a really good curb appeal. To make sure that the utilities are running on time. So our focus really is, you know, obviously on the operational side, whereas the asset manager is gonna be looking more at the spreadsheets and the expenses and wanting to stay below a certain threshold
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Which isn't always the reality. I mean, things go wrong all the time. You know, the garage door at a property night might not be working or an elevator might not be working. And now we have a situation where we need to get a vendor out immediately. And that could cost thousands of dollars because those things are not cheap.
Christopher Braddock:They're not inexpensive, and it causes a huge interference to our tenants, the day to day life of our tenants. And that ends up becoming a huge conversation with the asset manager about why it was necessary. There needs to be a justification behind it. There needs to be, you know, what acting with urgency for acting with urgency.
Nicholas Cook:Little phone drop. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Acting with urgency, for example. So it's a really delicate balance of relationship between the asset manager and the portfolio manager or even the on-site property management team trying to educate the asset managers about the things that we have to deal with that Yep. They might not readily think about. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:So I would say, you know, they might not visit the property as much as we do. We're on-site, you know, at least three, four, maybe five times a week where they're only there maybe once every other quarter.
Nicholas Cook:K. So how does that let me just ask a question about that because, you know, there's different strategies for asset managers. You've got some people, maybe you've got investors from New York, sometimes you have people who live in the neighborhood.
Christopher Braddock:Right? And
Nicholas Cook:so one of the things that oftentimes you're having to figure out is, you know, they're you know, because we get we're talking about a spreadsheet here. Right? Is setting up a realistic budget. And, you know, from at least what I've seen, and maybe you have shared this experience, is is that a lot of asset managers don't have property management experience. They know a lot about finance.
Nicholas Cook:You know, they understand underwriting. They understand data analysis, but they don't actually they've never maybe been a property manager. So the things that you talked about, you know, one of the things that people don't think about sometimes is you've got a large multifamily building, you've got an elevator, you've got pets in the building. Right? You've gotta have a budget for cleaning up pet waste that happens in that elevator because it's inevitably going to happen.
Nicholas Cook:Right? So that's something that they're not really thinking about. But like, how would you say somebody who's in that role, maybe some of the blind spots they have when it comes to the budget, what some advice you might give to an asset manager to prepare a more effective budget, whether it's for just the operations or even if they're underwriting a property that they're thinking about acquiring?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. I think the biggest thing is just working in conjunction with the property management team to come up with a realistic budget. Mhmm. I've had experiences where that budget that was created might have had our input that wasn't actually in the spreadsheet, so we didn't get to see it. And that budget actually ends up becoming a liability for us because we're trying to focus so much on meeting that expectation of the budget.
Christopher Braddock:But biggest piece of advice would be a couple of things. Number one, working with the property management team. And then two, looking at the actual realistic costs Mhmm. Of today's market. Because it's another thing.
Christopher Braddock:Asset managers might not understand the current conditions of the market. For example, you know, clean might realistically to have a deep clean done might take $354,100 dollars for a one bedroom apartment.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Whereas their budget has it at $25,300
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:Which, you know, you see maybe that's not a huge difference, but you're talking about 25, 33% increase in what the actual cost is. Yeah. And that's, you know, important to now you have to educate the owner about it or the the asset manager about current costs and conditions and I guess justify the position rather than having that just inherent trust off the bat to say, here's what it is. Here's what we need to do. Here's what a realistic expense looks like for a line item.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Well, let's move over to you know, you had touched on another item, which is kind of the perspective people have towards the asset when they're short term hold versus, you know, longer term hold and how they might, you know, manage the property differently, whether it's from an asset management or a property manager standpoint. You know, maybe you could elaborate a little bit, like, how does or how have you seen the approach differ for an owner who's trying to hold a property ten plus years versus somebody who's thinking three, five years exit?
Nicholas Cook:What are some of the things that you've seen that that have kind of been a different approach?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. So the the short term investor, short term asset manager, owner, they're looking a lot more I guess, they're looking to have more action on the property management side. And what I mean by that is they're looking for us in this case or any property management company that they might hire to do a tremendous amount of work to get the asset to where they think it needs to be, to get the evaluation that they want to be able to sell the asset in a shorter period of time. Mhmm. So what they want to do are, you know, increase rents probably more than normal to try and capture a higher evaluation of the property.
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. They're looking at making more immediate improvements to the property kind of as a value add. Mhmm. And there's also a huge cyclical obstacle that they have to encounter when you're a short term investor. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:A ton of things that can happen with the economy that are quite frankly just out of control of asset management companies and anybody actually who owns a multifamily property. Compared to the long term owner, they're looking at the satisfaction of tenants. They're looking at keeping the property stable, keeping it occupied. And one thing I think a lot of people don't realize, whether you're short term or a long term investor, is it's about $4,000 to go through a vacancy. So when a tenant moves out from that period of now you have to churn a unit, now you have to deal with the vacancy time, now you have to advertise the unit, it's about a $4,000 endeavor just trying to get that unit filled again.
Christopher Braddock:Whereas the long term investor is probably gonna look at it from a different lens of wanting to retain that tenant. They're more focused on the building's reputation. They're more focused on having community events and actually building a community, building a positive reputation. And they're looking at it from the lens of not one to two years of, I need this property to be profitable. I need to have good cash flow.
Christopher Braddock:They're looking at it from the lens of, I'm gonna own this asset for ten, twenty years. Yeah. And I know if I put the time and the money in to it now or throughout that period of time and make some small improvements every now and then, If I work on, you know, having tenant satisfaction, if I'm constantly asking for tenant feedback and and sending out surveys, that long term owner, I think, is gonna value more stability rather than the short term owner 's gonna look at what can I do to increase the value of my asset as quickly as possible?
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. So they're gonna be focused on NOI. So that creates always a challenge. I mean, you're in a property management seat, you've got somebody who's trying to maximize revenue. Right?
Nicholas Cook:So they're gonna be pushing rents to be, you know, aggressive, you might say. And then they've got the expense side where they're going to be probably less generous about things that they're doing. You mentioned, you know, obviously community events which is kind of, you know, a nice thing to have for building culture and engagement, but it also could be other things like cleaning windows, right, exterior windows or keeping common areas to a certain standard. So have you seen challenges balancing kind of tenant experience with cost in those situations? Is there a difference you've seen with owners?
Nicholas Cook:Because people obviously wanna have both, but typically, that can that can be hard to execute on.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. It it's extremely difficult to have a perfect balancing act and accomplish both tasks. Right? Trying to maximize your cash flow at the same time of as having a great tenant experience. And you're actually bringing up a really good point because for 2026, for example, I have a investor who we had a weekly, sometimes twice a week common area cleaning service, whereas you mentioned cleaning the windows, the lobby doors, sweeping the lobby, that actually got pulled back a little bit because the budget didn't call for that high of an expense for those common area cleaning items.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:So now instead of having a one to two time weekly common area cleaning Mhmm. We're now having a once every other week cleaning. Yeah. And that impacts the, you know, the tenant's gonna walk in, prospects are gonna walk in, they're and not gonna see the curb appeal or the standard that SleepSound wants for our properties to have Mhmm. Because the owner is looking to meet their expectations of what the budget looks like and maintaining those expenses at the level that's in the budget.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it is, you know, we talk about class a buildings a lot. You know, we think about location, we think about amenities, we think about general condition.
Nicholas Cook:And at the end of the day, really what it translates to is an experience. Right? You know, think about being on an airplane. It's like, yeah, you've got some extra perks, but a lot about being in first class on an airplane is the experience, the attention, and, you know, the anticipation of needs and things like that. So it's not necessarily just about the the bricks and mortar in a shiny lobby or, you know, having a, you know, extra nice appliance or whatever happens to be or even common area features.
Nicholas Cook:It's about that experience of day to day things. People, what I've learned is, you know, this is probably true in a lot of cities, but people like to brag about where they live. Right? Mhmm. And so they wanna be able to name drop the building.
Nicholas Cook:And but they're only gonna do that if that building has a good reputation. But that obviously translates into people coming to that building when you have vacancies, wanting to stay longer and things like that. So, yeah. No, that's a that's a good point about that. Can you give an example of a decision and and you kinda did a little bit here, but maybe something that's a little bit more substantial that you've just seen throughout your career that where somebody basically made a decision to increase short term NOI, right, but it hurt the long term value of the building.
Christopher Braddock:Do you have an example of something you've seen kind of in the past might jog my memory a little bit more on
Nicholas Cook:some specific? You know, it kind of varies a little bit, but I you know, one of the things is is that sometimes what I've seen where people are, you know, trying to essentially take care of NOI that harms the building in the long run is really candidly allowing tenants to stay in the building that we should have terminated leases for a long time ago. Because what ends up happening is is they're like, well, we don't want the vacancy cost. And it's like, okay. We understand that.
Nicholas Cook:But these people are causing 80% of the problems in the building. Other tenants aren't happy with these people. It's taking a lot of time from us, so we can't use that time on, you know, more important things. And so rather than just biting the bullet and dealing with that vacancy cost, they didn't. And it had a domino effect on these other issues, which is like, okay, now we're losing some of the tenants that are gonna be the ones we actually don't wanna be losing.
Nicholas Cook:And now we're spending time on these things that really aren't I mean, obviously, it's within scope. So from that standpoint, it's a nonissue. But is this the highest and best use of things that we could be bringing to the property when we're dealing with these types of things? So that would be an example of something that I've I've seen.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Okay. I understand. That brings up a perfect example in my mind where we actually took over management of a property, you know, a couple of years ago, and that property has been a huge headache. Because instead of us focusing on improving the curb appeal of the building Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:And us improving the tenant experience, we had a previous property management company that candidly was just letting in tenants without a really rigorous screening process like the one that SleepSound has in place.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:So this property management company, they kinda have a blanket approach to all their properties, but they have a little bit looser criteria screening criteria when it comes to a criminal background or maybe credit score, maybe rental verification.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:But you bring up a really good point because we have been fighting as a company for about a year and a half now trying to work with some of these tenants who got put in place before SleepSound took over. Yeah. We've had to do multiple visits to the property just to capture, you know, photos and evidence. I've been trying to, I guess, clean up the the the tenants who have been causing a lot of issues because it's actually caused a lot of harm with other tenants leaving. Sure.
Christopher Braddock:When you have a neighbor who's extremely noisy or maybe there's dispute about parking or cars that are being essentially vandalized. Yeah. People are not gonna wanna live there. And a lot of those issues derived from the fact that tenants were placed prior to us taking management, and we've had to spend our time getting to clean up those messes. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:And what you're alluding to with the vacancy and owners not wanting to experience vacancy, to push really hard to get that tenant, you know, essentially evicted for breach of their rental agreement, they don't want the vacancy. They don't want to deal with the legal costs associated with having those tenants removed. So, again, it's an educational I'll go back to this. This is an educational component of our job is trying to educate our owners and our investors on what a successful property looks like and the repercussions long term of having to deal with some of these problems. And it's why we want to act quickly Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:In a lot of these circumstances, especially the one that you gave, the example you gave with, you know, problematic tenant. Yeah. Now multiply that by three, four, or five different tenants, that's a huge hit to vacancy, but it's also necessary long term if that property wants to be successful and appreciate and maintain actual good tenants.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Well, yeah, I think it goes back to I mean, you talked a little bit about education and things like that. And I think a lot of it comes back to is fit. Right? So if somebody is a property owner, you know, one of the things that can be useful, whether it's the owner or the asset manager, is to really, really unpack very clearly what the goals are of that ownership group or owner.
Nicholas Cook:So that way, you can evaluate, is this property management company the right fit? Right? Because there are some property management companies that are like, this is our goal. This is our job. We're in alignment with that type of outcome, and we can manage with that in mind because they might not care about the experience.
Nicholas Cook:Right? They're just like, we're going through and this is our this is our process. Where as a company who is more built around, you know, the total tenant experience, looks at that relationship more holistically, that might not be where they're gonna, you know, excel in. So that brings up a good point about having alignment with does this property management business model fit with the asset manager or owner's, you know, essentially goals? And so do you find that a lot of owners are pretty transparent with you about the goals of the properties and like what they're kind of, you know, hey, I'm gonna be selling this in three years or I'm gonna be doing this long term hold or here's what my NOI needs to be.
Nicholas Cook:I mean, are you seeing more often than not you have that access to information or do you feel like most of the time you're flying kinda blind about what what the the outcome is supposed to be?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. I would definitely lean on the side of flying blind.
Nicholas Cook:Okay. Think that is? Just curious. Like, why do why do you think that is? Why do you think you don't get more information from different ownership groups?
Christopher Braddock:You know, I think there's a little bit of a hesitant hesitancy towards, you know, asset managers or owners providing us with some of that financial data that we need to make really good and informed decisions. Mhmm. And what I'm referring to is, you know, about a mortgage or a monthly loan amount that they have to pay off.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Debt service.
Christopher Braddock:Exactly. So if they're not upfront and transparent with that information, it's really hard to know essentially what their goals are. And sometimes, I'm not gonna say in every case that, you know, I'm quote flying blind, but when owners do inform us of their intent, what they wanna do, whether it's to sell the property in the next year or to hold it long term, that helps us satisfy and be on the same page with our owners and asset managers. And it's one thing that's extremely difficult because we don't find that information out later in the process.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:So we might be managing a property for six months or a year, and then we find out that information and it's like, wait a minute. We could have done everything that we've been doing managing the asset significantly better had that information been provided to us upfront. And I just think that it's a hesitancy to be able to provide or for owners, asset managers to provide that information Mhmm. To property management companies because they don't think it's relevant. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:When in reality, you know, going forward, we should be looking at making sure during our onboarding process that we know exactly the owner's goals, that we're on the same page with the owner, and that we can essentially meet their needs because it's not just the tenants that are gonna be better off. It's not just the asset that's gonna be better off, but the relationship between a property management company, neither the owner or the asset manager is gonna be substantially better.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Yeah. And I think that mean, you're right. There's there is some sort of hesitancy I think because not out of necessarily ill will, but it's because they don't think it's relevant. Right?
Nicholas Cook:Or it doesn't really it shouldn't influence necessarily performance and while, like, again, if you're thinking about it from a black and white spreadsheet standpoint, that is true, but the thing that I've realized and learned is that it actually matters a lot to share that information because not only is it providing context to, well, here's what I'll say is this. If you wanna have a really good property management team or really good, you know, team in general of any kind that's reporting or serving a function for you, you're going to have to have people who are smart on that team. People who are smart by nature are going to be curious. And so when you're dealing with people, if you provide them that information, it provides a lot more context for why they did something or why they're being asked to do something. And they can get behind it because buy in is really important.
Nicholas Cook:And it's not just the property manager, it goes all the way down to the maintenance tech. Because if the people think, okay, yes, this owner wants me to do this, I will do it, but now I have concerns about maybe this owner's intentions or I don't feel like they're treating the tenants properly or I don't feel like they're treating the asset with respect. That is something that they hold onto in terms of a mentality because no one else is filling in a different narrative. Whereas if you can go to somebody, you know, again, property manager, community manager, maintenance tech, even bookkeeper and say, this is why we're doing it, they can say, oh, the dots connect now. Now I can get behind this.
Nicholas Cook:Now I'm more enthusiastic about executing on this business plan. So I think that information, you know, actually ends up serving a lot more value than people ever thought it thought it might.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. And there's actually a couple examples that come to mind as you were talking about and referring to that. You know, we we've had a couple owners now who have very large assets or asset groups that we've taken over. And they have been, you know, candid with us, maybe not originally when we kind of started that relationship, but throughout that relationship, we learn more and more about the owners and they learn about us. And I will say that SleepSound and probably a lot of other property management companies are really good at catering to owners and what their needs are.
Christopher Braddock:But again, they need that information to be able to do so. So in the example that I'm gonna provide, we had an owner that was looking candidly to to tighten up some of their expenses. And we looked at their, you know, their statements and what we've spent money on and their expense sheet, income statement, everything. And we found that a lot of the expenses were coming from vendors. So what we did is we talked to our maintenance staff, and we got our maintenance staff to buy in to what the owner wanted.
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. And now our maintenance team was hyper cognizant and aware of what the owner's goals were.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:They could approach situations by, you know, taking care of items in bulk and making one trip to the property instead of coming back and forth and back and forth addressing maybe three or four different work orders. Mhmm. They were able to wait, you know, a day or two and then knock out everything in bulk. So that buy in you're talking about, it just one, we need the information from the asset manager or the owner. And then two, once that's conveyed to the rest of the team, whether it's a maintenance staff, the leasing, the property management team, it's a lot easier to actually put a process into motion.
Christopher Braddock:That's just gonna make for a better experience and try and at least meet the goals that the owner has.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. That makes sense. So one of the things that sometimes, you know, people see when they're looking at property management companies and, it's one of those things that if they're looking at their budget, they tend to look at property management, right? Because insurance, what are you gonna do about that? You can't cancel your insurance, right?
Nicholas Cook:So you're kinda stuck with that. Property taxes, unless they're outrageous, you're not gonna be able to appeal. So, you know, they're gonna look at something naturally they feel like they might be able to move the needle on. And sometimes you hear asset managers talk about, like, know, I'm looking at this property manager and they're charging me all these, you know, junk fees for stuff that I really shouldn't be paying for. And oftentimes, you know, we hear people talk about, you know, well, they're charging me for software or they're charging me, you know, a salary for, you know, a maintenance tech that, you know, may not be doing any work at any given time or I've got, you know, not only the community manager's salary, but I've got their, you know, essentially, you know, maybe regional salary and then part of, like, you know, maybe an assistant.
Nicholas Cook:Like, it can be heavy with payroll, right? But there's also just, you know, other things, you know, beyond just things like software that people think are kind of pass throughs. It's just, you know, little things ranging from, like, postage to, you know, whatever. Right? So I guess from your perspective, when you hear that type of commentary, do you think that that is a fair take and that, hey, you know what, there are some companies out there that are overcharging people?
Nicholas Cook:Or do you think, like, no, these really are necessary business expenses? Like, what would you say to somebody who expressed those concerns too broadly? Not necessarily about what you're managing or things like that, but just as a general sentiment about property management companies.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. I think that there's a definitely a happy medium. Mhmm. And I will say, you know, I was doing some research on this topic previously because I was curious about it after a conference we had gone to. And 54% of prospective investors and potential clients do not end up going with a property management company because they think the cost is too high.
Christopher Braddock:That's 54%. A lot. That's a yeah. That's a significant amount of majority. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:And I think a lot has to do and I it's not everybody. It's not every property management company, but I definitely believe that it's out there. Because a business's number one goal is obviously to make money. Sure. But if you're doing at the expense of an investor or an owner, you're actually probably gonna degrade or erode some trust that there is just between owners and property management companies in general.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. So we have seen that. I mean, we have taken over dozens of properties where we had an opportunity to look at a previous property management agreement, a PMA, and found that, woah, some of these charges are not things that you should be paying for. Yeah. You should actually, you know, be saving $10.20, $30,000 a year, whatever it is depending on the property had some of these expense items not been on there.
Christopher Braddock:And you alluded to a couple things especially related to salary. You know, why would a 20 unit or a 30 unit property need a part time manager or on-site manager? Yeah. Why would they need, you know, a part time maintenance technician? When in reality, it should be done on an hourly basis when it is needed.
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. And it's a way for property management companies to essentially guarantee income without having to know for certainty that they're gonna actually have to do any work, especially on-site.
Nicholas Cook:So it stabilizes their their overhead and their their structure and things like that. And I think that, you know, you kind of talked about the concerns around cost, right? Well, at the end of the day, most of the time, cost is a direct result or concerns around cost is a direct result of not seeing value, right? So one of two things is happening. Either a, the cost really is too high, meaning there's no legitimate reason for some of these things or they're not articulating the value, right?
Nicholas Cook:Because I always try to tell people that, you know, when you hire a property management company, it's like if you own a grocery store and you're hiring a grocery store manager. That grocery store manager's there to, you know, essentially hire the staff. They're there to train people. They're there to, you know, basically take on all the responsibilities of operations for the profitability of that that store. And they're also there to make sure, like, if the fridge goes out for the freezer room, they're they're gonna get that addressed.
Nicholas Cook:So there's that component. Now, if they hire bad people, sure, your cost might I shouldn't say bad, but if they hire people who are less capable, they're oftentimes gonna cost less. But that's gonna impact problems with the store. But they could also overspend and bring in people that maybe are not necessary for, obviously, that building. So, you know, figuring out how to navigate what's, you know, illegitimate expense versus a nonlegitimate expense, I think comes down to effort.
Nicholas Cook:Right? If you're an owner, you have to take a special interest in your business. And so sitting down with a property manager and going line by line over their proposal to understand why is this cost what it is? How did you come up with that number? Right?
Nicholas Cook:Because if they're passing through a legitimate business cost, then that's a legitimate business cost and that should just be recognized as something that is necessary to deliver the service you want. Or if you don't want to do that, you can say, okay, well, I understand the consequence of not doing that and I'm fine with it anyways, whatever happens to me. But going through and really having them unpack where did they get this number as opposed to just looking at a number and accepting or rejecting it, right?
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. Yeah. And I think I think that's one thing that SleepSound has really changed and focused on is modifying our property management agreements to where they're somewhat streamlined. They're easy to read, and it's also extremely easy to explain the value that is in them. I could go through the list of all of our fees and kinda justify and provide some of the value about why we do some of those things.
Christopher Braddock:And it is what we do at onboarding. So it's extremely apparent to owners who are coming on, investors who are coming on to SleepSound why it is we do some of those things. Yeah. And one example I'll give just real quick is the you know, we do something called a periodic walkthrough.
Nicholas Cook:Sure.
Christopher Braddock:It's completed every, you know, six months, starts forty five days after a tenant, has just moved into the property. But there is an enormous amount of value from that, and that's one of the things that we will regularly get pushed back on initially. Mhmm. Now after we explain to owners that the periodic walk through serves multiple purposes, but number one, the first thing you're seeing is how those tenants are living and how they're taking care of the property. Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:That's the first thing. Second thing, you're looking for deferred maintenance items. I cannot tell you the number of times where a tenant has not reported something as simple as a sink leak.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:You open up the cupboards below the sink and you find that there's a minor leak and it's dripping. And over a long period of time, you know, that's gonna add up to a substantial amount of cost trying
Nicholas Cook:to damages.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. I mean, anything water water damage related gives me some PTSD just because of all of the horrible experiences that I've seen. Mhmm. But that gives us a chance to be able to capture and see it and address it right away, let rather than letting it linger. So even though there's a cost associated with that periodic walkthrough
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:That that does not mean that you're not getting an enormous amount of value out of it. And other than seeing how the tenants live and looking for deferred maintenance items or items that the tenants are not reporting, we're also able to identify lease violations. Yeah. And, you know, this is a common strategy for not me particularly, but a lot of my friends and roommates that I knew in college, we find plastic bags over smoke detectors all the And for whatever reason, people forget about it and they don't take it down. But it's like, hey, there's a plastic bag over your smoke detector.
Christopher Braddock:I bet you're smoking in there. Yeah. And we take a picture and we document it, and we send a notice out.
Nicholas Cook:A life safety issue.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Exactly. It's a life safety issue. And, you know, I was, again, kinda looking at this topic earlier about some common administrative fees that other property management companies might charge that I don't think is necessarily, you know, you could say ethical or maybe it's counterintuitive to, you know, the owner's best interest. Right?
Christopher Braddock:We do have a fiduciary obligation at the end of the day to operate in our owners and investors' best interest. Right? But I've seen things like rent processing fees. Rent processing fees, that should that's something that's essentially
Nicholas Cook:Core function.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. It's a core function of what we do included in the monthly management agreement. Right? You see, you know, notice fees. Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:If your tenant and again, using the smoke detector, putting a plastic bag over as an example, If I'm having to pay a property management company or pay you to send that person a notice, then you're actually gonna be trying to be extremely nitpicky and look for every single violation inside a property even though it might not be a 100% justifiable. And it's just acting in poor faith with the owner. Yeah. And then even another thing that I've seen a couple of times just in the last year or two are owner statement fees. SleepSounds incredibly transparent with our statements.
Christopher Braddock:Everything can be pulled from the the owner portal. You log in, you get access to all of your information. But we also send out reports and statements on the twentieth of each month or the following business day. Yeah. But anytime an owner reaches out or an investor reaches out to us, we takes us less than three, four minutes to be able to pull a report they're looking for, be able to send it to them.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. It's those kind of things that give property management really bad reputation. Yeah. Because those are things that candidly should just be a part of our day to day job and normal operation included in a monthly management fee.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, that's a good response and I mean, are things, know, and it's interesting too because, you know, even one of the things that we hear sometimes, people who've owned properties in other states will come and say, oh, well, we don't see this particular thing, you know, in our from our property management companies in, you know, let's just say Idaho or Texas or, you know, Georgia or wherever it happens to be. And what I usually tell people is that, you know, you probably are being charged for this. They're probably just not telling you.
Nicholas Cook:And a lot of times people are surprised to hear that. And what I mean to say is most states don't require the level of transparency that they do in Oregon and what a lot of people don't realize is that software programs have options to what's called suppress fees, meaning they don't show up to the owner on the statement and so you're not gonna see a full pass through. So I'll use like late fees for an example, and this varies based on the asset size and the agreement and all the other stuff, but, you know, somebody might say, well, my property manager doesn't, you know, keep the late fees, right? And again, depending on the asset, that might be true, but what also could be true is that a tenant pays a late fee and then the property management company receives that and withholds that as additional income, but they suppress it on the statement. So the owner's never aware that that whole transaction even happened.
Nicholas Cook:Right? Whereas in other states, Oregon being one of them, you know, you can't suppress fees. Everything has to go through. So even if it's passed through, you know, income, that's something that has to be on the statement. So that's just something that is is different among different markets.
Nicholas Cook:So it's really trying to understand, okay, what is the management agreement entitle the property management company to? Because that's what's gonna tell you what they're actually gonna charge you for. Well, so far, Chris, this has been great. We're gonna take a quick break from a a word from our sponsor here, and and then we'll be right back. But thanks for sharing all the wisdom you have so far.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you.
Nicholas Cook:This show is sponsored by Sleep Sound Property Management, one of Portland's largest and top rated management companies that specializes in multifamily and residential real estate. They can help you acquire, operate, protect, and sell or exchange your properties. If you want to invest in real estate, give them a call or visit them online at sleepsoundpm.com. That's sleepsoundpm.com. Alright.
Nicholas Cook:So alright. We're back here, Chris. So we've talked a lot about, you know, different things when it comes to managing a multifamily asset, some of the perspective that, you know, asset managers have and property managers have and how some of those priorities differ or differ between the two parties and even some potential, you know, blind spots that everyone has. You know, one of the things that we talk a lot about and is is really one of the keys to repositioning a property is building culture. Right?
Nicholas Cook:And, you know, culture is an interesting word, right, because it can cover all kinds of things. But maybe you can kind of unpack what we mean when we talk about building culture and how that is really instrumental in improving the performance of a building.
Christopher Braddock:Sure. And just to clarify, you're talking about the culture of, you know, an asset, multifamily property, it has tenants. Right?
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Just in terms of just, you know, you walk into a building or you walk a site, right, as we've seen sometimes, and it's just there's a lot of neglect, right, and it starts with lease violations, it starts with, you know, just care for the building, attitudes. One of things I always tell people is trust. Right? The tenants don't trust us right away.
Nicholas Cook:So that's really kind of what I mean when I'm talking about culture and what we mean when we talk about repositioning a property through that process.
Christopher Braddock:Got it. Yeah. I it's something I kinda refer to when we were talking about the owner property management relationship, transparency. Yeah. Transparency by far is the biggest thing that improves a culture, gets tenants to trust us.
Christopher Braddock:And one of the first things, and actually, it's something that we've done throughout my entire experience working in property management, is keeping tenants updated. Mhmm. And that means not just sharing the good news, but sharing the bad news. I'll go back to the elevator example I used earlier.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Sending out a mass email to all the tenants, letting them know, hey, the elevator's gonna be down. We're currently working on it. We're doing a couple things. Number one, we're informing them of the problem. Number two, we're telling them that we're working on it.
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. And number three, we're giving them a potential timeline for a solution. Because we usually have a good idea of when a vendor will come out to be able to fix something. But culture really is something that is not completed or developed in a day or even a month. You know?
Christopher Braddock:It can take six months. It can take a year. Yeah. That's why it's important to send out those emails I was referring to. It's important to send out surveys asking for feedback about the building.
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. What can we as a property management company do better? What does a tenant wanna see at the building that they don't like? Mhmm. One complaint we got when we took over a property was that the garage and the garbage area was regularly dirty.
Christopher Braddock:So the first thing we did was made an improvement to have an additional pickup every single week so that the garbage containers were not overflowing. Right? Yep. Another thing, you know, a common complaint we got at this particular property was about security cameras. Packages were being stolen.
Christopher Braddock:So we had a Luxor package locker installed for secure packages. Mhmm. We had cameras placed in every single common area. And those things are people or or things that tenants see. They are going to see when it's being worked on, when it's implemented, and they're also gonna see the impact that it has with having those things installed.
Christopher Braddock:And, you know, the last thing I'll say that has been a huge success in my experience is community events. Mhmm. Community events are a time where people get to put a face to a name. Yeah. And regardless of what property management company or what city or what state you're in, a lot of times communication and conversation is gonna primarily happen over email.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Maybe a phone call, but rarely, especially nowadays, does it happen in person. So community events, you know, gives it builds that sense of culture that you're referring to, But it also allows tenants to actually meet the on-site community manager or meet the property management team or meet the maintenance. Yeah. And then they also get to know their neighbors.
Nicholas Cook:Sure. That's a major benefit.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. And maybe they get to know, you know, a couple of people that live in the building and they have a friendship. And now, guess what? That person just signed a lease renewal when maybe they were originally thinking to move out.
Nicholas Cook:Well, I mean, they've done studies on it. There's a direct correlation between people renewing leases and whether or not they have other relationships in the building, you know, if they have friends in the building or they like their neighbors. So, no, that's a huge thing. And, you know, it's kind of ironic because that's one of the things that gets cut oftentimes from the budget, but it also is something that drives retention. And so it's gotta be something that, you know, obviously has a great ROI.
Nicholas Cook:But on the surface, you know, especially if you're operating behind the spreadsheet, it's gonna look like something you you need to cut. And so, again, that's short term versus long long term thinking. So, you know, let's talk a little most of what we talked about has been occupied properties. Right? Properties that have, you know, either close to or stabilized and just things that need to be done to improve it overall.
Nicholas Cook:You know, what advice would you give to people who are, you know, developing a multifamily building, you know, something that they're gonna hand us for lease up. You know, what are some of the things that you've seen that have, you know, been problematic in lease ups that you're like, hey, this could be easily have been prevented if x y z had been done in advance.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah.
Nicholas Cook:Do you have any ideas about, like, where somebody could maybe improve in that process?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Definitely. There I think we've taken on a number of properties where the information we're provided at onboarding wasn't extremely clear.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Again, you know, I I enjoy giving examples. You know, maybe your viewers are able to extract more information or Yeah. Know what I'm talking about a little bit better that way. But in one example, we had a newly built 0% occupied property that we took over and it was a lease up.
Nicholas Cook:Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:The front door of the building was an electronic gate and a lock. Yeah. We were not privy to any of the information about how that locking system worked. We didn't know how to change the codes. We didn't know how to program keys or locks to essentially allow tenants to be able to move in to the building.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:That's a huge issue. I mean, we're now having to essentially wait for the owner, for them to talk to vendors, for us to maybe get involved. And now it's we can't even lease up the property. But we also have to try, in most cases, to figure it out ourselves. Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:And that's an extremely time consuming issue that we run into, and it's gonna impact, you know, how quickly we're able to get a property occupied. Another thing, you know, is we don't get all of the information about where essential systems are. Right? So, again, in that same example, we didn't know where the Xfinity Internet Comcast was set up. Something we had to figure out again, ourself.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Then we had to schedule vendors to come out and Xfinity to come out and make sure the wiring was set up correctly. And a lot of times, maybe the owner is not completely aware or maybe they expect the property management company to deal with it. Sure. But it's something that could have been streamlined extremely easily at onboarding had we been provided that information sooner.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Well, think that's a challenge sometimes is getting people who you know, some of these are developers, right, they're they're wearing a million hats, they've got a lot of projects going on, but getting that engagement of like, hey, sit down, dedicate a few hours to really just unpacking, you know, the onboarding of this property versus like, you know, a series of small emails, you know, stitching together kind of what the story is. But I also, I think, you know, what I would like to see and maybe not all property management companies feel this way, but we wanna be involved before you even break ground. Right? Because you've got situations like, okay, what floor plans make sense?
Nicholas Cook:Right? Because sometimes you see some floor plans and you're like, I don't know who would live in this room. This thing does not make any sense. Or you've got situations that are as simple as trash management, right? It's just like, if I live on the 5th Floor, I have to take the elevator down and walk it out to the dumpster every time I wanna dump my trash.
Nicholas Cook:Like, you're gonna have people trying to look for shortcuts on that, right? And so you can try to replace it with, like, okay, we'll have, like, a, you know, trash valet come by and and pick them up. But it's, like, okay, that requires a lot of consistent consistency from everybody. Not as not only from the vendor or the party that's coming by to do that, which costs money. Right?
Nicholas Cook:That's not free, that's time. But also ensuring that all the tenants are compliant with that. Well, one, maybe not be at the top of their list. Two, some people are out on vacation at different times or they have different types of jobs and so just, know, in theory those things sound good, but it's like, might have just been better if you built a trash chute. Right?
Nicholas Cook:Like, that would have been a lot more helpful. Or at least a room that they could store it in and then you could come collect it so it's not in the hallway. You know, because what are the bags leaking? I mean, someone's like, how many tenants are gonna do the right thing and oh, I see that my bag leaked and then not only change the bag but clean up the mess. I mean, it's just not gonna happen.
Nicholas Cook:Right? There might be some people that do but for the most part, you know, that can be an issue too. So I think I I think we would want to be involved early on in the design process from that standpoint, but then in cases where we're not, like you said, getting the kind of high level, you know, almost their version of an SOP of the building. Right? Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Exactly. And I you make a really good point about kinda going back to the short term versus long term. I guarantee you and you mentioned a trash shoot. Right?
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. Think of all the issues, and you alluded to some of them. You know? Having a tenant have to walk down to the 1st Floor, the bag is leaking. Well, now you have to pay money to have that cleaned up.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Now you're getting complaints about a negative odor or smell, whether it's a garden style or whether it's interior.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:So you have to have that cleaned up. Yeah. So I totally agree. If we were talked to or consulted prior to the building being actually constructed, we would have been able to save money in the long term by having to avoid a lot of those issues. And not only that, I guarantee you just because I've seen it before, that one small issue about a trash chute not being installed will get people to move out.
Christopher Braddock:And as I said earlier, it's about $4,000 just to replace a tenant from when they move out to actually getting somebody new in.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. And that doesn't even account for, like, the turn component of, you know, depending on the scope of that. So, no, it adds up and it compounds pretty quickly. A couple other things that I wanna talk about, because this is kind of right in line with what this is, like, on theme for this particular issue, and this is something that we've seen and been in the position of, you know, having to try to do is, you know, people care about building reputation. Right?
Nicholas Cook:We talked a little bit about earlier, hey, people wanna brag about where they live. But, you know, you also they also are gonna complain about where they live. And if they've got reviews out there that are negative about the building, that is very, very difficult to reverse those reviews, get control of those social media pages, etcetera. Can you talk a little bit about some of the challenges and why at the end of the day, you know, you really just need to do the right thing at the beginning and try to deliver service to the tenant. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. That's one thing that is very hard to come back from, as you alluded to, is the building's reputation. Again, we've taken over multiple properties where there's a previous property management company who did not value the reputation of the building and did not care about the satisfaction of the tenants. Being able to start off on a really good foot, on a good note with your tenants and improving the building's reputation is gonna pay dividends long term. Again, if you're able to fix or come up with solutions with tenant complaints, they're not gonna leave a one star or a two star review.
Christopher Braddock:Mhmm. If you're able to actually solve their issue in a timely manner, they might leave a five star review. But we've seen this impact us in our operations of trying to attract new tenants to the building. Mhmm. And they have not wanted to move in or proceed with moving in purely because of a building's reputation.
Christopher Braddock:So that's why, you know, when I going back to the surveys, sending out a tenant survey takes less than thirty minutes to do, And it means a lot because tenants are able to put in their input. They're able to say what they do and don't like. And we, as a property management company or any property management company, can quickly identify what needs to be worked on.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:But you're absolutely correct. I mean, even trying to get a Google page back, trying to figure out the social media, trying to figure out, you know, the website domain and the URL, It's a it's a huge obstacle in the way of us doing our job. And then we're left with a a lot of pickup and a lot of mess essentially that we have to try and clean up to turn that reputation around. And we've seen it's incredibly difficult to do. It takes, you know, six months of poor tenant communication, poor satisfaction from tenants can take a year, two years to try and get the reputation of the building back to a good standing so people actually like where they live.
Christopher Braddock:And as you mentioned, want to quote brag about where they live.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Okay. So, basically, one of the kind of final formal questions I have here is, you know, if you could give multifamily owners one piece of advice about working with their property manager, you know, to maximize value, what what would it be?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. I I've said this word before, multiple times during this, podcast, but transparency. The second word is communication. And I think both of those words go hand in hand. Mhmm.
Christopher Braddock:One of the biggest benefits that I have seen as being a portfolio manager and being in property management is if you have a really good starting relationship with an owner. Mhmm. And there's communication happening. And there's a sit down meeting talking about, you know, KPIs, talking about the owner's goals, talking about our systems and processes, and then scheduling, you know, especially with a new owner, scheduling, you know, check-in meetings every month or every other month for the first six months, again, will pay dividends in that relationship. And it's probably the biggest thing that leads to a successful partnership is just having that communication and being open about the goals and the owner wanting to share information with their property management company.
Christopher Braddock:So transparency in how we operate and our processes and why we do things the way that we do and educating them on it. And then just communicating, sitting down, having a conversation, and figuring out, you know, again, what the owner's goals are and what they wanna accomplish.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Great. Now that makes sense. I mean, it's the oldest trick in the book is communication. Right?
Nicholas Cook:Yep. Alright. So I've got a couple just kinda final questions here. Just transitional questions so audience can kinda get to know Chris a little bit better. So the first one I have is this might be difficult question, but if you had to pick your favorite trailblazer of all time, who would it be?
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. That that is a difficult question. You know, I would have said Damian Lillard before he left for Milwaukee. At that time, it would have been Clyde Drexler.
Nicholas Cook:Oh, yeah.
Christopher Braddock:But now that Dame's returned, I'll go with Dame Lillard.
Nicholas Cook:Okay. Alright. Of all time.
Christopher Braddock:Of all time. Yeah.
Nicholas Cook:Okay. Great. Great. I love that. Second one is, you know, if you could go anywhere in the world and scuba dive because you like to scuba dive, where would that be that you haven't gone?
Christopher Braddock:That I haven't gone. Oh, that's a tough question. It'd probably have to be so there's actually a special dive in I think it's it's one of the islands in Hawaii. I'm totally blanking on the name. But they have a night dive where you get to Oh, yeah.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. You get to swim with like ten, fifteen foot manta rays. That's 10 to 15 feet across. And you're down about 60 to 80 feet. And it's just I mean, it's serene just seeing the videos and everything.
Christopher Braddock:But I've scuba dived with sharks in Tahiti and Bora Bora, and I've been to Mexico and Raitea. You know, I probably have a long list, but that's my number one thing of wanting to do is go in on a night dive with giant manta rays. I think that would be a pretty cool experience.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. No. That's great. It's actually one of the only places in the world to do that. And I don't know if you know, but they figured that out by accident.
Nicholas Cook:It was that they were building a hotel right on that Reef area Mhmm. And they had construction lights up, and the lights were attracting, like, plankton or something like that or whatever it was.
Christopher Braddock:And then the mannery
Nicholas Cook:The manneries were coming, and they realized, like, oh, like, this is how we can get them to come. And so that from, like, you know, it was, like, twenty years ago or something.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. That that totally makes sense. I did not know that. That is yeah. That's really cool.
Christopher Braddock:But if anybody listening, you know, wants to go see what I'm talking about, just type in on YouTube or Google
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:Manta Ray, Hawaii and you'll see how
Nicholas Cook:It's Kalua Kona. Kona Kaulua, I think is the island.
Christopher Braddock:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It is. I can't remember the exact area's name.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:I had it on the top of my or to my tongue, but I can't remember it. But, yeah, it it looks extremely peaceful and almost like out of this world. It doesn't look real. Looks like AI almost.
Nicholas Cook:I bet. Yeah. The ocean's wild. So and the final question here. So is, you know, if you could have, you know, dinner with anybody dead or alive, who would it be?
Christopher Braddock:Oh, easy. That's easy. Okay. Do you know the answer?
Nicholas Cook:I have some guesses, but I don't know. I'm not a 100% confident.
Christopher Braddock:It would have to be Kobe Bryant.
Nicholas Cook:That's what I thought I was gonna I thought you were gonna say that. Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:By by far. He's been my favorite player since I was about nine or 10 years old, maybe younger.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. I would I would do just about anything for conversation with him.
Nicholas Cook:Yeah. Man, being a Lakers fan in Oregon is tough. So
Christopher Braddock:Well, I'm a Kobe fan first
Nicholas Cook:Fair enough. And then
Christopher Braddock:a Blazer fan second.
Nicholas Cook:Got
Christopher Braddock:it. And then Lakers somewhere on that list. Yeah.
Nicholas Cook:Somewhere on that list. Got it. Cool. Well, awesome. Chris, thanks for sitting down with us today and sharing a lot about what you know and some of your experience.
Nicholas Cook:And, you know, I think a lot of just themes and general, you know, things that we've picked up over time will serve a lot of people who are out there, you know, acting as either an asset manager, property manager, or or an owner and trying to understand what that dynamic is. But thanks for being here. Appreciate it.
Christopher Braddock:Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for the, the invite.
Nicholas Cook:And that concludes today's episode of Retire on Rentals. But we do have a quick favor to ask before you jump off. If you haven't already, please go ahead and like and subscribe. More engagement means better content and more excellent guests. And we look forward to joining you on your real estate journey.
Nicholas Cook:Now remember, stay focused, stay driven, so you can retire on rentals.