Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Stacey Salyer Show, the podcast for property management leaders ready to think bigger about growth. I'm Stacey Salyer and the only acquisition strategist in this industry who sat on all sides of the m and a table. I've been the buyer acquiring a 370 door competitor during COVID using seller financing.
I've been the seller building and exiting a seven figure business. And I've been the corporate evaluator as director of acquisitions, assessing over hundreds of companies nationally. That means I know exactly what you're thinking, what you're missing, and what actually works when it comes to buying and integrating in this space.
On this show, we dig into acquisitions as a real business tool. Not luck, not someday. You'll learn positioning, strategy, numbers, and integration from someone who's actually done it all. Let's go.
Stacey Salyer: Welcome back, my friends, to [00:01:00] the Stacey Salyer Show, where I teach you about buying and selling property management companies. All right. So today, I have a great guest on with me, and before we get started, I really wanted to talk about how everybody in the industry will tell you the same thing: grow door by door.
Grind it out one owner at a time, and look, that works. I built my own business starting that way. But today, we're gonna talk about the pros and cons of both and which engine really works and all the things in between. So here's what I'm gonna say that will annoy maybe some of you listening, that if door by door is your only engine you have in your business, you're leaving business on the table.
So you're capping your own growth and calling it discipline. So now I know exactly what some of you are thinking right now because it's a smart objection, and my guest today is the first person who voices it best.
Mason Arispe is a BDM at First Choice [00:02:00] Property Management in Fort Worth, and an amazing BDM at that. There's some months where he brings on 10, 20, and maybe even more than 20 doors at one time. So those of you in the property management business know he is a good one. So when he hears about people buying 80 or 100 doors at one time, he says what a lot of you are thinking, "We'd crash and burn."
Well, that's not a naive objection. It's an honest one and earned. So Mason's the guy actually running PMs ragged when doors come in fast. So today, we're not going to dismiss that worry. We're actually going to take it seriously and work through it together and talk through the two different engines that I believe every company should have.
So that way, you don't have to choose between one or the other. So Mason, welcome to my show. I am so glad to have you on.
Mason Arispe: Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me on. And I gotta say, what an intro, man. you're hyping me up. I feel like now I'm gonna have to be bringing in [00:03:00] 15, 20 doors pretty consistently. But thank you so much for inviting me on and having me here today.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, it's great. I'm really excited that you reached out and you wanted to come on and kinda talk a little bit about what I talk about and maybe from your perspective as a business development manager. So tell us a little bit, how long have you been doing the business development in Fort Worth?
Mason Arispe: Yeah. Yeah, I guess to give a little bit of background about me, I got into property management in general coming up on four years ago now. So, in July it'll be four years. I am currently the operations and business development manager here at First Choice Property Management. We service the greater Fort Worth area, and we handle single family homes, mainly accidental landlords.
And so I was hired four years ago through Jeremy and Jen over at RentScale and went through that whole process and for the first three years was doing business development. And so as you said, we're growing door by [00:04:00] door. Our goal is about 10 per month to bring on. And so I am doing quite literally 10 deals for 10 doors every month, and that is our goal.
Obviously, some winter months are a little slower than that, but summer months are great and we have some, some really great months where I bring in 15, 20 doors, like you mentioned. And also, I, I love the property management business I guess, structure. I love that it's almost like a subscription-based real estate model, and I don't think that there's been a single day in four years where I've woken up and hated going to work.
I genuinely enjoy going and helping people rent their houses and build wealth. And I don't just sell management services. I genuinely tell people if this is the right avenue to go or if maybe they should sell their house, right? So I talk through that every day and I enjoy it. And so I tune into your podcast.
I've listened to every episode except maybe the one that dropped [00:05:00] this week because at some point I think acquiring a property management business would be incredible. I think it's such a smart move. But like you mentioned, I think a personal acquisition for myself is great. It's a one-time purchase and I, I inherit a book of business and I probably step into an existing company.
But then I have a mental block or a mental hurdle when it comes to acquiring for First Choice because we grow door by door, and on those good months where I do bring in 20 doors, we have three property managers, and so it's split between them usually, and they're kind of running around. And of course, we're starting with leasing and, you know, it's a little bit more hands-on then.
But I have a mental block to where I'm like there's no way I can acquire a book of business with 50 or 80 or 100 doors like some people have mentioned on the podcast. And so I thought about that and I kinda had that own o- objection while listening myself, and I [00:06:00] was like, "I bet other people are thinking about this too."
I can't be the only one who operations is like, "There's no way," right? But yeah, that's, that's kind of why I was interested in coming on and kinda playing that other point of view for once and, and seeing, I guess, how all of that works once you do acquire. But again, thank you so much for inviting me out, and yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, I think it'll be fun to go through and kind of dispel the, the myths in real time, right? So hopefully by the end of the ep- episode, you're gonna be a believer.
Mason Arispe: Yeah, I, I'm, I'm ready to be. I hope so.
Stacey Salyer: All right. All right. I'm gonna make you believe today. Okay. you mentioned you're, you know, did biz dev or you're doing biz dev. You started with RentScale, and Jeremy and Jen are awesome. Love them. Did you mention that you're also the operations manager as well? Tell me more about that.
Mason Arispe: Yeah, so I did strictly business development for three years, and then about 10 months ago Rob and Leslie the owners of our company, Rob and Leslie Kazin, shout out Rob and Leslie, they [00:07:00] said that they kinda wanted for me to get a foot in the door on operations as well. I think we realized we knew exactly what we're doing.
First Choice has been around for 30 years, but a lot of it was kind of like, shoot by the hip and like policies weren't necessarily written down and, you know, on, on paper. And so, we, we-- they invited me into operations as well, and it was kinda almost a natural transition because homeowners were already coming to me with objections once they had gotten to operations and were a few months in.
So now I could still step back in with a little bit more of an authority figure than just the sales guy, right? And so I'm, I'm in, not fully into operations, but I'm there and we've been working on getting SOPs down, getting processes down and Lead Simple and obviously integrating a bunch of AI in and partnering with, with Pablo and Vendoroo recently.
And [00:08:00] so, it's just been tackling a lot of that stuff and most of it is so I can be pretty owner-facing whenever an objection comes up while they're a current client as well.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. So are you in the operations as far as like just kind of helping, like I wouldn't say clean it up because I know Rob and Leslie run a really good business, but kind of more like fine-tune it? Or are you managing team and doing biz dev?
Mason Arispe: A little bit of both. So yeah, b- by no means am I the savior writing everything down and figuring out all these policies. They had it all down. I'm more like, "Let's get it together in a binder so that when we have to train somebody, it's all down and it's easier," right? Because I had-- I actually had training from RentScale.
I went once or twice a week, and they trained me and everything like that, and I'm thinking about hiring property managers and field service techs, and there's no formal training. It's more like, "Here's what we want. Go do it," right? And so, it's building some of that stuff. So just [00:09:00] putting stuff like that together.
And then the other side of it, I am helping out with operations like with the property managers as well, but it's mainly in the sense of, I guess the line from the handoff from sales to operations is now a little bit more grayed. I'll step back in and help an owner if needed or if there's an objection over-- like an objection while they're still a current client, like they're upset about how something was handled.
I'm able to step back in and be that initial contact where they formed trust with at first.
Stacey Salyer: So, wow. So you are bringing on an average of 20 doors a month, you
Mason Arispe: No, 10. 10. 20, 20, yeah, is like the good months. 10 is our goal, kind of our KPI that we have for every month
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. So 120 doors a year, plus you're s- like, kinda h- helping in operations, and you're kinda helping with the, you know, kind of, I would say client communication a little bit, like in the early time.
That's a lot. Okay. Well, yeah, then you're, obviously you're very [00:10:00] good because that's
Mason Arispe: y- well, thank you. Yeah. Yes. I, I have a lot of different point of views in, in management and, or in this business, and so that's why my brain is racking. Your podcast is not something that I put on just for fun in the background. Like, when I listen, I'm locked in. I'm like, "Okay, how can this... how does this work?"
And, you know, "How can I make it happen?" You know?
Stacey Salyer: Well, thank you. I... That's cool to hear. Okay. So when we had our preliminary call you said something that, so I made a note of. You said you've heard people, you know, buying big books of business, and you'd think, and then you said you think that you guys would crash and burn. So tell me more about that.
Like, why do you think you guys would crash and burn? Let's say you find 150-door portfolio and you buy that in three months what specifically breaks in your business?
Mason Arispe: Yeah. So, the reason that I mentioned that was mainly because on the months that I do have really good months the 20 [00:11:00] door months that I bring in, I mean, in a span of 30 days, I bring on f- 20 properties, and that's divvied up to three property managers. We have a pod style - business.
And so, at that moment, what happens is we don't crash and burn by any means, but property managers are as busy as it gets. And we have typically a lot of make-readies, and so we have an in-house maintenance team then who's spread pretty thin. Pair that with homeowners who want everything to happen very quickly so that their empty house can now get on the market. In the heat of the moment, that feels like crashing and burning because you're getting so many calls from different areas. In reality, we're gonna be fine. We just gotta get through it. But it feels that way whenever you have that many people calling and asking what's going on, and then it's usually the next month.
Now I start over from zero. I gotta keep picking up these doors, and it kind of snowballs until we make it to fall and we can catch up. And so [00:12:00] that's where that came from. And so whenever I envision-- I even heard somebody on another episode saying that they've acquired from realtors who have maybe 30 doors or something like that, or 15 to 20 here and there.
So when I envision anything bigger than that, I see that splitting up to each property manager on top of their normal book of business, and I can-- I feel like it would be very spread thin, and that if you acquire a business like that, you may also have to acquire additional boots on the ground or additional people in the office to be able to, to handle all of that.
I don't see it being absorbed very smoothly. I'm, I'm envisioning also closing day, you buy the business, and now everything starts, right? And so, I envision that being pretty difficult with, again, three property managers. I d- I think that's an average amount that some PM companies have. And so, I just could see them running around like crazy to try and get to all these houses [00:13:00] and, and all the tenants and everything like that.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. And so right now when you're bringing on, you know, 10 doors a month or maybe sometimes even 20, how is that received by the team? Is the team excited or are you just the excited one because you have a different outlook on the hunting?
Mason Arispe: That's a great question. I'm very excited. 10 properties is a little over three per property manager, so they are excited as well. They are also incentivized to keep growing their book of business in their own way, and so they are excited as well. It's those big months where everybody's kinda like, "Hey, Mace, maybe we slow it down a little bit," you know?
And my paycheck rides on this. I can't slow it down. So then you have the traditional sales versus ops, you know, dynamic. For the most part, everybody's excited, and they are excited after they're all leased. But in the heat of the moment, it's kind of a little, little stressful
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. And so I know one thing I've talked a [00:14:00] little bit about with in fact, Mark Brower when he was on my show, we talked a little bit about this, but he came to one of my one-day intensives and he realized during that time that he actually has bandwidth within his team. So they're not even working it to 100% capacity.
And so for him, like if he didn't go out and acquire, then he's not doing his business a service. So do you feel like and again, I'm, I'm not familiar with your, your team like size or even your total door count, but is that maybe something that might be kind of like triggering like a thought of "Oh, well maybe we're actually like closer to capacity than not?"
Or what, what do you think?
Mason Arispe: Well, our property managers, they do have goals for how many properties they see themselves managing. We haven't, yeah, we haven't hit them yet, so I know that there's still growing room. We also just hired a field service tech to take over some of the running around of properties. And so I know that there's [00:15:00] room for continual growth, but we haven't hit it yet, so we don't know what that'll look like when we actually get there
Stacey Salyer: Okay. So maybe for the audience, you could explain kind of like how you guys are set up. So you, 'cause you mentioned pod, right? So what- Yes ... what does that look like? And may- what's your total door count right now?
Mason Arispe: Sure. So, we do primarily single-family homes in the greater Fort Worth area and Tarrant County. We manage 530 properties like I said, about 98% single family, and we are a pod-style management company. And so, for ease for the listeners, imagine the sales at the top of the funnel. Sales brings in a door.
It can be divvied up to three different pods with a property manager at the head. The property manager would receive that book of-- that property into their book of business, and then each property manager is its own individual pod. So underneath each property manager, there's a resident service coordinator who [00:16:00] helps out with admin stuff, everything tenant-facing like tenant screening and stuff like that.
And then also in the pod is a maintenance coordinator, and we have one field service tech for all three. And so, each property manager will have their own book of business at approximately 175 properties in each book right now.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. Yeah. And plus, plus some AI you're using, I think you said Venderoo with some of the maintenance
Mason Arispe: yes. Yeah, w- we partner with Vendoroo, so our maintenance coordinators are in that every single day. Property managers are becoming integrated with it as well, so, that's helping out on the maintenance end. And then we do have a maintenance department of our company that is in-house.
They handle everything that I guess isn't a licensed trade, like plumbing and HVAC and stuff like that
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, so that's, I think, helpful for everyone to kind of hear you know, 'cause everybody kind of runs a little bit different. You know, there's hybrid, pod, there's departmental, and then there's the old school [00:17:00] portfolio style, which not really a fan of. I grew up that way, but, you know, times have changed,
Mason Arispe: What's your favorite now?
Stacey Salyer: I would say like a kind of a hybrid pod. Yeah. Kind of have some departments, but mostly pod style. But I would actually run like if it was me, I would actually have just two PMs with your company size and divide the pods that way. But it also depends on your market too, so I don't know your drive time and kind of where you guys are with that,
Mason Arispe: Yeah. Yeah. And we, we were portfolio beforehand. And so whenever we continued to grow and when I was hired... When I was hired, we were at about 300 properties. And whenever we continued to grow, those property managers we had initially, we had two, they were getting a little bit overloaded. No field service tech, no third PM, no Vendoru, right?
And so as we continued to grow, added another property manager and then shifted into the pod style, which opened up a little bit more for the property [00:18:00] managers to be able to manage, again, with the field service tech. And so that's kind of how we're growing a little bit. But I, I agree. I can see that hybrid model working pretty well too.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Okay, cool. And so when did you guys make that change from portfolio to pod?
Mason Arispe: Probably it was the end of '25, 2025. And so it was, it was very recent. And once we made the switch fully, it was like, "Why have we not been doing this? This is incredible." And so it, it helped out a bunch
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. Well, it's all coming to me now as I'm like hearing you dissect everything as to, to where maybe some of the beliefs come from. Okay, cool. So, yeah. Okay. Well, that was very helpful I think probably for anyone listening, you know what I mean, to make a big change like that. 'Cause what?
You're maybe like six months in, if, if that really, to your pod style and, and that's a big change if you've had the same property managers for a long time and they've always run portfolio style. You know, for anybody [00:19:00] new listening, portfolio usually means the PM handles everything from start to finish.
Although they did have you as biz dev, so they didn't have to do that. But,
Mason Arispe: Yeah. Yeah, and that's only for three years before this. Before that, the PMs were doing it. So they-- I mean, you can see the shift that our management company has taken over the last few years. And so yeah, and I, I would even go as far as saying hiring a department for leasing to take that off of them so that they're not driving out for that.
That would help out too. And so that's where this is all coming into play. And yeah. So POD has helped us out a bunch since transitioning over to that. And then at the same time that we transitioned to POD, we changed from an assistant property manager who was doing admin stuff and leases and, you know, busy work that a PM, I guess, didn't have the time to do.
It transitioned into resident service coordinator. So our remote team members that we have actually transitioned at the same time and became much more tenant-facing and are [00:20:00] actually the primary contact for tenants, like tenant problems and disputes and stuff like that.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Okay. So cool. Okay. Well, I can kind of see it like unwinding a little bit as we kind of talk further as to maybe where kind of the, the mindset has been, right? As far as "Oh my gosh, I don't know if I could dump 150 doors
Mason Arispe: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. So I know when we did talk before, like our pre-call, our prep call you know, kind of as we moved into it a little bit, and now I'm kind of understanding more like where it's coming from, because you guys have gone through some major changes for sure.
And that's a huge mindset shift that everybody has to do and you know, including like everybody that's doing the work. So I know on the prep call, you did say, you know, as we were kind of like talking through it, and I was talking about, hey, you have your door-by-door engine, and then, you know, I teach everyone to build out their acquisition engine.
You did say that it's like just another like sales funnel. So kind of [00:21:00] tell me a little bit more about that. Like on our prep call, you know, when you said like acquisition started to sound like any other lead or any other sales funnel, like what kind of clicked for you to kind of like shift that mindset there?
Mason Arispe: Yeah, that w- honestly, we had a five-minute call, and it was one of these mindset-shattering things that I had randomly. I guess whenever in listening to your podcast and in considering acquisitions and property management, I, I think of a boomer retiring. I think of them sitting at coffee and saying, "Man, I'm, done.
I'm ready to sell. Let me hand it off to somebody else, to my kids, or let me sell it to another person that I've met." And I, I guess I thought of it as like right place, right time, or even networking enough to get to know people. I think that was mentioned a few podcasts ago. And and I never-- it never clicked to me that it's gotta be like another sales funnel for it to be successful.
You have to start at the very top with as many leads [00:22:00] as you can get, and then kind of dwindle it down until you find the ones that are, are serious, or I guess like sales qualified, right? Or marketing qualified. It all clicked to me that It's a whole other sales funnel that you can kind of build while you're looking for a management company, and I just never made that distinction.
And then after the call, I made one more leap to where this is not a door-by-door versus acquisitions debate podcast, right? I, I thought of it more as why can't a BDM also have that second sales funnel as well? Why can't a BDM also be looking for both individual deals or an acquisition? because here in Fort Worth, it's a big market.
There's no shortage of houses. If an owner chooses another management company, great. Sounds good. I know them. They're a great company. Go with them. Absolutely. And so like why wouldn't that sales funnel also be built alongside while [00:23:00] you're learning all these management companies? And, that clicked to me too, that a BDM could potentially do both as well.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, I know. So why, why do you think they're not?
Mason Arispe: I couldn't tell you. I couldn't... You know what? Jen and Jeremy, y'all should have taught me a long time ago to be looking for acquisitions too
Stacey Salyer: I know, I know. It's funny. I'm actually inside their community as an advisor. they invited me in just because we, I think sync up as far as like our mindset, as far as you know, growth in a company and, marketing and all that. But it's funny that you brought that up because that's something I wanted to talk about is, that is something I teach, if you have that frontline BDM, you should be teaching them to also create that sales funnel, right?
So now most of the people inside my program are the business owner because I really dive deeper into the mechanics of putting a deal together. But ultimately, I don't think the business owner has to be making all the calls and like booking all the meetings.
I mean, if it was me, [00:24:00] I would 100% have a BDM be that first line because like you said, you're gonna know everybody already. You already know all the other companies. You're gonna know who runs a good company. You're probably gonna know who's stressed out, who's, you know, they were crying at last Friday's eviction, whatever.
I don't even know. So, you know, you're gonna have way more kind of like insider information to where you can make those calls and have that relationship built. So yeah, I think we totally agree on that for sure.
Mason Arispe: Yeah, that's, that's a great idea. I don't know, I mean, four years in and we're finally thinking about it, but it's a good one. And I mean, the, the BDM, they, they can just find the leads, find the leads, build the relationships, and then even if the property... I mean, if the business owner has to step in at that point, it's a warm to hot lead, and the BDM did all the groundwork.
I mean, that, that's a great idea
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. So when you got off that call and had that realization, and as we talk now is that something that you're thinking and planning on [00:25:00] doing in your business?
Mason Arispe: Well, amidst all the other, other projects that we have going on, yes. It's something that I wanted to talk to Rob on 'cause First Choice has been in business for about 30 years and has gone through a few acquisitions just from Rob's dad, Daryl, was big into NARPM and had colleagues here in Fort Worth, and they've acquired a few other businesses.
So it's been done before. Don't get me wrong, it has. But as part of our normal sales process, it hasn't. And so I think it would be a good addition to any BDM role. But of course, that would, was contingent on some of my, hurdles to be kinda answered, I guess. So, I guess to piggyback off of that, is there any importance to a property management company having operations down and, working like a well-oiled machine before acquiring, or can anybody acquire at, any time?
Stacey Salyer: All right. So maybe I'll get hate mail on this, I don't [00:26:00] know, on my answer. I'm gonna say... Well, I'm gonna say one thing. Well, I'm gonna start with this one thing first, is nothing is ever perfect, ever. Anybody that meets with me and they say, "Well, I just have, you know, a few more months I need to fine-tune."
Oh, please. You're gonna be spending the next few years fine-tuning. And I know that because I started my own company. I, you know, I scaled it. I did all the things, and nothing's ever perfect, ever. And you have the ever-changing, right? You have your tech stack ever-changing. You have AI coming in, so there's always gonna be stuff, like operationally.
Now, of course, if you are, you know, a complete hot mess, I guess, of like you have no foundation built out and you just wanna go and, buy, and just try and add on doors, I still wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad idea because you could be going out and sourcing something that maybe already has that foundation for you.
So you might pay a little bit more, but maybe you buy the foundation instead [00:27:00] of building it, right?
Mason Arispe: Yep.
Stacey Salyer: So yeah, it's kind of like a house 'cause like I know... You know, I mean, I've sold homes too, right? And you know how... And I don't know if you've sold homes as a real estate agent. Mm-hmm. Okay. So have you ever gotten the client that's like, "I just wanna find a piece of land, and I just wanna build this home"?
And you're like, "Okay, let's have a meeting." And then you talk to them, and they're like, you know, they're giving you this dream, and you're like, "Yeah, that's... It's so hard to find that, at least in my area, you know, with all the rules and stuff." And then 99% of the time, we just find them a house that's already built.
So
Mason Arispe: And they don't have to go through all of it. Don't have to go through building and laying the foundation and yeah
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, honestly, I think it's just being clear with yourself and knowing truly where you are, so, and being honest with yourself. So if you know you don't have the best foundation, then you know you need to go buy one with a really good foundation.
But if you have a really good foundation, then you can buy whatever you want.
Mason Arispe: Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. [00:28:00] And I guess if you don't have that foundation, I'm assuming that when you acquire a book of business that there's some level of churn that you, some blow back, some level that you have to expect. I'm assuming that's normal. You tell me, what do you think?
Stacey Salyer: So I've had this debate with a few different people who have done quite a few different acquisitions. So when I did like my personal acquisition, we didn't have any churn. nothing that we hadn't planned for. So there were some clients that were planning on selling, but we still k- kept those, like we kept the sales.
For example, when I sold my company, we'd had zero... In fact, we had positive, like we had added 45 doors in six months. So I think when you go in it, again, intentionally, and you have the right plan in place, and you have the right people in place, you're not necessarily gonna have a lot of churn. Now, if you put somebody out there who maybe, you know, isn't as friendly or like inviting to say, "Hey," you know, bringing on the new clients into your, your company that's probably not gonna work as well.
[00:29:00] So it's just a matter of making sure you have the right strategy and the right people in place, for sure.
Mason Arispe: Okay. And when you mention that type of person that might turn off the new owners during a transition, is that on the property manager level, business owner level, or who-- even if I stepped in in the transition, right? Who, who would be that person?
Stacey Salyer: As far as the person who should be talking to them?
Mason Arispe: Yeah, or who could potentially interact with them and then cause a little bit higher of a churn
Stacey Salyer: Oh I think it's more of a personality thing. So if you have the business owner who's super impatient and they only really kind of like want to speak to investors and they don't want to speak with, you know, Sharon over here who has two homes but, you know, kind of raised her family in one of them and she's a little bit more emotional, don't-- that person should not talk to Sharon.
That should not happen. So yeah, that's just my opinion. But again, it's kind of really knowing yourself and knowing your team, and being honest with yourself and your plan, and really the plan is
Mason Arispe: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, [00:30:00] that's one other thing that I haven't wrapped my mind around yet that I would expect to have a little bit of churn for because we are strict with who we bring on. We have 530 homes, and if Rob let me sign every management agreement, we would have 1,000. And so we're very strict with our ideal client and, and I know not every company is, so I'm assuming that during acquisition we may have some churn due to just a poor fit for on the owner or properties part.
And that's one thing that I could see happening because we do, I'd say, 95% accidental landlords, and then we have a handful of investors who who still see these properties as people's homes. I think Pablo said it best a few episodes back. He said, "In property management, we have to convince people that they love living in a house that they don't own."
And I use that in every sales pitch now. I'm like, "That is gold." And now that's almost like the frame for the type of [00:31:00] owner that we're looking at. If this owner can actually see that this is gonna be somebody else's home, we're happy to bring them on. But if they just, if they just think, "Eh, it's just a rental," then maybe they're not the absolute best fit for us.
And so that's one thing that I feel like we would see a lot of churn on when acquiring a property, which we're fine with, but it's gotta be worth, I guess, the price that you're paying for it, right?
Stacey Salyer: Right. Yeah. Well, I think that there's a couple things there. One, of course, due diligence, you know, making sure that what you're buying actually resonates with what you want to buy, because not every deal is a good deal. And there's also other tricks that you can do. You know, maybe you are gonna buy 200 doors, maybe 50 of those are not your ideal client, your ideal location, your ideal, you know, single-family home, whatever.
You know, there are some tricks, like you can divest that particular portfolio, right? So you could find somebody else where that would maybe be their ideal client, and you can [00:32:00] sell them to them
Mason Arispe: Oh yeah, shoot, I didn't even think about that.
Stacey Salyer: See? I know.
Mason Arispe: you're brilliant. Man, I'm telling you, it's all coming together now.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So, you know, I think that's where it's And that's why I love working with people about this particular topic is because for me, it really is super fun to talk strategy and just all the different things that, that you could do. it's not like super cut and dry but it's-- And that's why I love it, because There's so many different ways you can do things. There's so many different ways you can structure a deal. There's, like I just gave you the idea of divesting. I mean, there's, there's lots of different ideas
Mason Arispe: Yeah, I, I-- You mentioned that a few episodes ago, and I'm like, I love the idea of building something creative. I, obviously, I follow everybody online, not like all the gurus, but you know, Pace Morby does the creative financing and does deals different ways, and I don't think that's any avenue that I would ever go down.
But I think the idea of building a deal is very [00:33:00] interesting. And when you were talking about building one around a management company, I just thought it was brilliant. And, and then, of course, you were talking about inheriting the current business with the people in place, and obviously, during due diligence, you'd have to figure out if that was even possible or not or if you wanted to do that.
But yeah, I really like that the idea of building a deal around your, your specific needs. That's probably what we'd have to do here to make sure that it was worth, acquiring
Stacey Salyer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, as far as, you know, our conversation I think this has been a lot of fun. It's super fun to also talk to somebody, , in biz dev and out there. I feel like you know, craft of property management is just so operations and everything is about operations.
And obviously it's important. I do love a, an amazing SOP. But I don't think we talk enough about the sales and the marketing and and all that. So what are your thoughts as we kind of move toward the, the end of the episode about the two different [00:34:00] engines?
Mason Arispe: I think that if you had the structure built for a BDM to handle a second pipeline for acquisitions, I think it's brilliant. Because what RentSkill taught me is that inbound leads are not everything, Owners reaching out to us, that may be a percentage of your business, but realtor referrals different brokerages, lunch and learns, shoot, sometimes even other property management companies are great referral sources.
And so a good BDM is building that already. it won't be very hard for them to also build a second pipeline based on maybe those that they're losing business to or that a, an owner chose to go with, right? Who they're transferring over from. There are so many easy lead sources that I see every day, and I think it'd be a really good idea for a second pipeline.
And then you have your same guardrails around it like you do with a property. Like we have... It can only be built after 1980, or it can only be a single family [00:35:00] home. You do the same thing with guardrails, but just on the type of business. How many doors, who's managing, and stuff like that. I think that would be a great transition for a lot of BDMs.
And shoot, I'm glad that Jeremy and Jen invited you into their program because, I mean, you'll be right there with all the BDMs they're training and can build it pretty easily
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, I know it's been a lot of fun to be inside there and be able to answer questions and that kind of thing. So they've built a really cool community for sure. So yeah, what, I know before we wrap up, I wanna make sure that we hit on like any questions you had or anything else that we wanna like debate or anything like that.
Mason Arispe: no, no. I, I did have a few questions and they're gonna be more technical, like just a- about an actual deal. So, and just in case I'm extremely naive, I g- have to ask the basic question. So let's say that you, you close, right? You do end up purchasing a business, and w- what does that transition typically look like?
And from a business owner or somebody with the [00:36:00] current property management company, what does it look like? Do you alert owners? Do you have the business owner go talk with the new office? Or what does that typically look like when acquiring a new management company?
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, I mean, it looks different depending on the structure that you put together. So obviously, people wanna make sure that they put that together before they close, and they wanna make sure everybody's on the same page. You know, what's the seller expectation and what's the buyer expectation?
Every state is different. So Texas is a little bit more challenging given the, the contracts that you guys have. So you guys have a couple extra steps. But, you know, in the, in the regular if you're just buying the contracts, it's relatively easy-ish, I mean, to kind of move things over. I guess I would say that.
But it's really, you know, I think the best way to do it is really good open communication before closing and then after closing too. Yeah. And having a really good written plan before closing. So all of it really-- [00:37:00] The execution will happen well if you're pre-planning before closing
Mason Arispe: if you're planning before closing. Okay. And I guess, I, I know you've done this, but if you're able to, the... If you were to say the vast majority of business owners, would they hire a new PM for this? Would they inherit a PM from the previous company, or would they absorb that into their current book of business?
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, it really depends on what the current PMC looks like and what they're buying size-wise. You know, maybe the PM that was working at the other company is like a phenomenal PM that could maybe work up to an operations manager if they need that. I mean, there's so many different things that you can look at.
I am a huge fan of looking at people's specific traits, so making sure that the people that you hire or you move into your company, you know, fit in with the job traits needed. So I, I like to use different programs for that. But I think, it really just [00:38:00] kinda depends on every single deal.
And then, every company has their own company culture, so if you are, I don't wanna say buying somebody, but if, bring them over to your new company, you do really wanna make sure that they fit your company culture and that they are also excited about it because not everybody's excited about change, right?
So I mean, yeah. So I think it's just kinda going in like eyes wide open and not, creating stories in your mind of "Oh, this is gonna be wonderful," and then, you know, three or four months after closing, it's a hot mess.
Mason Arispe: Yeah. Oh, okay. That, that makes a lot of sense. That's what I was wondering about inheriting a PM, and I figured they'd have to be on board, 'cause not, not everybody is. And last question for my own personal curiosity, what makes a property management company more valuable? Is, is it traditionally door count?
Is it they keep KPIs? What, what do you wanna look for when buying a business?
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, I mean, a, a valuable company [00:39:00] generally doesn't have the owner in it as far as the PM you know, generally speaking. So it's like the owner is running the company or, or out of it. Ancillary fees as much as possible, so not just like a monthly management and a lease-up fee. So looking at that, like the income, the revenue.
Their processes, systems, are they documented? Are they using current tech stack type products? You know, looking at like trust accounts, make sure that, you know, things are being triple tied out, reconciliation reports, like all that kind of good stuff. So that's where operations does really come into play and making sure that things are being run well so that, you know, like if somebody's looking to sell their business, those are things that they should be doing all the time to build an asset.
But especially, you know, if they're thinking like, "Oh, in 12 to 18 months I wanna sell," those are things you should be doing, like right now,
Mason Arispe: Okay. Awesome. So I'd imagine those who have all of those items and who especially have the business owner removed are the [00:40:00] more valuable, more expensive management companies that you'll find when acquiring because somebody can purchase and they're not buying a job, right?
Stacey Salyer: Correct.
Mason Arispe: buying something that they can manage or that's almost self-sustaining
Stacey Salyer: Exactly. Yeah. And even if the owner is removed, if they still have one key person that holds all the information, that actually can reduce their value as well. So it's not always about just the owner being the key person. It's just a matter of okay, well, if the owner's not the key person, and then you still have a key person, but things are still documented and things are running, like if that key person could take 30 days off and the business doesn't implode, then that's valuable
Mason Arispe: Okay. Awesome. Well, shoot, thank you for answering all my questions, and thank you again for inviting me on. This has been so much fun. I, I really appreciate it
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, it's super fun to have a fellow podcaster on. What's your podcast again? I want you to shout that out
Mason Arispe: Yeah, I, host the Fort Worth Property Management Podcast. We just talk all things Fort Worth real estate geared towards self-managing [00:41:00] landlords, giving them advice on different topics throughout the entire lease cycle. And so yeah, Fort Worth Property Management Podcast, please check it out
Stacey Salyer: Awesome. Very cool. Yeah, and it's like I said, it's awesome to have a fellow growth leader in the industry on my show, and hopefully everybody walks away today thinking, "Hey, Mason even said it. Why not have both engines running in your business, door-by-door and acquisition?" So I think we were able to come to a pretty good conclusion for the day, and I don't know, what do you think?
Mason Arispe: Absolutely. Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna go talk to Rob right now so we can get this rolling and off the ground
Stacey Salyer: Awesome. Well, I'll shoot Leslie a text message.
Mason Arispe: Ah, there we go. All right. Yes, make
Stacey Salyer: help support you. Right, I know. So yeah. Well, thank you again for coming, Mason. It was always a pleasure, and hope I get to see you in person sometime this year. And thank you to all the listeners for continuing to listen. And just remember, while boomers retire, [00:42:00] you acquire.
So we'll see you all again next time
Mason Arispe: See you later
Outro: thanks for listening to the Stacey Salyer show. Here's the deal. You can read about acquisitions anywhere, but you can't learn acquisitions from someone who's done it the way I have as a buyer, a seller, and from the corporate side evaluating hundreds of companies. That's why I need you to subscribe and share this with someone in your network who needs to hear it.
And if this episode landed, leave a five star review. It's how more PM owners find the only acquisition expertise in the space that comes from all sides of the table. And while you're at it, grab my Acquisition Readiness checklist on my website at staceysalyer.com. Then when you're ready to move from Growth Thinking to Growth Building, explore the Built to Acquire program.
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